MERRILL, WI Nortrax announces the opening of their newest state-of-the-art facility in Merrill, Wisconsin, just off Highway 51 north of Wausau, Wisconsin, at 601 South Pine Ridge Road. This flagship store will represent the full line of John Deere construction, forestry and commercial worksite products for north central and north eastern Wisconsin.  It is one of seven Nortrax locations in upper Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

This 30,000-square-foot Nortrax store includes a 10-bay service center, designed to easily accommodate the larger production-class equipment offered by John Deere. The in-house shop features drive-through bays, a separate sophisticated wash bay area, two ten-ton overhead cranes, and a fully-integrated lube system. The parts department has an in-house hose manufacturing area, shipping and receiving area, and a vast inventory storage warehouse to better serve forestry and construction customer needs. There is a brightly branded customer service lobby, a product support and technology showroom, offices, conference room, a huge training center, locker rooms with shower areas for employees. The exterior property displays new John Deere Forestry and Construction equipment and a used equipment inventory lot. In addition the building is designed to expand for future growth.

"This new investment is made on behalf of our customers and our employees," said Nortrax President and CEO Tim J. Murphy. "John Deere's investment in northern Wisconsin is significant.  "Dale Gessell, our Vice President, Midwest Region and his team have worked very hard on this project including picking the best location and designing a remarkable facility.  We have a lot of confidence in the Wisconsin business climate; our markets, employees and our customers.  In recent years, we've seen some competitors move their operations out of state when in fact we believe this is a great place to do business." 

Gessell said, "Nortrax has chosen to invest heavily in this part of central Wisconsin to better position ourselves to meet the needs of our customers in this key market. While offering new products and technology to our customers, we believe it's also important to provide our employees with the tools, facilities and training to perform at their best.  Our JDLinkâ„¢ platform allows us to diagnose and in many cases resolve problems without visiting the machines.  With the durability and reliability of John Deere machines, our Nortrax Merrill team will significantly increase the productivity of our customers' machines by greatly enhancing their uptime.  Our Merrill store and employees under the direction of General Manager Matt Hanson will lay the foundation for future growth and a long standing business partnership with our customers." 

"We're very excited about our new store in Merrill," said Hanson. "Our new home will bolster our sales, service, and parts programs as we continue to provide the outstanding service our customers expect. Our entire Merrill team has been waiting with anticipation to unveil this impressive facility to our customers and to the community."  The team is made up of employees from the Mosinee and Monico locations which were consolidated into the Merrill store. Additional jobs were created with this investment.

Hanson added that because spring is such a critical time of year to get our construction customers up and running, a grand opening celebration has been scheduled for August 18th, 2017. In the meantime, he said, construction and forestry customers and the general public are welcome to drop in, meet his team, tour the new facility and see the new John Deere equipment on display.