Meeting Village Equipment Needs Yukon Equipment’s Jeanie Gusty Specializes in Rural Sales

by Calista Corporation Staff

Calista Corporation owns Alaska’s oldest heavy equipment dealer—Yukon Equipment, Inc.—and behind the company’s recent expansion in rural sales is Jeanie Gusty, a Yup’ik-speaking Calista Shareholder who grew up in tiny Stony River.

Alaska has more than 200 tribes. Roughly 100 villages also formed a municipality. At least once a year, the tribes and small local governments get a call from Gusty.

No one likes cold calls, so Gusty avoids wasting their time with sales blather. “When I’m calling a tribal government, I just ask if they are in the market for purchasing heavy equipment and if so, what are their needs.”

Villages routinely need a dump truck, excavator or water truck. In fact, Gusty says, “If we had 20 dump trucks to sell right now, villages would buy all of them.”

Rural Childhood, Urban Adulthood

As a young girl, Gusty enjoyed a rural lifestyle of hunting, fishing and camping with her parents and siblings in Stony River.

Originally established as a trading post, Stony River is a Yup’ik and Athabascan community along the middle Kuskokwim River, roughly 185 miles northeast of Bethel. The current population is about 50 people and recent public school enrollment has hovered around a dozen students.

After getting outside of her home village on high school trips—including to Washington, D.C.—Gusty set a goal to move to the city after high school and made it happen.

Gusty trained with Alaska Jobs Corp in Anchorage as an administrative assistant and initially worked in that role for Calista Corporation in Anchorage. In 2013, after six years away from Calista, she rejoined the Calista family of companies as executive assistant at Yukon Equipment.

“Calista has been a good organization to work for,” Gusty says, noting the good benefits and supportive environment for employees.

A Major Part of the Business

Founded in 1945, Yukon Equipment became a Calista subsidiary in 2010, the same year Calista acquired the Brice companies specializing in construction.

Yukon Equipment has three locations in Alaska—Anchorage, Fairbanks and Wasilla, and is the exclusive dealer in Alaska for a number of brands, including Case Construction. The company focuses on new and used construction equipment sales, rentals, repairs and service, and recently celebrated its 75th anniversary in business.

Charles Klever joined Yukon Equipment as president in 2013 about a month before Gusty joined, and ever since, the two have worked together on presentations, reports, purchasing approvals and other business responsibilities.

More recently, Klever was looking to expand Yukon’s customer base, including in rural Alaska, and Gusty volunteered to serve as the sales contact for villages.

Klever gave the green light and Gusty began developing her sales routine and customer database.

“It’s something that evolved over time and has become one of the major parts of the business,” Klever says.

A Win-Win-Win

Rural equipment sales now represent over 30 percent of Yukon Equipment’s total equipment sales, and roughly 20 percent of company revenue so far this year, according to Klever.

It’s a win-win-win, he says.

First, company revenue ultimately translates to revenue and other benefits for Calista’s 35,000-plus Shareholders.

Second, tribes and rural municipalities get special attention from an Alaska Native Shareholder who grew up in a village, speaks Yup’ik, and works to meet their unique purchasing needs.

Third, Gusty is compensated—beyond her executive assistant salary—for securing those sales.

“There isn’t a lot of ambiguity, and she is very straight forward. She develops a connection with the buyer, and optimizes the sale for them, so we can sell to them in the way they can buy,” Klever says.

This summer, for example, Gusty made final arrangements for a sale she’s been working on with a village since last November.

“The village finally got its funding, and the equipment will go out on a barge in August,” she said in July.

Yukon Equipment website: https://yukoneq.com/

Rural Sales: Jeanie Gusty, 907-277-1541 or [email protected]