MARBLE HILL'S CRADER RECOGNIZED AS FAMILY BUSINESS OF THE YEAR

MARBLE HILL -- Crader Equipment Co. of Marble Hill is a winner of the Mississippi Valley Family Business of the Year award in the Missouri small-business category.

The award, sponsored by the Family Business Forum of Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, was given to the Crader family by SIUE President Nancy Belck during a recent luncheon in St. Louis.

Family Business Forum Director Richard Lumma said more than 100 family businesses from Missouri and Illinois were nominated for the awards. Five were selected from 30 finalists, he said.

Companies from as far south as the Missouri Bootheel and as far north as Peoria, Ill., competed for this award.

"It was a very difficult choice to make among the top 10," said Lumma. "In addition to business success, awardees were chosen for positive family-business linkage, multigenerational family-business involvement, contributions to industry and community, and innovative business practices and strategy."

Family businesses create almost two-thirds of all new jobs in the U.S. "This contribution goes largely unrecognized," Lumma said.

The late Buford Crader and two brothers-in-law established a retail farm machinery business in 1944 in Marble Hill. By 1951, Crader had bought out his partners and renamed the business Crader Equipment Co.

A year later Buford's son, Don, joined his father in partnership. That same summer Don married Nancy, who became the bookkeeper and a significant force in the company's growth and development.

The wholesale side of the business increased as Crader became a Stihl chain-saw distributor in the early 1960s. Don, the only salesman, travelled from dealer to dealer, calling in his orders at night. Nancy packaged and shipped the saws, which were stored in the basement, and did the bookkeeping from her desk in the living room.

A building constructed in May 1968 set the stage for continued growth in the '70s. Sales exceeded $1 million early in the decade. Don's son, Stan, joined the company, and it became a third-generation business.

Through Stan's leadership, Crader Equipment has added automatic routing of orders through multiple warehouses and electronic data interchange with vendors and customers. Software for these innovations was developed in house. That helped the business become the 1992 Stihl National Distributor of the Year.

Don's son, Val, joined the business in 1984 as controller, and daughter, Becky, joined soon afterwards.

Growth in the 1990s has continued with the addition and expansion of territories in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Texas, and Oklahoma. Ground recent was broken for new facilities that will almost triple existing floor space.