President’s Message Change and Challenge

We’ve begun a new year and as always, opportunities and obstacles lie in front of us. I just returned

from an industry summit in California that included members of CFESA, FEDA and NAFEM. It’s clear that

our company as well as our industry is facing significant changes as well as challenges. Industry consoli-

dations, increasing customer demands, shrinking margins will all be front and center this year and going

forward. Maybe even more so than in the past.

We held our company wide branch manager meeting in February, and by all accounts, it was a very

productive and successful meeting. At that meeting, our managers were presented with a summary of

our business plan and a new corporate organizational chart contained within it. Both are now posted on

the GP Intranet site for all to review. We continue to make progress on the action items contained in

the plan and we have begun filling some of the critical staff positions that we identified.

In early March I made a presentation to our stockholders, and they were pleased with what we accom-

plished in 2017. We had a strong year and established a solid foundation upon which to build. This year,

we want to continue exploring expansion and growth opportunities, while at the same time focusing

our attention on improving our service performance across all branches.

I’ll conclude with a quote that I refer to often to help me stay focused. I hope it will do the same for you.

“Different isn’t always better, but better is always different”

Unknown Author

Bruce Hodge

President’s Message 1

Charity Begins at Home 1

Show Time at the RFMA

Conference 2

Employee Profile –

Joe Tischer 2

Spot Light on Duke 3

Second Texas GP Location

Opens! 3

Employee Milestone

Anniversaries 4

April 2018

Inside this issue:

Charity Begins at Home We have closed out 2017 and it was a great year. We met or surpassed most of the goals we established at the beginning of the year. The end

of each year is also the perfect time to reflect on more than just financial performance. There are many ways to measure or define a successful

business. One such measurement involves how we fit within our local communities. To this end, General Parts is proud to share our 2017 suc-

cess with our friends and neighbors.

Since 2006, General Parts has donated over $1.6 million dollars to worthy causes, at both the

local and corporate levels. But it not just about the money. Aside from company contribu-

tions, our employees in all locations provide needed support to local charities through food

drives, winter coat programs, family sponsorship during the holiday season, and countless

other activities. Most important of all, they give their time to help improve the lives of others.

Thank you all for making General Parts a valued corporate citizen.

Show Time at the RFMA Conference Yes, the RFMA (Restaurant Facilities Maintenance Association) conference has come and gone again, and as always General Parts was there to

support the association, meet prospective customers and catch up with existing ones. The conference has grown to become an industry essen-

tial event for many of Americas biggest restaurant chains and is now in its thirteenth year. General Parts is proud to have been there from the

beginning having attended every conference. Once again General Parts was a gold sponsor of the event ensuring that we were promoted not

just on the trade show floor but at all events and in all public spaces.

This year the event was held for the first time at the Phoenix Convention center just six miles from our Phoenix branch. The sales team also

took advantage of having a branch close by, and offered free transport to the branch for attendees who wished to tour our facility.

The conference was attended by our regional sales managers, JR Weber, Dean Wayne and Michael Brown who joined many of the networking

events as well as having staffed our newly redesigned trade show booth. So, what’s it like to work a trade show? Well, long days and sore feet

are certainly a feature, but it is more than worth it to be able to network on such a large scale. One of the great features of the RFMA confer-

ence is an event called Express Exchange, this allows vendors to

quickly meet potential customers one after another, think speed

dating for business! This year both Dean and Michael attended the

Express Exchange with the aim of collecting as many prospects as

possible in the allotted time. In addition to this, the team networked

further by attending educational sessions, participating in committee

meetings and during trade show

hours used the booth to demonstrate

both our new eCommerce website as

well as our online management data

capabilities. Phew!

We are already looking forward to

2019 where the event will be held in

Austin, Texas.

Page 2

Employee Profile Joe Tischer - Parts Specialist

In this edition of Generally Speaking we get to know Parts Specialist, Joe Tischer. Located in our Milwaukee office, Joe has

worked for General Parts since 2010 having been recommended to interview with the company through friend and ex-

isting employee Mike Strege. Joe originally worked for the Milwaukee branch but upon the opening of the Distribution

Center in 2013, transferred and became one of the original team put in place to support our GP-PartsDirect customers.

Joe has worked within the parts supply world for several industries and puts the enjoyment of his role down to the fact that he has a great

memory for parts, a skill he is pleased to put to good use whether it be in servicing his customers or supporting colleagues. Joe is also the ac-

count manager for one of GP-PartsDirects biggest customers for which he processes over 600 orders per month.

In his leisure time Joe enjoys athletic activities including Softball, Basketball and Golf all of which he plays, weather permitting. Enjoying these

activities runs in the family as Joe also coaches Kaelyn, his eight-year-old daughter’s New Berlin Base-

ball and Basketball teams. Proud to come from New Berlin Joe bought a house back in his home town

in 2017 to be closer to family.

Now, for the eagle eyed of you out there, you may notice from the picture in this article that Joe is also

one on the faces of General Parts. Joe has been featured in numerous places including Facebook, the

RFMA Facilitator magazine, company brochures and even on our trade show booth. Thank you for the

support Joe, I bet you never thought your role would involve modeling!

