Worthington Ag Parts - President's Blog

Neil's Parts - Corporate Office

Neil's Parts - Australia's Largest New, Used and Rebuilt Tractor, Header, Cotton Picker and Implement Parts Specialists!  Worthington Ag Parts - Tractor Parts, Combine Parts, Implement Parts to customers for 43 Years!  Parts - Expect More From Us!

Neil's Parts corporate offices are located in Toowoomba, Queensland, just down the road from the branch.  The new offices were opened in July after being relocated from the Dubbo branch.  It's the first time the corporate office has been located out of the confines of a branch. 

This will be the hub for our existing and future branches.  It is their base to rely on for support and it will enable to open a few more branches in the coming years!  Too often the rationale is a corporate office is "overhead" to the organization or an "ivory tower".  In fact sometimes they are if nothing is moving forward or opportunities are wasted away.  With the integration of our U.S. Company Worthington Ag Parts and our Australia Company Neil's Parts platforms we will be one company for the world - one team.  Allowing us to provide exceptional customer service on both sides of the globe!

I'd like you to meet the corporate office team of Neil's Parts.

This is the newly appointed General Manager of Neil's Parts - Jason Atkins.  Jason has been with the company for 13 plus years.  It was nice to fill the recent vacancy from within the organization.  It demonstrates our philosophy to provide opportunities to passionate, knowledgeable and loyal employees wanting to move up within our team!  Jason started in the yard, moved to parts specialist, store manager and his recent position has been Director of Operations for the last three years!  Good Luck Jason we'll support you every step of the way! If you would like to congratulate Jason with an email click here!

Michael "Newbs" Newbury - Financial Controller.  Michael joined the team in April of this year.  He has been a real stable addition to the organization.  He has accepted the challenge of grasping the old accounting system along with the new accounting platform as of January 1st, 2008!  Newbs provides the resources to handle the future expansion planned for Neil's Parts and a solid financial background to maintain the integrity of our financial numbers for our auditors.

Robert Dean - Graphic Design.  Bobby joined the team in September 2003.  He designs all of the advertising for Neil's Parts, ads, catalogs, office stationary everything!  The last two years he has also been designing most of our ads for the United States as well.  Bobby doesn't just do the advertising you can find him helping in the accounting department, designing access databases, website development and any other administrative tasks that need to be done!

Leanne Sawley - Asst. Accountant.  Leanne joined the team in September of this year.  She recently has moved to Australia from Canada with her Australian husband!  She helps Newbs with the accounting, payroll, and all office tasks.  She is more than just an accountant, she is also the office manager who keeps these guys in line!  She will be working instrumental with all the bookkeepers on the new system, reviewing their daily work and posting their batches!  Welcome to the team Leanne, we are glad to have you on board.

Craig Hall - Inventory Procurement Manager.  Craig has been with Neil's Parts since July of 1994.  He has recently moved to Toowoomba - corporate office from the Corowa branch.  He is in charge of purchasing after-market new parts and re-manufactured parts.  He has a big job to do on the new platform as all counter requests for parts will go through him for purchasing.  He is also instrumental on working on international seasonal shipments of containers full of replacement parts.  Craig has spent the last three weeks away from his family who have not relocated from Corowa.  That's a long time to be away from your immediate family - THANKS for your efforts!

Here is a look at the team in the conference room.  Jamie Neldon (Accounting Systems Manager) and Michael Chorzempa (Financial Controller) both from the U.S. are providing training to Leanne, Newbs and Sharon on Microsoft Dynamics our accounting platform.  This is in preparation for it's roll out in January.  Tomorrow Greg Clemens our Manager of Information systems is going to provide training on their new counter selling systems, which not only provides them with the real time inventory but also the availability of parts from their U.S. sister company as well.

That's all for today and thanks for reading my blog!

Cheers,

Mike Winter

 

 

Australia - Toowoomba Store

Neil's Parts - Australia's Largest New, Used and Rebuilt Tractor, Header, Cotton Picker and Implement Parts Specialists!

Greetings from "the land down under" - rainy Australia!  That's correct rainy!  It has rained every day at some point during the day which is awesome for a country with severe drought conditions!  The trip down was uneventful which is just the way I like it.  The flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane was only 13 and 1/2 hours!  The total trip from the time we left our homes in Minnesota until we arrived in Toowoomba was almost 30 hours!    We've been here since Friday but things are "crazy" and I just haven't had a chance to collect my thoughts to blog! 

Neil's Parts of Toowoomba yard is shown in the picture to the left.  They are located in the state of Queensland about two hours from Brisbane!  The store is just down the road from our Australia corporate headquarters, where we are located for ten days!  It is the largest yard of the four, located on machinery road!  It's very well organized.  Tim Allan the manager made us breakfast at the yard on Monday morning.  It was great, I think he learned how to cook from his lovely wife who is a professional chef!

This is John Walk a parts specialist at the Toowoomba store.  John has been selling parts since March of this year and has been a great addition to the team.  He also plays rugby with some of the guys from the yard.  I've seen his legs rugby short and he should wear pants with those bird legs.  In all seriousness, he can get you the part you need if your tractor or combine ("header" as they call it in Australia) is broke down. 

Meet Craig Tebbutt - parts specialist Toowoomba.  Craig has been on the team at Toowoomba since September 2000.  This is Craig's second go round with the company.  You can count on Craig to be there everyday to provide you the parts that you need!  Craig has an easy going nature, nothing is too much trouble for him per his old manager Jason Atkins.  If you look real close at the photo you will see a "dash" of a figure rushing past Craig.  This is Nikolas Fitzgerald known "Nick Fitz".   He works so fast you can't even catch him on the digital camera.  I think his new nickname should be "Dash"!  Well maybe he doesn't work that fast but I thought the picture was really neat!

Sharon Greenbury is the new bookkeeper at the Toowoomba branch.  She was just hired to handle the bookkeeping duties that are changing because of our new system integration with the United States.  That's the primary reason for our trip.  Neil's Parts will be running on our platform January 1st - one world - one company - one team!

There are many more valued employees at the Toowoomba store that we didn't have time to get pictures of.  That's doesn't mean we think any less of them, we just ran out of time.  More tomorrow on the corporate office staff.  That's all for today from the land down under!

Cheers,

Mike Winter