Messick's: How a 1953 Family Dealership Became Central Pennsylvania's Kubota Powerhouse

Messick's officially opened its doors on February 1, 1953, with Marlin running the shop and Merville handling sales and parts. For the better part of six decades it grew the way most family farm equipment dealers did, one customer and one season at a time. Then, in 2011, the business did something a lot of regional dealers talk about but few actually pull off cleanly: it tripled its Kubota footprint in a single year by acquiring three neighboring dealerships at once.

That 2011 move brought Lancaster Tractor and Equipment, Sweigard Bros New Holland of Halifax, Pennsylvania, and Peterman Power Equipment of Carlisle into the Messick's family in one stretch. The acquisitions gave Messick's a fourth Kubota location along with access to the eXmark and Simplicity outdoor power lines, instantly expanding both its geographic footprint across central Pennsylvania and the breadth of equipment it could offer a single customer under one dealer relationship.

That pace of acquisition, three dealerships absorbed in a single calendar year, is an unusually aggressive expansion move for a family farm equipment business, and it set the tone for more than a decade of continued growth that followed. For a contractor sizing up where to buy and finance Kubota equipment in central Pennsylvania today, that history is the real backstory behind a dealer name that now covers considerably more ground than it did a generation ago.

Sixty-Four Years, Then One New Chapter

Peterman Power Equipment's story inside that 2011 acquisition is worth pulling out on its own. The Carlisle dealership had served that community for 64 years before joining Messick's, starting a new chapter as a Messick's location on March 1, 2011. That's a genuinely long independent run for a small-town equipment dealer, and it's a useful reminder that a dealership joining a larger group isn't always a sign of a struggling business. Sometimes it's a long-successful local operation choosing to plug into a bigger parts and service network rather than keep fighting economies of scale alone.

Messick's didn't stop with the 2011 wave either. The company went on to acquire O.C. Rice and R&W Equipment, eventually merging the former Peterman location into R&W's larger facilities, a consolidation move that shows Messick's actively managing its footprint for efficiency rather than simply collecting storefronts. More recently, Messick's extended its Kubota reach further east by acquiring Reading Tractor and Equipment in Reading, Pennsylvania, along with Rovendale Ag & Barn, continuing a pattern of growth that's been running for well over a decade now.

What a Decade of Acquisitions Means for a Contractor

A dealer that's spent more than a decade carefully folding in neighboring dealerships tends to have worked out the operational kinks that come with scale: shared parts logistics between locations, consistent service standards across stores that started as separate businesses, and enough combined inventory to stock a genuinely wide range of Kubota construction and compact equipment. For a general contractor or excavation subcontractor in central Pennsylvania, that history matters more than it might seem, because it's the difference between a dealer who's actually integrated its acquisitions and one that's still running several barely-connected storefronts under a shared sign.

Messick's carries Kubota's full excavator range alongside compact track loaders and tractors, which means a demolition contractor comparing size classes before financing has real options to walk through in person. That matters whether you're looking at something like the KX080-5 compact excavator for utility and general construction work, or trying to decide between adjacent size classes before committing to a particular excavator for your job mix.

Beyond Excavators: The Rest of a Full-Line Kubota Dealer's Inventory

A Kubota dealer with Messick's history doesn't stop at excavators. Full-line Kubota dealers of this size typically carry the SVL-Series compact track loaders that general contractors and site-prep crews run for grading and material handling, along with the RTV-Series utility vehicles that roofing and remodeling crews increasingly use to move tools and materials around larger commercial sites where a full-size pickup can't easily maneuver. Carrying that full range under one roof, with shared parts access across five-plus locations, is exactly what makes a dealer this size more useful to a growing contractor than a single-location shop that can only stock a fraction of the lineup.

The Trades That Actually Buy Through a Dealer Like This

General contractors and excavation subcontractors across central Pennsylvania make up a steady share of Messick's construction-side business, financing compact excavators and track loaders for foundation work, utility trenching, and site grading. Demolition contractors clearing commercial lots ahead of new construction lean on the same excavator inventory, often needing a dealer who can turn a hydraulic hose or undercarriage repair around in days rather than weeks, since a machine sitting in a service bay is a machine that isn't earning money on a jobsite.

Roofing and remodeling contractors show up differently in a full-line Kubota dealer's customer mix. They're less likely to finance an excavator, but a growing number are adding a Kubota RTV-Series utility vehicle or a smaller compact track loader to move shingles, debris, and tools around larger commercial reroofing jobs where a standard pickup truck can't get close enough to the work. A dealer with Messick's inventory depth, built from five-plus integrated locations, can usually put a contractor into the right-sized machine for that kind of secondary equipment need without the contractor having to drive to three different dealers to compare options.

Renting From Messick's vs. Financing Through BFC

Renting a piece of Kubota equipment from a dealer this well-stocked makes sense for a one-off job where you genuinely don't know if the work repeats. But once a contractor is renting the same class of machine on a recurring basis, the economics flip. Rental rates are priced to recover a dealer's capital investment quickly, which pushes the effective hourly cost well above what the same unit costs to own under a properly structured loan or lease, especially once you count the scheduling flexibility and operator familiarity that comes from having your own machine on-site every day.

Financing through BFC lets a contractor keep the relationship with a dealer like Messick's for sales, parts, and service, while BFC structures the loan or lease around the business's actual cash flow and credit profile rather than a captive lender's one-size-fits-all terms. That flexibility matters most for a newer excavation or remodeling business that's past its startup phase but doesn't yet have the balance sheet a captive finance arm typically wants, since BFC works with startups and established businesses nationwide regardless of credit history.

A Deeper Trade-In and Used Equipment Market

One often-overlooked benefit of a dealer that's grown through acquisition over more than a decade is what it does for resale. When a contractor eventually trades in a Kubota excavator or track loader toward a newer model, a dealer with five-plus integrated locations has a far better read on regional used-equipment demand across central and eastern Pennsylvania than a single-location shop would. That translates into a more realistic, better-informed trade appraisal, which is real equity a contractor carries forward into the next financed purchase rather than leaving on the table because the dealer appraising the trade only knows its own small service area.

That same depth benefits a contractor buying used rather than new. A dealer group this size typically has a steadier pipeline of well-maintained used Kubota equipment coming through trade-ins from its own customer base, which can put a newer general contracting or remodeling business into reliable equipment at a lower entry cost than chasing a new unit. BFC can structure financing around either a new or used Kubota purchase, depending on what actually fits a given job mix and budget.

Why This History Is Worth Knowing Before You Buy

A dealer that's spent more than a decade successfully integrating acquisitions, rather than churning through locations it couldn't manage, is a reasonable signal of operational stability behind the sale. Before financing equipment at any multi-location Kubota dealer, it's worth asking how long the specific location you're buying from has been part of the current ownership group, and whether parts and service are genuinely shared across locations or siloed by old dealership boundaries. Messick's own history, acquisition after acquisition over more than a decade, suggests a company that's actually done the integration work rather than just collecting signage.

If you're financing Kubota equipment through Messick's or any dealer in central Pennsylvania, start with our Kubota equipment financing page to see how BFC structures the loan or lease around your business instead of the dealer's default paperwork.

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