Manufacturer Spot Light— Duke Manufacturing Our feature manufacturer in this edition of Generally Speaking is Duke Manufacturing. Founded in 1925 by M.P.

Duke in St. Louis Missouri, the company has developed into a global foodservice equipment manufacturer. The

original Duke building was located where the famous St. Louis Gateway Arch now stands, however after only two

years the company needed more space and relocated to a larger facility just two miles away.

Originally known for its waterless hot wells, the company has evolved from serving line systems into the manufacture of Convection Ovens,

Holding and Preparation Equipment. In November 2010 Duke purchased SteelKor, another St. Louis manufacturer of Ware-Washing equip-

ment. Today Duke produces over 20 product lines with over 4,500 SKU’s in three separate facilities, two of the plants are located in St. Louis,

and the newest state of the art facility, is located in Sedalia, MO. Combined, Duke boasts over, 700,000 square feet of domestic manufacturing

space supporting needs of its global sales network, which spans the USA, Canada, Europe, Asia and Latin America.

For over 50 years, General Parts has been an Authorized Service Agency and parts Distributor for Duke. Today, the

relationship is stronger than ever. Duke is one of the easiest manufacturers to work with when it comes to providing

our mutual customers with the replacement parts and emergency services that they require. Our company cultures

just seem to mesh well together. In recent months, General Parts established a branch office in St. Louis, located just

16 miles from Duke’s main office. Already, we have begun partnering on projects locally.

Having done some online research, our readers may be interested to learn that Duke manufactured galley equipment

for the Navy during World War II. The Navy was so pleased with Duke’s product that they were awarded the Army-

Navy E which stands for ‘excellence in production’. The award was created by Theodore Roosevelt’s administration

and less than 4% of companies engaged in war work received this honor. Clearly this excellence mentality continues

as Duke maintains its commitment to quality through its ISO 9001 certification.

Page 3

Second Texas GP Location Opens It is always good to be needed! With the encouragement and support of some of our majors manufacturing partners we have launched our

second Texas location in Houston. Our management and sales teams have been hard at work developing the branch which is now fully opera-

tional. The branch is located at 3428 Yale Street, conveniently close to Houston’s major road networks. The entire metro Houston market will

be serviced as well as the counties of Brazoria, Galveston, Chambers, Liberty, Harris, Fort Bend, Waller and Montgomery.

Houston one of the largest metropolitan areas in the USA and

the second largest in Texas with a population of 6.5 million peo-

ple. The saying goes that everything in Texas is bigger, well ac-

cording to Visit Houston there are over 10,000 restaurants in the

metro area and Houstonians dine out more than residents of any

other city. Boy oh boy, are we going to be busy.

About General Parts Group General Parts Group is a provider of food service equipment repair services. Founded in 1939, the company has grown to be distributer of

O.E.M. parts and provides service for over 60,000 customers and 400 manufacturers of commercial foodservice equipment. Company head-

quarters are located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and with major branch operations strategically located in Arizona (3), Colorado, Florida, Idaho (2),

Illinois, Indiana (2), Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri (2), Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma (2), Oregon (2), Tennessee, Texas(2) and Wisconsin. (2)

General Parts Group is ideally positioned to provide Quality Service for over one third of the United States. Viewed as the market leader in the

majority of the markets served and in terms of overall sales, General Parts Group ranks in the top five of independent service companies na-

tionally.

Page 4

Employee Anniversaries and a

Welcome to New Colleagues

Get Involved With This Newsletter

Want to share news about your department, location or recent branch event? Contributions, photographs and suggestions are welcome. Send

to news@generalparts.com. Thank you.

Anniversaries

30 Years

Jean Hodge, Milwaukee

25 Years

Hank Dembosz, Chicago

15 Years

John Schultz, Bloomington

10 Years

Mike Wisneski, Bloomington

Joe Anderson, Bloomington

5 Years

Doug Becker, Phoenix

Rick Fehring, Chicago

Marlon Orr, Memphis

Ross Estes, Memphis

Dan Matthiessen, Chicago

John Wallin, Bloomington

New Colleagues

Jeff Anderson, Boise

Mark Johnson, Oklahoma City

Kayvious Green, Phoenix

Jim Stahl, Waukesha

Jonathan Lyons, Portland

Alan Lemke, Portland

Abel Rosado, Fort Wayne

Derek Collier, Fargo

Dale Poisson, GP Parts Direct

Tory Schlender, Waukesha

Harry Blaisdell, Waukesha

Kathy Payne, Louisville

Courtney Sutton, Fort Wayne

Karisa McLeod-Dixon, Kansas City

Johnny Cypher, Fort Wayne

Aaron Gonzalez, Yuma

Rachel Amundson, Bloomington

Chris Maxwell, Tulsa

Mechell Jones-Galloway, Houston

Vince Underwood, GP Parts Direct

Tony Carroll, Phoenix

Andy Theis, Phoenix

Tabitha Christman, Denver

David Goins, Pensacola

Jerry House, Tulsa

Sean Landry, Chicago

Brian McConnell, Portland

Robert Denniston, Louisville