When looking back on the last half-century, here are a few moments that forever changed the way dealers like us do business.

Driving along Highway 151 in Beaver Dam, Wis., a sleek and modern facility appears on the horizon. The European style building is Vanderloop Equipment’s newest store, and represents a different approach than the 65-year-old AGCO dealership’s two other locations in Brillion and Lena, Wis.

“Our team is always looking to the future. We use our mistakes as an opportunity to learn and move on. In hindsight, however, there are two areas that we could’ve chosen to handle differently.

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.”

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.