Stephenson Equipment Inc. (SEI) invited paving contractors from Philadelphia and surrounding areas to take part in a "hands on" learning opportunity for LeeBoy and Bomag equipment on Feb. 15.
The purpose of the Asphalt Paving and Maintenance Workshop, held at SEI's facility in Prospect Park, Pa., was to not only showcase equipment from the two manufacturers but also to discuss service, parts and rentals at the dealership. LeeBoy named SEI its top U.S. dealer in 2022.
"This is our first event in Prospect Park [Pa.] and we just finished up our first year with being the LeeBoy dealer for this area," said Mark Myers, CE group manager, SEI. "We've been holding these paving seminars for a number of years at our other branch locations. They are quite beneficial. We don't use it as a sales pitch, it's more directed toward service, maintenance, operations and more to help contractors with their paving operations. So, now, with having the LeeBoy line here, we want to offer the same to our customer base down in this area, as well."
SEI is the LeeBoy dealer of all of Pennsylvania, northern Delaware, northern West Virginia and upstate New York.
During the event, SEI set up three workshop stations: two for LeeBoy pavers and one for Bomag compaction equipment.
Ronnie Hoffman, paving and customer support specialist of SEI, led a paver maintenance presentation on a LeeBoy 8500E paver. At another station, Jim Harkins of LeeBoy led a presentation on paver operation using a LeeBoy 7000C paver. He discussed all aspects of a paving job from planning of the job to laying the material down, talking about jobsite safety, screed operations, proper setup and more. And at the Bomag station, Tom Scalia, factory support representative of Bomag, discussed best practices of compaction, including rolling techniques and principles.
For guests, SEI provided donuts, coffee in the morning and a barbecue lunch catered by Mission BBQ.
Jeff Tulish, vice president of SEI, summed up the importance of the company holding events such as these for local contractors.
"I think the headline here is that with the addition of LeeBoy in Philadelphia, we are continuing with the practice of adding value at the dealership for our customer base with education and training," he said.
"We see a lot of benefit and anytime we have the chance that our customers are in-house under our roof is always good for relationship-building," added Myers. "We introduce our managers, rental team CEG
