The Hytrol Story

Tom Loberg had, on several occasions, made a casual remark to Sam Leone about coming to work for Hytrol. In reality, Hytrol couldn’t afford Sam at that time and besides, Sam was usually very busy in a major national promotion program for Colson. Sam let the idea pass. Tom was very busy during these times. He was doing all the leg work, trying to set up new dealers, writing orders, doing all the marketing and advertising, even wiring the electricals in the production area. And when the trucks came in to pick up the conveyor orders, Tom was there to help roll the conveyors up a wooden plank into the trailers. When it was time to ship out the units, everyone in the shop and office pitched in to help. Tom and Rig had another addition to their family in March of 1960. Steven Andrew came into their lives that year. Tom and Rig now were working hard to support their family of seven. In November of 1960, Hytrol held its first Distributor and Dealer meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. It was held there in conjunction with the Material Handling Institute Central States Show, a regional exposition. At that time, it was the largest of its kind ever held in the central states area. There were around 35 dealers and distributors who came and it was a good success. The entire Hytrol team attended this event, and it gave the dealers and distributors the opportunity to meet the Hytrol factory men. During the Hytrol special meeting, Tom and Chuck received valuable feedback on conveyor applications. This, of course, sparked some ideas for Tom’s creative mind, and he began to envision new types of conveyors. Hytrol also set up an attractive display booth during the show and, with many visitors stopping to observe Hytrol’s products, many live leads from prospective customers resulted. Tom and Chuck came away with the realization that the Hytrol dealers liked having regular sales meetings. The next year, in May of 1961, a second Distributor and Dealer meeting was held in Philadelphia at the Material Handling Institute Show. This proved to be very successful also. Hytrol sponsored another booth there, too, and it was well attended. Conveyors featured in the booth, manned by Tom Loberg, included the Model TL, Model R with under carriage and roller carriage, and the 7 l i k e s h o o t i n g f i s h i n a b a r r e l