Sweeney makes it a family affair: Firm that started in Fargo spreads across region

By Jonathan Knutson
The Forum - 06/05/1999

The year was 1946. The Sweeney brothers had just done their part to save the free world and it was time to tackle the business world.

Gene, Walt and Jim Sweeney, fresh from military service in World War II, established Sweeney Bros. Tractor Co. in Fargo.

Still owned and operated today by their descendants, the company has grown into one of the region's most prominent distributors of construction, forestry, industrial, milling and municipal machinery.

It provides sales and service for a half-dozen major equipment manufacturers and about 10 smaller firms. Product lines vary between its North Dakota and Minnesota operations.

The company employs 70 people, 20 of them in Fargo, and has offices in Fargo, Minot, N.D., Bismarck, N.D. and Burnsville, Minn.

Annual sales are about $20 million.

"I can't think of another industry I'd rather have been in. Our customers and this area have been very good to us," said Mark Sweeney. "We'd like to think we've been good to them, too.

Mark Sweeney, Gene's son, was an executive at the company for many years. He's now semi-retired and serves as a director. His brothers Mark, Larry, Don and Gene also were active in the company at one time or another.

Upwards of 20 Sweeneys have worked at the company through the years. Seven third-generation Sweeneys are with the company now.

Having so many family members in the same business isn't always easy, Mark Sweeney said, "but we make it work."

Indeed they have, beginning with the three founding Sweeney brothers.

Maj. Gene Sweeney served in Europe with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He was an equipment sales manager before the war and a civil engineer during the war.

Lt. Cmdr. Walt Sweeney served in the South Pacific with the Seabees, the Navy's version of the corps of engineers. He had extensive construction management experience prior to the war.

Lt. Jim Sweeney has been an Army transportation expert in Pacific. He had been in the construction and machinery business before the war.

Though Sweeney Brothers Tractor began in 1946, "There have been Sweeneys active in the construction industry in this area since the mid-1920s. We're proud of that," said Larry Sweeney, who's also semi-retired and a company director.

In 1952 the three founding Sweeney brothers formed another Fargo company, General Diesel & Equipment Co. The new company allowed them to represent additional equipment manufacturers.

Walt Sweeney managed General Diesel and his brothers continued to run Sweeney Bros. Tractor.

Walt Sweeney was killed in a 1965 accident. General Diesel & Equipment kept going and was sold to a group of its employees in 1975. The company is known now as General Equipment and Supplies Inc.

Jim Sweeney moved to Bismarck in 1959 when Sweeney Bros. opened its location there. He operated the branch until his death in 1965.

Gene Sweeney, the last of the three founders, died in 1967. His wife and four sons bought the shares of the company owned by the families of Walt and Jim.

The Sweeney family is one constant at the company through the years. Another is its ability to adjust to market needs.

In 1948 the company opened a branch office in Riverdale, N.D., near the Garrison Dam project. Sweeney Bros. supplied many of the machines used to build the giant dam.

The Riverdale office moved to Minot when the project was completed in 1955. The new Minot office, in turn, provided equipment used to build Minuteman missile sites deployed by the Minot Air Force Base. The Minot office now serves northwestern North Dakota, northeastern Montana and part of Canada.

The company also was quick to take advantage of the discovery of oil in the Tioga Basin. In 1952 Sweeney Bros. Tractor opened an office in Williston, N.D., that worked closely with oil producers. The Williston office was sold to General Diesel & Equipment Co. in 1955.

And the Sweeney Bros. Tractor Bismarck branch, which serves western North Dakota, was quick to take advantage of growing opportunities in the coal industry there. The company sold, among other things, giant coal-hauling trucks that cost about $700,000.

Sweeney Bros. Tractor's most important strategic move occurred in 1982, when it opened an office in Burnsville, Minn. The branch serves Minnesota and now accounts for about two-thirds of the company's sales.

"That was a big step for us," Mark Sweeney said. "Minnesota has far more people. Far more business activity. We wanted to be part of that. And it's worked out very well for us."

He credited the company's continued success to the Minnesota expansion and the quality of its employees .

"Really, we have great employees," Mark Sweeney said. "I can't praise them enough."

Today's heavy equipment is increasingly efficient and effective, he said. The downside is that mechanics need more training.

"Our people here have worked hard to stay on top of that. They've done it, and we appreciate it," he said.

Larry Sweeney said he and other company officials are optimistic that Sweeney Bros. Tractor will continue to thrive.

"What we've always tried to do is this business is sell good products and then provide good service," he said. "It's been successful. We don't think that will change."