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Monday, October 27, 2008

American LaFrance Exits Bankruptcy

Before the Mayor and Chiefy See blow smoke up your a$$ tonight, be sure to read the following..........

American LaFrance Exits Bankruptcy

New Business Initiatives Planned

New York, July 24, 2008 – Patriarch Partners is pleased to announce that, effective July 24, 2008, American LaFrance, LLC, the 175 year old manufacturer of fire, rescue and vocational vehicles, emerged successfully from its Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Concurrent with its emergence from bankruptcy, American LaFrance has announced a significant restructure of its business and a transformation of organization, processes and a segregation of facilities to better serve its product lines in domestic and global markets.

In a major effort to improve profitability, timely delivery and to create room for soon to be announced new ventures, the fire business will be moved from Summerville, SC to the American LaFrance facilities in Ephrata, PA and Hamburg, NY according to American LaFrance. Summerville will remain the center of excellence for commercial cab and chassis models including chassis manufactured for the fire, refuse and construction markets (street sweepers, refuse haulers, concrete pumpers etc).

“American LaFrance management is currently completing documentation for exciting new business ventures,” said Patriarch Chief Executive Lynn Tilton. “These initiatives are instrumental to the decision to rationalize facilities and processes for anticipated ramp of new lines of production. The Company also plans to significantly broaden its focus beyond domestic borders into global market,” Tilton added.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

See, the thing I don't understand is why Salisbury FD is trying to get all new equipment?

The rule of thumb in the fire department is that if you have 20 units you space out the units so you purchase a new one every year.

or if you have 5 units you purchase one every 4 hours. Cycle them out so you don't have to purchase all new ones at the same time...

I called planning, something every fire department in Wicomico County doesn't conceive.

Anonymous said...

What you don't understand about American LaFrance is the low quality and poor dependability. They don't make them like they used to.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
What you don't understand about American LaFrance is the low quality and poor dependability. They don't make them like they used to.

6:10 PM

BULLSHIT!!!

Obviously someone from the Sallbury far departmint made that comment and wants some new toys. Any guesses who it could be? I bet it is someone that doesn't live in the city and pay city taxes.

Anonymous said...

Joe...how old was the memo Gordy referred to in the meeting? He said they didn't know American LaFrance got out of bankruptcy until after "the memo" went out.

Anonymous said...

No those two American LaFrances are a true piece of shit on wheels. While I respect your outside opinion you don't know the entire story of how those pieces arrived here. In short the engine was a cheep demo unit and the ladder truck was low bid cut every corner that could be cut to put it in the building.

Anonymous said...

While I agree that American LaFrance are not built like they use to be and Pierce fire equipment are great pieces of equipment. Someone should look into the business they are buying them from, that would be Singer Fire equipment. Just go around and ask some local companies here and in Delaware and also across the bridge and many will tell how underhanded this company is. They are buying from people with no local service centers, people like the salesman who sold Salisbury's equipment that once he gets your check you won't see him again...well that is until you want to buy a new piece of equipment. But See and Gordy should feel right at home with the folks from Singer.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
No those two American LaFrances are a true piece of shit on wheels. While I respect your outside opinion you don't know the entire story of how those pieces arrived here. In short the engine was a cheep demo unit and the ladder truck was low bid cut every corner that could be cut to put it in the building.

6:57 AM

Maybe so, but they are buying 5 engines not 2!!!

Anonymous said...

Once upon a time American LaFrance built the finest fire engines on the market. Very few departments across America didn’t own at least one ALF in their history. They build durable state of the art fire engines of the times. Salisbury owned ALF’s from 1916 to 1981 when the last two were purchased. In 1988 Salisbury purchased two Pierce fire engines from Potomac Fire Equipment in Hebron that just recently went out of service with blown engines. Companies such as Pierce, Seagrave, E-one took over the market forcing companies like ALF, Mack (fire engine division) to close their doors. ALF resurfaced in the 90’s only to muck up the waters for other manufactures. I doubt ALF will be here in five years like their competitors.