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Corporate
Restructuring Eliminates Equipment Rental Division
(Re-printed from Spring '87)
Several million dollars worth of heavy construction equipment went on the auction block April 7 & 8 as Helmkamp continued to shift the focus of it’s contracting business from heavy/highway to industrial, commercial and institutional clients. Forke Brothers, auctioneers, of Lincoln, NE., sold over 700 pieces of construction equipment including tractors, loaders, loader-back-hoes, cranes, trailers, trucks and assorted small tools and supplies.
 The auction also marked the discontinuation of Helmkamp’s equipment rental division. The decline in the highway construction market in southwestern Illinois and the skyrocketing costs of liability insurance were foremost in the decision to dissolve that portion of the company.
“There is a relative lessening of road construction in southwestern Illinois,” says Bob Koepke, associate director, Regional Research & Development Services, Southern Illinois University of Edwardsville. “I-255 is nearly complete. 413 is projected but not funded. We will still see roads built, but not on the grand scale of 255. It makes a lot of sense for a firm that wishes to survive to restructure its product. There’s no need to provide a service that isn’t going to be used.
“ Good business adapt to reality,” Koepke adds. “Those that don’t, don’t stay in business. Helmkamp’s early recognition that a change has to be made is a positive statement about the management of the company.”
Harry Fabick, President of John Fabick Tractor Co., Fenton, Mo., agrees. “With the changes in the economy on the Illinois side of the river, unloading their equipment was the best thing Helmkamp could do,” Fabick commented. “They had to reduce and regroup to take the best advantage of a changing economy and a shifting market.
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