The award honors Manitex International’s top dealer who sells the greatest number of cranes during the calendar year. Manitex International, Inc. is a provider of engineered lifting solutions including cranes, rough terrain forklifts, reach stackers, container handling equipment, and special mission-oriented vehicles.
“This award is a great achievement,” said Dominic Giuffre, Sr., President of Giuffre Brothers Cranes, Inc. “It represents our commitment to our customers to understand their needs, provide top-notch service, and our ability to put together the right package to meet their needs.”
“Our customers have a lot of options,” Dominic said. “We have a small salesforce and two locations. Many of our competitors have multiple locations and dozens of sales people. But our customers recognize our industry knowledge, our ability to get them into exactly what they need, and above all being honest. I’m proud of our commitment to provide great customer service and continued value to our customers. Manitex has been a great partner to help customers achieve their goals.”
Giuffre Brothers Cranes, Inc. was founded in 1963 by Frank Giuffre, Sr., and his younger brother Dominic. The business started as a small trucking company in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with just one dump truck and a lot of grit, determination, and originality.
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“My brother started the business right out of high school as an owner-operator with one used dump truck,” Dominic said. “When we started out, we would take any work we could find; hauling, delivering, and even snowplowing. When I joined full-time in 1965, we bought our first five-ton crane and we’ve never looked back.”
Early on, Dominic worked in the field and Frank handled the administrative side of the business. By 1972, the brothers had acquired about a dozen pieces of machinery, including trucks, cranes, and excavators, and their entrepreneurial instincts and business savvy helped them identify a new niche in the construction, roofing, and tree trimming business.
“After we started, we began to recognize how boom trucks could increase efficiency and safety in a few industry sectors,” Dominic said. “Introducing truck-mounted, contractor-operated cranes was difficult in the beginning. Then we came up with the idea of teaching our clients’ workers how to operate the equipment right on the job site. Very quickly, everyone was appreciating how boom trucks made their roofing, construction, and signage jobs easier.”
The roofing market was the first to embrace boom trucks, and soon the Giuffres began renting, leasing, and developing machinery and attachments to make the cranes indispensable to the industry.
“Before boom trucks,” Dominic said, “roofers, drywallers, and sign installers used all sorts of dangerous means to get their supplies up to the job, such as A-frame hoists. Our cranes save time, money, and lives.”
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As the success of the truck-mounted cranes grew, the Giuffre brothers also became industry innovators helping customers put together packages to design, purchase, finance, and maintain their equipment.
“It’s been exciting to be part of this industry from its infancy,” Dominic said. “Boom trucks revolutionized the commercial roofing industry overnight. And nearly everything in construction has a roof, so we were always busy meeting the demand for new construction projects. But reflecting on our history, I am most proud of our commitment to customer service. Our new customers and return customers have become good friends.”
