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Direct Forklift owner sees expansion in future
By Karl Henkel
NEW MIDDLETOWN
Carl Stitzel was 22 when he decided to start his own forklift company.
The lifelong Mahoning Valley resident had $350 to his name and wasn’t quite sure how his endeavor would play out.
“I bought a telephone, a desk, and I went in my grandparents’ attic and was on the phone brokering parts,” Stitzel said. “At 22, I don’t know if it was confidence or stupidity.”
Stitzel didn’t go in blind. His father had owned a forklift company for more than two decades, a place where Stitzel grew up and worked until he branched off and began his own company, which he ran for 18 years before taking a six-month hiatus when he worked in the mortgage business.
When the housing market crashed, he decided it was time to go back to forklifts, and he set up shop at his new location on Middletown Road and state Route 170.
He chose the New Middletown lot, identifiable by a large white “Direct Forklift” driveway sign and dark-brown mobile office, because of its proximity to the Valley, East Liverpool and western Pennsylvania. Direct Forklift officially opened at the end of 2010 and has experienced immediate success.
In fact, business to the west has been so promising, Stitzel anticipates expanding if business continues to prosper. He also expects his work force to double from its current eight employees within the next year; he’s currently looking to hire a couple of service technicians.
Stitzel said he felt the need for the forklift company, which sells, leases and services forklifts, because of a lack of a local company in the Mahoning Valley.
“There are corporate companies in town, but they’re not locally owned,” said Tony Orlando, a sales representative at Direct Forklift. “It’s kind of like the local hardware store versus Lowe’s or Home Depot.”
The company, for the time being, offers used forklifts ranging in price from $2,000 to $20,000, but Stitzel is working on getting a line of new forklifts in the $20,000 range.
“I think that will open the doors up to a lot of new, larger companies,” he said. “Because those that have pulled through the recession are coming out stronger.”