E.C. Papé arrived in Oregon in 1938 to work alongside his friend in an Allis-Chalmers dealership.
After word quickly spread about E.C.’s customer service, commitment and dependability, the Papé name took root. E.C. started his own company, and the family-owned business began to grow and prosper. By the mid to late 1960s, Dean and Ed introduced the era of the rubber-tired skidder to the Northwest timber industry and in 1990, Randy Papé expanded the business to include Hyster dealerships in Oregon, Washington and California, forming The Papé Group of Companies – which now includes Papé Machinery, Papé Material Handling, Papé Kenworth, Ditch Witch Northwest and Engineered Products.
With 13 locations in Washington, Oregon and California, Papé Kenworth is highly regarded, particularly within Paccar. Papé Kenworth was named the 2016 Paccar Kenworth Dealer of the Year and Paccar MX Engine Dealer of the Year.
A great deal of their success can be credited to a well trained staff who works closely with customers and service techs.
“Papé utilizes Kenworth’s Training Tracks program to provide sales, parts and service education on products and programs,” says Wes Sage, Pape Kenworth’s director of service operations.
Papé Kenworth has a continuing education program that allows members the opportunity to further their education if it relates to their career and future opportunities within the company. The company also works with local tech schools and colleges and assist in providing equipment to their programs to better the quality of students that may come to work for the dealership.
Territory sales managers perform customer training and explain benefits and features during the sales process. Product support reps hold customer nights to educate customers on new parts and programs.
A dedicated call center handles any issues once the customer takes delivery of the truck. Services would include interpreting fault codes and advising customers of pending issues; calls on behalf of customers to other OEM dealers to schedule trucks and assist as needed to get trucks back up and running with as little interruption as possible; assisting customers with preventive maintenance programs and applications; customer training on new service related programs such as the new KW TruckTech + system, and other software related programs that customers may use in their own shops; warranty interpretation and processing.
Papé Kenworth also works to help all of the communities in which they have a dealership. They work with the United Way in both California and Oregon, promote breast cancer awareness, work with the local Crime Stoppers organization in Fresno/Bakersfield, Calif., rebuilt a local park in Fresno, Calif., and sponsor local youth and high school bands and sports teams in various communities.
Papé Kenworth is one of five Successful Dealer Award finalists invited to the Great American Trucking Show in Dallas in late August.
The other finalists will be profiled in separate articles in the coming weeks.
