July 25, 2007 • Volvo Construction Equipment North America, Asheville, N.C., announced it has purchased approximately 81 acres of land to build a new customer center, which will include a 20,000-square-foot training and event facility for Volvo CE dealers and customers and a 25-acre demonstration area that will be landscaped for jobsite simulation.
According to Dan Snedecor, manager of sales training for Volvo CE North America, the new facility will combine technical and sales training with customer and company dealer visits, as well as large scale events like the company's Volvo Days. Ground-breaking of the new site is scheduled for January 2008, and it is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Presently, the company's training and equipment demonstrations are conducted at its sales and marketing headquarters in Asheville and demonstration center near Weaverville, which was developed in 1991. Several thousand equipment operators/students have been trained annually at the facilities. As many as 3,000 students are expected to be trained each year at the new complex, and customer and dealer visits will most likely reach more than 1,000 per year as the company's construction equipment business grows.
The new customer center is Volvo's second major expansion in the last 12 months. In June 2006, the company announced a $25 to $50 million expansion of its manufacturing facility in Asheville to build excavators and excavator and wheel loader cabs. In addition to expansions in Asheville, the company recently acquired the road machinery division of Ingersoll Rand, and North American sales and marketing of the road machinery products will be conducted from the Asheville offices.
