Spring 08

There have been numerous events since my last report which has more than kept the senior management at Hammer rather busy. I will give a very brief outline of what we have done and what the result means to you, our customer.

As most of you know, Hammer was the Case construction equipment dealer for most of Alberta with the exception of a strip south of Calgary to the U.S. border. This strip was assigned to Lethbridge-based Case and Case IH dealer, Hi-Way Service with 7 full service facilities.  The long and the short of it is that we have concurrently merged with Hi-way Service and taken the merged entity public under the name Rocky Mountain Dealerships Inc., trading on the Toronto stock exchange under the symbol RME.  Please go to the Rocky Mountain web site at www.rockymtn.com. 

This combined entity has 13 full service equipment locations from the very south of the province in Lethbridge/Medicine Hat to the northern stores in Fort McMurray/Grand Prairie and all points in between.  Our management team has the same familiar faces with myself as C.E.O., Derek Stimson, the owner of Hi-Way, is the President, Brian Taschuk, the former President of Hammer, is the COO and Garrett Ganden is CFO.  What does this do for you the customer? Simply speaking it gives you continuity of service throughout the province, so no matter where you work you can count on full service and support for the brands we sell. With thirteen full service locations we will have the most full service facilities in the province  providing sales, parts and service on a 24/7 basis to our customers.

The process of going public was long, consuming, and expensive but in the end will give a broader reach in our support capabilities, financial abilities, and staff retention and it will enable us to serve you better. We look forward to our new life as a public company and hope we can add value to all our services, to you our customer, and at the same time, add value to our shareholders. If you have any questions with respect to this as a customer or a shareholder do not hesitate to call me.
 
Alberta concluded the provincial election with the Conservatives re-establishing firm control of the political agenda for the next several years. Like it or not, it will provide certainty, predictability and generally, a consistent direction which is fairly familiar for the future. Clearly, the huge majority given to the Conservatives indicates that people are fairly content with the direction expressed and generally happy with their personal circumstances. With oil seeming on a path to consistent triple digit prices, gas finally out of the doghouse and public support for continued heavy infrastructure investment, I see busy times ahead for our industry. The one major issue that looks like it will stay with us for as long as we are in the business is the shortage of labor. With drilling likely to pick up this fall, continued oil sands spending, and likely no help from immigration, I cannot see any improvement in the help situation for a long time. Slowly, we may get some relief as the shortage of help drives wages up and when we finally get them to where they should be (try $60. per hour) for a tradesman working in the major cities (never mind the camps) we may start to attract some young guys into the business. Until that time, there is no hope of attracting people into this business. This industry must get its wage rates up to a level that will attract young people into the business, until that happens we will continue to struggle. 

Equipment is easier to get this year, unless you are in agriculture.  We are booking orders for 09 delivery right now.  There is still a lot of work in Alberta, the good operators are making great money and the poor ones are still going broke.

New at Hammer: Our full line of agricultural equipment for the contractor, quad tracs, tractors for pulling wobblies, pull scrapers etc., view the Hi-Way web site at  http://www.hiwayservice.com/ and review our full lineup of Case IH equipment. 
Have a great summer, work safely.

M.C. (Matt) Campbell - C.E.O.
Direct:  403-214-5636  Main:  403-243-8600
Cell:     403-619-1814   Fax:   403-243-2264