Daniel Busby with wife Karah
Willard Power Vac has been in business in the greater Portland, Oregon area since 1975. Founded by Dan Willard, the company has been family owned and operated from the beginning. Daniel Busby became part of the family when he married Dan’s daughter Karah. Busby is now Operations Manager with Willards and is scheduled to take over the business when Dan retires. Willards currently has 7 employees. They run four vacuum trucks and two portable units. In 2013 they purchased their first American Caddy Vac.
Daniel remembers that purchase: “We purchased our first American Caddy Vac in 2013, but our interest in ACV goes back to when Mac Mattoon first started selling Caddy Vacs around 1997 and my father-in-law (Dan Willard) went to check them out. He had always used Pringle trucks and really liked them. When Pringle went out of business we kind of rebuilt our own for a while, but then we finally realized we actually needed a whole new truck. And so we did the research and it was clear that American Caddy Vac was the way to go.”
“We use our American Caddy Vac every day for residential and commercial jobs. And when we have a commercial job the ACV is our first choice, our “go-to” truck because it just has the most suction of any of our trucks.”
“We really did like the Pringles… they’re small, simple, compact, and they work great. Caddy Vac is a lot bigger so sometimes we have a bit of a problem fitting it into a driveway… but overall, it just works better. It has more suction, more storage capacity, more compartments to keep stuff in. It’s just better.”
“I do have a HyperVac also that we purchased recently. They had a new design and they sold us on it. It works to a point. It has it’s place and we use it every day – we have to. But it’s not our favorite truck to run. When I buy my next truck my goal will be to buy another American Caddy Vac. If I were to buy a new truck, I would get another Caddy Vac because, overall, the performance, the durability is there.”
“Another plus with American Caddy Vac is the customer service. We haven’t had a lot of problems, but when I had a couple of small things come up, I called Mac or Jeff there and they help us out, just… instantly! Call response is great, they know who I am, so it’s always great service. I’ve only bought the one truck from them and I know there’s guys out there who have bought 10 trucks from them. But I feel like I get the same attention and they give to those guys… that’s just the kind of guy Mac is. It’s great to work with them.”
Asked if he would recommend American Caddy Vac, Daniel said, “Yeah, but not to my competitors close by! I told Mac not to sell an American Caddy Vac to anyone close to me! But to anyone else? Sure!”
