Paul Mohrman

By Roger Renstrom

Paul Mohrman, 58, is gracefully pulling back from his long career at LiftPower Inc and embarking on a business venture involving engineered materials handling systems.

In Jacksonville, he continues as vice president and general manager for forklift dealer LiftPower and director of corporate development for South Atlantic Systems Group Inc (SASG).

A forklift industry executive recalls the early LiftPower days for Paul and his father and, more than three decades later, views the Crown-LiftPower relationship as strong.

LeRoy Mohrman "decided that Paul would learn the business from the ground up," says Jim Moran, senior vice president of Crown Equipment Corp in New Bremen, Ohio. "Consequently, by the time Paul became LiftPower's president, he knew how to find and then support customers for Crown lift trucks."

Moran expresses pride in Crown's "long-standing relationship with Paul and his company. Paul has been a significant contributor to Crown's success in northern Florida."

Paul Mohrman provides some perspective:
* When he started in the mid-1970s, every LiftPower department would ask each customer to pay for services. Then, during the 1980s, the goal was to break even on sales and make money in service.
* More recently, major national firms have acquired many LiftPower customers, often working their deals through consultants. "It is different in the types of clients we sell to," he says. "You don't get an opportunity to have the person know of your character and reputation. You are a number and quote on the table."
* LiftPower competitors with independent service technicians may bid for maintenance work on brand-name forklifts without having those techs trained on the specific equipment. "If it was mine and under warranty, I would judge the dealers (before awarding that kind of maintenance contract)", he notes.
*
The Mohrman family has a rich history with mechanised devices including forklifts.

Paul Mohrman was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where his father operated a Pontiac automobile dealership. "As I grew up, on Saturdays I would sweep the floors," he recalls. "As I worked my way up, I saw how my dad provided service for a small-town farming community. Those with parts and expertise got it done."

Operators of competing Ford and Chevrolet dealerships, for instance, would "bring their customers' cars to my dad's dealership" for difficult repairs involving perhaps a carburettor or an air-conditioning system, he remembers.

Mohrman graduated from Augustana College in Sioux Falls with a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics in 1972 and attended law school classes at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion, South Dakota for a year. "That was not where I belonged," he notes. Instead, he enrolled in the university's business school and obtained a Master of Business Administration degree in 1974.

Mohrman entered the world of forklifts through a start-up business of his older brother, known as Roy Jr.

Roy Mohrman Jr formed LiftPower in Jacksonville in 1971 with their father, Roy Sr, as one of the 10 stockholders. After getting his MBA, Paul Mohrman accepted Roy Jr's offer of a LiftPower position selling the equipment of Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co and TCM Corp and representing the Raymond Corp line under the auspices of a Tampa, Florida dealership.

In 1975, "my brother went after Crown, and that was a major turning point," Paul Mohrman says. "Crown had been with another dealer who was not paying full attention" to the product line.

In 1976, LeRoy Mohrman sold the car dealership and joined LiftPower in Florida. "Dad was getting tired of cold winters in the north and brought capital and management expertise" to LiftPower, Paul Mohrman recalls.

Roy Jr took another path. The entrepreneur left LiftPower and established Handling Systems Engineering Inc as a Jacksonville forklift business in 1977. Handling Systems became a Toyota distributor in 1978.

Roy Jr sold the Handling Systems business in 2003, moved to Tucson, Arizona, and, at age 66, serves as sales manager for forklift distributor Toyotalift of Arizona Inc, which has four locations in the state.

Meanwhile, LiftPower was growing. In 1979 in Jacksonville, LiftPower built a 16,000 square foot (1,440 sqm) facility on four acres less than a mile from its original location. Now, LiftPower operates in 33,000 square feet (2,970 sqm).

Another brother, Don, an engineer, joined LiftPower in 1982 in the service and support area.

LiftPower added representation of Komatsu equipment in 1985 and the Doosan and Landoll lines in 1995.

The firm established a 14,000 square foot (1,260 sqm) branch in Ocala, Florida in 1994 to serve the region south-west of Jacksonville and a 10,000 square foot (900 sqm) branch in Savannah, Georgia in 2003. Todd Mohrman, a son of Roy Jr, is a sales representative in LiftPower's Savannah branch. "We wanted Savannah," Paul Mohrman notes, because "we saw the port growth in Jacksonville and knew that Savannah would increase" with more Asian shipments through the Panama Canal for the eastern region of the US.

Now, for all locations, LiftPower employs about 85 staff, with Crown-related sales and work accounting for the majority of the business.

Transitions occurred. LeRoy Mohrman died at age 77 in 1991 marking the end of an era for LiftPower, and Don Mohrman died at age 45 in 1997.

Long-time sales chief Paul Mohrman assumed responsibility for operations and appointed Don Hune as sales manager. In 2000, Hune began to purchase stock in LiftPower with the long-term goal of owning the company.

Hune succeeded Mohrman as LiftPower president in April 2007, and Mohrman reduced his LiftPower working week to three days.
On Thursday and Friday, Mohrman heads to the SASG office, which was co-located with LiftPower for five years and moved across town in June 2008. "We needed our own identity as a provider of materials handling engineered systems," Mohrman notes.

Mark Teixeira is SASG vice president and lead engineer and, with Mohrman, supplies facilities planning knowledge to clients across North America. SASG competes with major system providers, now employs seven people and is advertising to hire a draftsman and another engineer. "There are a lot of opportunities" in design or reconfiguration of manufacturing and distribution facilities, Mohrman observes. Hune serves as a SASG partner.

Mohrman keeps his finger on the forklift business. While "competitors have been laying off people," LiftPower has maintained its business for parts, service and short-term rentals, he says. "We are fortunate. Over the years, we have developed a lot of excellent clients."