It’s All About Relationships

On ELFA’s 60th anniversary, reflecting on the past and looking to the future

THE YEAR 2021 MARKS ELFA’S 60TH ANNIVERSARY. We’re celebrating by taking a look back as well as forward, imagining what the future will hold. In this issue we talk to Walter Dean, President and Owner of Dean Machinery International, Inc., which is celebrating 25 years as a member of ELFA. We’ll talk to other companies celebrating “milestone” ELFA membership anniversaries throughout 2021. 

2021 marks Dean Machinery’s 25th year as an ELFA member. To what do you attribute your company’s longevity in the marketplace? 

This is our 30th year in business and I hadn’t realized that this is our 25th year as members of ELFA. When I turn around I wonder where the time went! 

Through the years we’ve sold new and used machinery and done appraisals and asset management. As appraisers we specialize in certain machinery and equipment that the asset-based lenders are financing. They don’t have the expertise about the equipment they loan money against so they need service providers who are specialists in certain areas. We help them set residuals over a seven to ten-year period, or however long the lease terms are. We try to give them a guiding light as they enter into a transaction by looking at things like how many there are of that machine type, what the demand for them is, and if it’s specialized or more generic machinery. 

The appraisals led to relationships with the lenders for us to manage those assets when the lease comes due and the machinery is returned to the lender. They need someone like us to pick it up, dismantle it, warehouse it or sell it on the secondary market. We really feel like we’re a partner with everyone in the organizations we work in helping them with their businesses.


Why is it important for your company to be a member of ELFA?

We were encouraged to join ELFA by several of the lender members of the association. We were getting more and more calls for appraisals so we decided to join to be a service to the lending industry. It’s the best thing we ever did because we got to network with lots of other lenders. 

We’ve done so many jobs over the years to help guide them through their lending process. We’ve been able to advise them to shy away from certain machinery manufacturers that are not as good quality, and try to give them the lifespan of these machines when they’re maintained properly. It became a business unit of our company working with the banks and the lenders. It’s a valued relationship—we value the other members and we value the association. 

We’ve had a good career in serving ELFA members and in turn they’ve been very good to us and given us lots of business. We would not have been as successful had we not been in the association, I can tell you that. It’s done wonders for keeping our business going this long.


What do you see on the horizon for the equipment finance industry?

We’ve all seen that the pandemic has accelerated the digital world we live in. Life has a way of pulling you forward whether you want to go there or not, and this has pulled us all into the world of zoom meetings and working remotely. 

When we make it through this I think there’s going to be a big tsunami of appraisal work coming. People are going to go back to their portfolios, visit their customers and see what condition their machinery is in, and they’ll need appraisals. The switch is going to come back on all at once for everybody, so we’re expecting big growth in the end of this year and next year with a lot of work needing to be done in a short period of time.