By: Bob Miller, NTEA Director of Outreach
This article was published in the November 2016 edition of NTEA News.
NTEA visited Donovan Equipment Co. Inc. (Londonderry, New Hampshire), a Distributor member since 1978.
The Donovan family has served the New England truck equipment market since 1932 when D.G. Donovan opened Donovan Spring in Lawrence, Massachusetts. His son Donald began working for him by delivering springs as a route driver. The company started growing and diversifying, and in 1954, Donald founded Donovan Equipment. He moved both businesses to Manchester, New Hampshire, before finally settling in Londonderry in 2002.
The company’s evolution spanned from suspension springs and parts to dump trailer manufacturing. In the late 1970s, Donovan became a dump truck body distributor and then a full line truck equipment house by the early 1990s.
In addition to stocking one of the largest inventories of springs and suspension parts in the U.S., Donovan sells, services, installs and repairs dump bodies, platform bodies, hooklifts, roll-offs, service bodies, landscaper bodies, dump trailers, all-season bodies, snowplows, salt spreaders and sanders, liquid and brine systems, snow blowers, lift axles and liftgates, with a focus on municipal equipment. The shop can rebuild and repack all makes and models of hydraulic cylinders, as well as re-bush front axles and repair any driveline with its Axiline ShaftMaster.
A 10-foot municipal truck with underbody scraper at Donovan Equipment.
In 2013, the business expanded its offerings, adding an Environmental Products Division with regenerative air sweepers, jet/vac combo trucks and trailer jetters.
The Londonderry facility is a 77,000-square foot building that houses both businesses and an 11,000-square foot storage area. Situated on 28 acres of land, it features drive-thru bays, a walk-in parts showroom and two 44-foot DeVilbiss cross-draft paint booths. Donovan employs more than 50 people, most of whom have worked there over 10 years. The company, which has won numerous distributor awards, represents more than 175 vendors in its walk-in parts facility.
Since 2007, Donovan has participated in NTEA’s Member Verification Program, which recognizes distributors and manufacturers for successfully implementing specified business standards and processes. Learn more at ntea.com/mvp.
For more information, visit donovancompany.com, call 603-669-2250 or stop by 6 Enterprise Drive in Londonderry.