Meet Pacific Rim Equipment

Apr 19, 2023 - 3 years ago

Serving the Central and Northern Okanagan Valley from a new Kelowna location.

No Reverse Here

Meet Pacific Rim Equipment. The Penticton, BC-based heavy equipment dealer has now expanded to a new Kelowna location. By Ronald Mullins

Traveling on British Columbia Highway 97, across Kelowna’s Lake Okanagan bridge, north towards the ever-expanding International Airport (CYLW) and the construction crane dotted Kelowna campus of the University of British Columbia, your eye cannot help but be drawn to the new, bright, stand-out location of Pacific Rim Equipment. Then, when driving through the Pacific Rim entrance gates at 3580 Edwards Road, it is impossible to miss the dozens of excavators, compact excavators, compactors, tracked dump carriers, wheel loaders, skid steers, man lifts and more, all lined up from the smallest to… well BIGGER!

Entering the front office, it is spacious and clean…yes there is the odd clump of mud on the floor, because this is not a place of business visited by those wearing slippery city shoes. This is the business place of those wearing working-man boots…contractors, construction workers, orchardists, farmers, DIY weekend warriors…anyone needing to rent or purchase heavy-duty or compact construction equipment. This new Kelowna location is Pacific Rim Equipment’s second Okanagan Valley location with the original and head office still in Penticton.

Family Owned. Family Run.

Pacific Rim Equipment is truly an Okanagan family-owned business with today’s principals being brothers Dean and Dave Garnett. But the history goes back a number of years when their father, Ted Garnett, then the owner of Penticton’s Nor-Mar Truck & Equipment, the International Truck dealership, sold that business to one of his good friends, Gerry Turchak. But like many true entrepreneurs, Ted was not ready for retirement. So in 1981, he had Garnett Equipment up and running, buying and selling a ‘few’ machines. The business grew exponentially to become one of the key heavy construction equipment suppliers, not only in the Okanagan Valley, but throughout British Columbia, Alberta, the Yukon and even the U.S. Pacific Northwest.

Business Model Change

As the business grew, Ted began to realize that he was going to need some serious help, and in 1989 convinced his son Dean to leave his established mining career in Alberta and return home to Penticton to help ‘dad’. This move resulted in a company name change to Pacific Rim Equipment and a somewhat revised business model that saw the company begin purchasing good, used construction machines and equipment from Japan, importing same and reselling them here. This proved to be a very successful business venture with the company importing and selling up to 200 machines per year. Together, Dean and his dad saw the company prosper until Ted, ‘who always knew the value to a good deal’, finally figured out that, slowing down and looking for a good fishing hole, was actually ‘a very good deal’. In 1997, Dean’s brother Dave joined the company as a partner. However, unless the fish were biting, Ted could still be found somewhere around the business ‘keeping an eye on things’ until his untimely passing in 2018.

“One of the many things we learned about and from our dad,” stated Dean, “was that his business drivetrain did not have anything but forward gears…there was no reverse.”

Customer Inconvenience. Solved.

Kelowna is generally regarded as the larger and fastest growing of the three Okanagan Valley cities. Brothers Dean and Dave knew that a number of their customers were having to travel down-the-valley to Penticton and they in turn were having to deliver both machines and parts up-the-valley. This was a potential business opportunity that was not lost on them. Together, they began looking for property that would allow Pacific Rim Equipment to have a convenient and highly visible location in Kelowna, the business heart of the valley. Success in this endeavour followed, and in January 2023, Pacific Rim Equipment cut the ribbon on a brand new sales, rental and maintenance facility at the corner of Highway 97 and Edwards Road on the north side of Kelowna.

Now came the question as to who should manage this new Kelowna location. Keeping it in the family was critical. However, both Dean and Dave were well established and involved in the day-to-day operation of the original Penticton location.

Dean’s daughter, Bailey, had joined the company in 2015 and was working in marketing and promotion. She proved to be a business natural…the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree… and soon she began assisting on the sales and rental side. When asked why a young woman would consider joining what was a male dominated business, Bailey, with a huge smile, responded, “I like working with our customers and the equipment, it is like playing in a big sandbox, I love it.”

So on the day that the new Kelowna store opened, the company appointed Bailey Garnett as General Manager. A roll for which she is a natural, and success is surely following.

A Growing Market

“We are excited to be able to more conveniently service our long-time Kelowna customers and, of course, welcome many new ones. This new location also allows us to expand our ‘new’ customer base well into Vernon and the north Okanagan,” stated Bailey. She went on, “The rental market for us is really growing. We currently have over 250 machines in our entire rental and sales fleet and at least 70 are on site here in Kelowna. We turn our rental fleet over each year allowing us to provide our customers with new or only slightly used machines, just when they need them. We are family and are service driven and we never want to say no to a customer. Although he is no longer with us, I am confident that Grandpa Ted would be proud of what we are accomplishing. Following in Grandpa’s footsteps, we are constantly moving forward…there is no reverse here.”

Great Brand Names

Pacific Rim Equipment is proud to be the official sales and rental dealer for Yanmar Compact Construction Equipment, Sakai Compaction Machines, Wacker Neuson Plate Compactors, Morooka Track Crawler Carriers and Genie Aerial Equipment. In addition, they have a large selection of used, popular brand-name equipment for sale or rental including Hitachi, Deere, Caterpillar, Kubota, Komatsu and Volvo, to name a few. And if they do not have what you need or want…they will get it for you.

The company’s Penticton location offers equipment sales and rentals, a full service repair shop, fabrication and paint shop, and parts sales, at 1698 Dartmouth Road, telephone 250-493-4545 and the new Kelowna location offers equipment rentals, rental-purchase options, equipment sales, and parts sales at 3580 Edwards Road, telephone 778-907-4545… and standby for future plans to expand to service Kamloops and the North Thompson valley.

Visit pacificrimequipment.com for more.

Ronald Mullins is a Kelowna, B.C. based writer / photographer and is a regular contributor to Supply Post.