2021 Review – General Parts Group is Stronger Than Ever

By Gary Schermann, CFSP – President

Whew – what a year! As the last few days of 2021 tick down on the calendar I reflect on all the changes our business has seen.

We started with a bang in January with the acquisition of ARS in Duluth, Minnesota. We viewed Ken and his crew as a good cultural and geographical fit to help us grow and expand General Parts Group. Our view has been confirmed since then and they have been a great addition!

The pandemic also followed us into 2021 and it is going to follow us into 2022 as well. We are all very Covid weary, but as long as this virus sticks around, we’ll need to keep our guard up and try to protect ourselves from the effects of the virus. Inflation, supply-chain issues, and vehicles shortages have all been side effects. Hopefully, 2022 sees a merciful end to the pandemic.

In July, General Parts was acquired by PT Holdings, and we became part of a much bigger family of service companies. This has brought even more change and growth to our company and opens many new doors to expand and improve our services to our clients.

We remodeled our office in Portland and as part of the remodel, we added a test kitchen\training center so that we can more easily train our technicians in the northwest US. The Portland center marks our 5th training center – joining the centers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Arizona. We also upgraded our offices in St. Louis and Chicago to better help us deliver top notch service in those markets.

I am thankful that service call requests and parts orders have nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels and we have hired many new employees across all our markets. Demand for our services is high and I am extremely grateful to all our employees who have worked so hard to deliver exceptional service to our customers. Staying on this positive note we have also expanded our dedicated technician program and it continues to be a huge hit with our manufacturing partners by delivery great first-time fix results.

I am looking forward to 2022 knowing that General Parts is a stronger company than it was at the beginning of 2021! Once again, thank you all very much for all your contribution and efforts – together let’s make 2022 a great year for everyone in the foodservice equipment industry!

Gary