The International Part of Amthor International
Being a family-owned and operated company now in our fourth generation, I am very proud of the successes we have had. When my grandfather was shoeing horses back in the 1920s, I am sure he never thought his family’s name would be seen around the world from the United States to the Middle East, which all started with him.
Now that the ‘Amthor” family of companies is a worldwide entity, we have never lost track on how we got where we are today. It all started with the small mom and pop oil companies in upstate New York where I would meet them after work at their kitchen table and they would make the decision on whether to buy a new truck or not over a cup of coffee. Today with the Internet, e-mail, text messaging, the sales process is totally different. Though helpful in some ways, but in others it takes away the personal touch that this industry was founded on.
With times changing and the globalization process in full affect, this has allowed us to grow and expand way beyond my father’s and grandfather’s and even my comprehension. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought I would be paying someone to translate our company literature from English to different languages such as Spanish, Arabic and French. We are truly now an international corporation so that part of our company name now actually means something. Through our distribution channels and family of dealers/distributors, we have tanks on six continents and company’s in those continents promoting our products. It makes you feel really good when people are on a trip somewhere outside of the United States and they see one of our products on the road. It makes you feel that all of this hard work is actually paying off.
Though having tanks all over the world is really something to brag about, it brings up many new challenges and issues that needed to be dealt with along the way. It goes far beyond the language barrier. When we are introduced into a new area, we have to do so much research on their laws, truck chassis, lifestyles, buying habits and government regulations to make sure the product can successfully be sold and used there as well as having a place for repairs if needed. It’s a truly detailed and sometimes painstaking process to make sure all of your ‘I’s” are dotted and ‘T’s” are crossed. Fortunately the successes we are having outside the borders of the United States is what is helping us keep a significant backlog of units to build during these tough economic times that we are facing here in the United States.
In retrospect I am very pleased the direction our company has taken, and I am sure that my father and grandfather looking down at us are pleased as well. Now at 66 years old I am told all the time that I am crazy, but I have more drive and aggression than I ever had and I am looking forward to what the next five, 10 and 15 years have in store for our company. I just wanted to take this time to again thank everyone that has made our success possible and helping us achieve things that I once thought were unachievable.