North America Traffic boosted its service and support in Virginia by adding Hawkins-Graves, Inc. to its growing distributor network in March. Hawkins-Graves is an established construction equipment dealer based in Lynchburg, VA. Known for specialized safety equipment, Hawkins-Graves now offers North America Traffic portable traffic signals to complement its existing lineup of machines and tools from leading manufacturers.
“Hawkins-Graves shares our values and approach to business,” says Peter Vieveen, President of North America Traffic. “Like North America Traffic, they take great pride in offering a quality product. We both prioritize customer service and support. We’re very excited to work with Hawkins-Graves.”
“It’s a win for everyone,” says John Jordan, President of Hawkins-Graves, about the agreement. “Our contractors win because they now have access to the North America Traffic line of quality portable traffic control devices for both long-term and short-term projects. We win because we are expanding our range of products to better suit our customers.”
John and his brother, Matt Jordan, VP/Sales Manager, were familiar with the North America Traffic products before they considered becoming a distributor. Some of their customers were interested, so they did some investigating. They learned how simple it was to set up and program North America Traffic portable traffic signals and quickly realized that North America Traffic is, “obviously the top player in the marketplace,” says John.
Their research brought them to a point where they were eager to join forces with North America Traffic. “Frankly, we liked the product,” he says. “It’s simple, user-friendly and easy-to-use. The lights and signals perform reliably in all weather conditions.”
Matt sat down with the sales team and reviewed the North America Traffic product offering and features. Together they determined that it was a product line that made sense for their marketplace.
Simple programming means less downtime, less training
One feature that is crucial for contractors is the simplicity of North America Traffic design, says John. “No one wants to deal with equipment that takes a rocket scientist to operate.”
All North America Traffic equipment is designed in such a way that anyone on the jobsite can use it with minimal training. The user-friendly control panel allows one person to actuate traffic and set cycle times and phases on primary and secondary signals in only a few minutes. Once the signals are programmed, they can run autonomously around the clock.
This simplicity means less training for operators, less room for error and more time on the job. In fact, John says he can train anyone on how to operate a North America Traffic system in five minutes. When it came to training the Hawkins-Graves sales staff, it didn’t take very long to get everybody up to speed.
Based on his customers’ needs, John will stock the PTL 2.4x and PTL 2.4LD models for both sales and rentals. The PTL 2.4x is ideal for long-duration projects such as bridge construction. The PTL 2.4LD is designed for light-duty, temporary traffic control.
John anticipates an equal balance of sales and rentals of the North America Traffic equipment. “We’ll have customers who will buy the portable lights because they’re using them frequently. Then, some customers will just rent them from project to project when they need them. We want to offer the solution to both types of customers.”
John says he’s already approached some municipalities in Virginia and plans to reach out to rental houses as well. “We have every reason to believe that they’ll embrace this product,” he says. “It’s top quality, simple to use, and it increases jobsite safety.”
