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Papé Machinery closing its doors, closing
business
in Bonners Ferry |
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August 17, 2016 |
The Bonners Ferry office of Papé Machinery,
which with its predecessor companies Sims
Implement and North Columbia Equipment has served Boundary County agriculture
for 66 years, will be closing its doors and its
business in Bonners Ferry within a matter of
weeks.
The closing of the business was confirmed by Pat
Walsh, spokesman for Papé Machinery. "The
decision was not easy to make, and was purely
based on the depressed economic agricultural
climate in Northern Idaho," said Mr. Walsh. He
said the business will close on September 1, or
when the company's work is done at the end of
the current harvest season.
Mr. Walsh said that currently there are two
employees at the Bonners Ferry branch of Papé
Machinery's large regional collection of
companies and locations. "Both have been offered
and accepted opportunities to stay with Papé at
our Ponderay location," he said.
According to Bonners Ferry Mayor David Sims, his
grandfather Ray Sims purchased the John Deere
dealership in Bonners Ferry back in 1950. After
the purchase, he changed the name of the company
to Sims Implement, and sold farming and logging
equipment. The Sims family opened a second
location in Sandpoint in 1992, and between the
two locations had over 30 employees.
The Sims family operated the business until
selling it in 1998 to Bill Felsted, who changed
the name to North Columbia Equipment and
operated it until selling it to Papé in November
2011.
Mayor Sims commented on the closure of the
business: "As mayor, I am disappointed
with the closure of the business. In addition to
providing jobs at the dealership, it helped
support the agriculture economy that is so
important to our county."
It has been reported that rumors have been going
around for some time that Papé Machinery would
be closing in Bonners Ferry, and that in an
effort to encourage the company to remain open,
Boundary County commissioners sent a letter to
the John Deere company, asking that efforts be
made to keep the company going here. When asked
about that, Papé's Mr. Walsh replied that "We
have not seen a letter from the commissioners to
John Deere."
The Papé Group, with headquarters in Eugene,
Oregon, had its start in 1938 as an equipment
dealership. The company has expanded over the
years both geographically and in its businesses
and service lines. Today Papé is the parent
group for several affiliated companies,
including companies dealing in agricultural,
construction, and forest machinery and
equipment, Kenworth trucks sales, parts and
service, materials handling equipment, drilling
and excavating equipment, equipment rentals, and
a company that specializes in design and
configuration of warehouse storage and layout.
Papé operates in Washington, Idaho, Montana,
Oregon, California, and Nevada. It has locations
in 68 cities, and over 2,300 employees. The
company continues to be family-owned, with
annual revenues reportedly running in the
hundreds of millions dollar range. |
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