In the fourth of Farm Equipment’s every-other-year Dealership Minds series, six editors travelled to central California to experience first-hand how a successful dealership — Kern Machinery — operates in a market where agriculture can only be described as “diverse,” “intensive” and “rapidly changing.” It wasn’t that long ago when cotton, potatoes and hay dominated the landscape. Today, vegetables, fruit, grapes and nuts are taking over.

As part of one of the liveliest discussions Farm Equipment editors have had on the accounting topics with equipment dealerships, Kern Machinery CFO Marty Buck shared some takeaway value for some who wonder what their bean-counting teammates are up to, or what some of their words mean.

Marty Buck, the CFO for Kern Machinery and the other Camp family entities (based in Bakersfield, Calif.), explained to Farm Equipment some of the differences in financial management responsibilities as dealerships grow in scale. He joined Kern 7 years ago, after previously leading financial departments at Unisys and Bolthouse Farms.

While Don Zajac, service manager for Kern Machinery’s Buttonwillow, Calif., store, and James Boel, service manager at Kern Machinery’s Delano, Calif., store, have different levels of experience with the dealership and slightly different responsibilities, they both run their service departments with the same principle. No 2 days are the same for the pair and even under the best-laid plans, circumstances and schedules change.

In over 30 years of working in the parts department at Kern Machinery, Chris Schott has seen a lot of changes. When he first started, a 24-hour turnaround on getting a part was amazing. “That’s not good enough any more. There are thousands and thousands of dollars on the line, so 24 hours is too long,” he says. “That creates the need for more inventory because customers want solutions and they want to be rolling now. If they have a piece of equipment down, they may have 3 pieces that operate behind it that can’t operate because the other one’s down. Well that adds up to big money fast. Downtime is a big thing for our customers and they’re under a lot more pressure.”

Richard Knott is a parts department lifer. The parts manager started his career off working for another John Deere dealership north of Kern Machinery’s stores. After a 3.5-year stint in the parts department at that dealership, Knott came to Kern Machinery and 31 years later is still keeping the parts department on goal at the Buttonwillow location.

Joe Alvarado leads by example and doesn’t take any of the opportunities he’s been afforded for granted, something he attributes to his time in the Marine Corps. When Alvarado returned to civilian life, he started working for a farm equipment and auto parts company in Tipton, Calif. It was a small, family-owned operation, but it was there that he fell in love with agriculture — more specifically the people of agriculture.

Mark Campanella, the service manager for Kern Machinery’s Bakersfield, Calif., store, was originally brought into the dealership in 2009 to help the company “revamp” its field service program. Before joining Kern Machinery, Campanella had owned and operated his own field service business for construction equipment in southern California for 15 years.

Santiago Alcantar wasn’t an expert on agriculture equipment when he joined Kern Machinery in 2013, but he was an expert when it came to customer service and retailing. Before joining the dealership as the parts manager for the Bakersfield and Lancaster stores, Alcantar worked as a manager for AT&T and Sears.

For Clay Camp, son of Clayton Camp, president and co-owner of Kern Machinery, working in the family business at the farm equipment dealership was always the goal. After numerous summers spent helping out at the dealership while in high school, Clay knew he liked the atmosphere and always pictured himself returning to the dealership.