Southworth-Milton, known by that name since 1991, has changed its trade name to Milton CAT. The Milford, Mass., company took on the new name shortly after expanding its territory into western New York with the acquisition of bordering CAT® dealer Syracuse Supply Company.

Milton CAT's dealer principal and president, Chris Milton, is the third-generation Milton to be at the helm of a Caterpillar® dealership. His father, Jack Milton, learned the ropes under his father, "Milt" Milton, at former Massachusetts CAT dealer Perkins-Milton back in the 1950s. With that experience, Jack moved north in 1960 with partner Bill Jordan and founded Jordan-Milton Machinery in Concord, N.H. They represented Caterpillar equipment and engines in New Hampshire and Vermont and expanded into Maine with the acquisition of Arnold Machinery Company in 1982. It wasn't until 1991, when Jordan-Milton merged with and later acquired Southworth Machinery, that the company underwent a name change. Bill Jordan had sold his interest in the company to the Miltons when he retired in the early 1980s, but Jack Milton kept "Jordan" in the name until merging with Southworth.

"With the recent acquisition of Syracuse Supply Company, it seems that now is the appropriate time to simplify the company name and better reflect where the company is today," states Larry Cutliffe, vice president of marketing.

"We have gained tremendous benefits as an organization by blending the people from the companies that today make up Milton CAT into our culture and business philosophy. The history of those organizations will live on through the employees from those companies and their relationships with fellow members of the Milton CAT team as well as our customers."

Today, Milton CAT is a privately held company owned by the Milton family. Over the years the dealership has grown from a company with 23 employees in a small shop on Main Street in Concord, N.H., to a firm with more than 1,100 employees in six states and 14 stores.

Milton CAT has already made significant changes in upstate New York.

"The company's size certainly works to our advantage," states Gib Gagnon, Milton CAT's New York general sales manager based in the company's Syracuse location. "We have a greater selection of equipment, a much-expanded rental fleet and the ability to offer more flexible rental and purchase plans that reflect and serve the unique needs of each equipment user."

In addition to representing the entire line of Caterpillar machinery, engines and power generation equipment, Milton CAT offers a complete line of crushing and screening equipment, Timberking forestry products, Genie Aerial lifts, and Challenger agricultural and utility tractors as well as attachments and work tools ranging from shears, hammers and thumbs to forks, landscape rakes and buckets.

Milton CAT serves the construction, light construction, forestry, agriculture, governmental, marine, material processing, demolition, scrap, and waste industries. It also offers short-term rentals of Caterpillar machinery, as well as the company's allied product lines, through a network of independent rental stores supported by Milton CAT.