Hackney’s inside display area was overwhelmed with visitors all three days.
All staff members were scrambling to answer questions and set up follow-up visits.

FDIC 2008 Huge Success for Hackney

Indianapolis - April 10, 11, 12 – FDIC 2008 set all-time attendance records this year. Hackney had four vehicles on display. The two inside space vehicles were a Heavy Rescue and a Command and Control Vehicle. Sitting the on the Maryland Street sidewalk was a Heavy Light Rescue and the ATTV (all-terrain tracked vehicle).

“We were very pleased with the quality of attendees this year,” says Ed Smith, Director of Sales and Marketing. “The industry has been somewhat concerned about governmental budget cuts over the past several months. Although this is still a concern for the fire apparatus industry in general, the interest we garnered during the FDIC show was very encouraging.” Overall attendance was reported at over 28,500, blowing away previous year records. Many experts believe the primary reason for the continued success of the FDIC is that it has become recognized as the venue where new products are debuted and where you will see products not generally available at most of the other fire service venues, not to mention the high caliber of educational opportunities made available to all levels of fire department related services.

“The tone of the attendees was very upbeat this year,” according to Ed Smith. “Everyone seems to recognize that, although there are certainly budget constraints in larger municipalities, providing quality emergency response to its citizens means quality, dependable apparatus must be on the streets.”

Not only did the Hackney vehicles on display show well aesthetically, but visitor after visitor commented on the overall practical aspects of the innovations shown on the vehicles. These innovations spoke for themselves and continues to drive Hackney as the respected leader in emergency vehicle innovations.

Recognized Hackney innovations drove many visitors to the Hackney vehicles on display, such as the pneumatic step platforms, recessed shelf tracks and recessed LED compartment lighting shown above.

By far the most talked about feature on the heavy rescue was the fold-down step platforms. Hackney says that they were overwhelmed with request to sell this unique and practical feature for retrofitting on existing apparatus. Brian Bingaman, Hackney’s Mid-West Regional Manager, says “departments are transporting so much equipment today that accessing it safely and easily has become a major problem. Hackney has solved that with this simple to deploy and relatively inexpensive option. It was exciting to listen to so many people compliment our company on how we continue to solve these types of issues.” Another point of interest was the alliance with Future Concepts, a pioneer in interoperability command and control systems called Antares X. Antares is now the standard system used in southern California for Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernandino Counties and soon to be implemented in other surrounding counties. It was set up in the Hackney Commander vehicle and was running live from Los Angeles during the show.

Hackney met with all their Dealer principals at a dinner on Thursday evening to discuss exciting opportunities in coming months. Mike Tucker, CEO of VT SVC, the parent company of Hackney, presented the strong financial stability of the company and its commitment to insure that Hackney stays in the forefront of product innovation moving forward through increased engineering and manufacturing resources.

Watch for exciting announcements from Hackney in the coming months. They are poised to become the premiere specialty vehicle manufacturer within the fire apparatus arena.

Contributed by Shelley Selby