By Bob
Miller
NTEA Director of
Outreach
bobm@ntea.com
This article was published in the October 2015 edition of NTEA
News.
NTEA recently visited Hudson River Truck &
Trailer, a Distributor member located in Poughkeepsie, New York.
The company is a full-line truck equipment house in the
middle of New York’s snow belt. Customers include municipalities, general
contractors, fleets and anyone else in the area needing new equipment, service,
parts or repair for truck plows or trailers.
In 1988, Matt Maneri and his wife Lynn started the
business in a rented one-bay garage. Matt actually began his career in the
industry in the mid-1980s, building municipal trucks in the Hudson River
Sales shop. In 1985, he decided to launch his own landscaping operation. When
the owner of Hudson River Sales passed away three years later, Matt and Lynn
opened a new business shortly thereafter to fill the void.
Matt and Lynn Maneri, owners of Hudson River
Truck & Trailer.
As time passed, the company continued to grow, resulting
in the need for more space. In the mid-1990s, Matt and Lynn made arrangements to
rent their current location. They bought the rental in 1996, but disaster struck
two years later when the building was destroyed in a fire.
Despite these challenges, the company built a new
10,000-square foot shop with a showroom and offices in 2000. The next year, a
10,000-square foot warehouse was added to house equipment and parts. Purchased
in 2009, the business’s latest addition is an adjacent property with another
10,000-square foot warehouse. This location is used for additional storage, but
some production space is being allocated for van conversions.
Hudson River Truck & Trailer in
Poughkeepsie, New York.
Currently, the business sits on 5 acres and features
three buildings with a total of 30,000 square feet and approximately 25
employees. Initially, Matt intended for the company to handle general truck
equipment with a focus on snowplows and spreaders, but he added a trailer
component in 1995. He kept diversifying the business by adding dump bodies and
hoists, platforms, utility bodies, farm bodies, hooklifts, forestry bodies,
suspensions, lift axles, skid steer attachments, truck-mounted cranes,
liftgates, trailer hitches and truck accessories. Company trailer lines now
include equipment hauling, dump, enclosed, car hauling, landscape and utility
trailers.
In 2006, Hudson River Truck & Trailer started
building larger municipal snow-fighting trucks and added more lines of support
equipment to accommodate this market segment. In addition to representing some
of the finest brands and equipment lines available, the company has won numerous
achievement awards for its sales performance.
Truck body at Hudson River Truck &
Trailer.
The majority of its technicians are certified Master
Truck Technicians by the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence.
Hudson River Truck & Trailer has been an NTEA member since 1988 and is part
of the Association’s Member Verification Program.
To increase connectivity with customers, the company
hired an in-house social media and marketing expert in the last year. (Visit its
pages on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+.) In
addition, Hudson River Truck & Trailer takes an active role in its local
community, supporting more than 30 charitable organizations, including
nonprofits,
volunteer fire departments and police associations.
In the last 27 years, the business has celebrated many
accomplishments. The owners built a solid company by taking good care of
customers. While success didn’t always come easily, Hudson River Truck &
Trailer has gained strength from its experiences and is moving in the right
direction.
For more information, visit hudsonrivertruck.com, call 845-454-7669 or stop by the
facility at 12 Commerce St. Ext. in Poughkeepsie.