SELLING snowplows for airport runways and municipal streets is clearing the road to success for Team TEMCO near Chicago in Aurora, Illinois.
The truck equipment distributor supplies snowplows, snowblowers, and other snow-and-ice control equipment to some of the largest airports in the world including Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports. The snow control equipment for airports is capable of clearing a runway in a single pass.
The runway equipment includes snowplows, snowblowers, and rotating cylindrical brooms. One broom model sold by Team TEMCO for clearing runways is 18 feet wide and 48 inches in diameter.
In 1997, Team TEMCO delivered numerous trucks, blowers, and brooms to O'Hare Airport, says Michael Mikoola Jr, president and co-owner of Team TEMCO. The company has supplied a significant number of snow removal units to Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
The company has four major product lines: truck chassis from Oshkosh Truck Corporation, street sweepers form Johnston Sweeper, dump bodies from Henderson Manufacturing, and service bodies from Reading Body Works.
Truck Equipment Offerings Other truck equipment carried by Team TEMCO includes Fisher snowplows, Morgan truck bodies, Anthony tailgate lifts, Liftmoore cranes, and Weatherguard toolboxes and ladder racks. The distributor installs all types of truck equipment including complete hydraulic systems for operating snowplows, spreaders, dump bodies, cranes, and tailgate lifts.
"We try to run a world-class organization for sales, parts, and service," Mikoola says. "We don't claim perfection, just progress."
Team TEMCO sells in excess of 100 large snowplows a year for municipal trucks and trucks that clear airport runways. Gledhill Road Machinery Company and Henderson Manufacturing Inc manufacture the large snowplows for clearing streets, highways, and runways. Some trucks are equipped with Root underbody scrapers.
Besides municipalities, many of Team TEMCO's snowplow customers are landscaping contractors in Cook and DuPage counties, Mikoola says. These contractors usually have snowplows mounted on light- and medium-duty chassis equipped with dump bodies and material spreaders.
Fisher snowplows distributed by Team Temco are ideal for medium- and light-duty chassis and pickup trucks, which are used most often to clear home driveways and parking lots. Team TEMCO is one of Fisher's largest dealers.
During warm months, snowplows are removed and the trucks are used for landscaping work. In the winter, the same trucks are easily adapted for use in snow-and-ice control. Snowplows are remounted and hopper-spreaders are often placed inside dump bodies for snow-and-ice control.
Mounting Dump Bodies Team TEMCO installs several hundred dump bodies a year on construction and municipal trucks used for snow-and-ice control.
The distributor has eight mechanics and a service manager. The company installs truck bodies and equipment in a 40,000-sq-ft facility located on eight acres. The shop has 24 drive-through bays for equipment installation and service work.
Altogether, Team TEMCO has 30 employees, according to Tom Keiser, secretary-treasurer and co-owner of Team Temco. On the sales staff, six employees sell truck bodies and equipment, with two focused on sales to airports and municipalities. The parts department has three employees.
The truck equipment distributor places an emphasis on sales to municipalities. Team TEMCO sells Johnston street sweepers to the municipal market.
"Street sweepers fit into the portfolio of products we offer to municipal customers, but snow-and-ice control equipment is our primary product offering," Mikoola says.
The large Oshkosh truck chassis are purchased primarily by airports and state and county municipalities responsible for plowing runways, city streets and highways. Team TEMCO has a close working relationship with all area truck dealers.
Oshkosh Snowplow Truck Oshkosh recently introduced the municipal platrol truck (MPT), which is a new 4x4 chassis designed and priced for municipal snow-and-ice control. The national sales manager at Oshkosh Truck, Creighton Pritzlaff, made a presentation on the MPT at the Snow & Ice Management Association meeting in June in Pittsburgh.
As one of Oshkosh Truck Corporation's largest dealers, Team Temco was asked to help design the MPT. The company was scheduled to take delivery of the first MPTs in September.
The 41,000-lb GVW MPT chassis is smaller than other Oshkosh trucks. The truck has "C" channel 12 3/8-inch frame rails with deep-section crossmembers to withstand the longitudinal and lateral forces of snow removal. The MPT was designed from the ground up as an all-wheel drive truck.
The MPT is a scaled-down version of the Oshkosh P-Series chassis. The larger, higher horsepower P-Series can clear five-feet-high snow drifts from roadways.
Besides the MPT and P-Series, Team TEMCO sells Oshkosh H-Series all-wheel-drive chassis that have rear-mounted engines and one-man cabs over the front drive axle. The H-Series Oshkosh chassis is used in the severest of winter-weather conditions to clear airport runways.
Snow Removal Equipment The H-Series have a 164-inch wheelbase and can be equipped with runway plows or snowblowers over four feet in diameter. Snowblowers have their own 540-hp diesel engines and can cast up to 4,000 tons of snow per hour.
Mikoola and Keiser's company has equipped trucks for snow-and-ice control since the late 70s. Their company, TEMCO Machinery Inc, purchased Team Equipment Inc in October 1998 and is currently doing business as Team TEMCO.
The company has always been located in the Chicago area. Mikoola and Keiser started TEMCO Machinery 21 years ago in Roselle, Illinois. Before moving to Aurora, TEMCO was located in Warrenville for 12 years.
"Sales of truck equipment for light- and medium-duty chassis was Team Equipment's strong point," Mikoola says. "That business complimented our core business of dealing with municipalities that buy all types of truck equipment.
"We took a niche oriented company and expanded it into a full-line distributor for truck-mounted snow-and-ice control equipment."