SOUTH DUNDAS – Lloyd McMillan Equipment Ltd. is about to celebrate a golden anniversary, a milestone achieved by the company’s namesake simply working away every day at meeting the excavating and heavy equipment needs of the community where he was born and raised.
Lloyd McMillan got his start in the contracting business working for Gibb Strader.
“I worked for Gibb Strader for 11 years and then I bought the business from him,” Lloyd McMillan told The Leader.
Lloyd McMillan Equipment started out with a dump truck, a bulldozer and a backhoe. “I had one employee – Steve Strader,” he recalled.
His late wife Betty was also there from the beginning. “My wife, she’s the one who helped me build the business up,” said Lloyd. “She worked with me every day.”
Lloyd McMillan Equipment was based from the family’s Kelly Road farm in the former Matilda Township, until about 1990 when the Carman Road Iroquois location was built.
“Mom worked right here until she couldn’t anymore. She put a lot of time in here,” said Troy McMillan, Lloyd’s son who is an owner and started working with his father about 25 years ago.
As the company prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary with the community, they are now significantly larger than their humble beginnings. They now have six excavators, three mini-excavators, six dump trucks, two highway tractors, two bulldozers, for backhoes and tractors.
They now have 18 employees in summer and scale back to eight in winter doing snow removal.
Lloyd said that they got bigger because they had to in order to be able to handle the larger jobs.
Troy said that he is quite serious about keeping the next generation of this business going. “I feel like I’ve helped grow it,” he said, adding that this is all he’s ever done.
“I’m glad to see somebody taking my name over and keeping the business going,” said Lloyd.
The plan for the future, for Troy, is just to keep working away, every day, a strategy that has served them well for the first 50 years.
“I like working in this community,” said Troy.
“I’d like to stay status quo for a while and keep our employees happy and working,” he added.
From day-one this community has been good to Lloyd McMillan Equipment. “We have the same customers now that we’ve had forever,” said Lloyd, adding that some of his customers and generational. He credits that with just getting along with people.
“We pretty much do all of our business here in this community,” said Troy. It’s fitting that the anniversary celebration will be a community event. The community is invited to an open house and barbecue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Lloyd McMillan Equipment Ltd. on May 2, from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m “Everyone is welcome,” said Troy.
Discover more from Morrisburg Leader
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.