When Bruce Bacon, co-founder of Genesis Attachments in 1997, Jim Campbell and Greg Bacon began working on a business plan, researching potential customers and the feasibility of wheeled material handlers, all three had experience in the metal recycling equipment industry.
Genesis Attachments, located on Connors Point, grew to be a world leader in manufacturing mobile shears for the metal recycling industry. But the company that had a $9 million payroll and 154 employees in 2008, had been sold a few years earlier to a publically held corporation, Dover Corp., leaving one of its founders looking for a new challenge.
This time, however, Bacon and his partners had another idea for serving the industry that made Genesis a leader -- this time they would build large machines designed for the industry.
The result was the first U.S. based manufacturer of a heavy industrial product called a trail handler, a machine similar to an excavator that's designed to move material rather than dirt.
Incorporated in April 2008, the company sold three of the machines by time its headquarters on Connors Point was completed. The first machines were delivered to customers in September 2009.
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Since then, additional machines were delivered to customers in St. Louis, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, with new lines in varying sizes still in the works.
