Three-Generation Kansas Construction Firm Credits 20 Aircraft with Fueling Six-State Growth

Berry Companies, a construction and industrial equipment distributor headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, now operates 31 locations across six Midwest states. Chairman emeritus Fred Berry, who founded the company in 1957, credits the firm's aircraft with fueling that growth, saying "We've always had an airplane — 20 in all over the years. We would not have grown as much or have been as successful without aircraft."

Fred Berry soloed in a seaplane in 1945 and later earned instrument and multi-engine ratings. The company's first aircraft was a 1948 Cessna 170, acquired at a predecessor company in St. Louis. Over the decades Berry Companies has owned 20 aircraft in total, with its current aircraft being a Cessna Citation Mustang, the company's first jet. Fred Berry's son, Walter Berry, is now president and chief pilot, having flown since high school.

The company employs approximately 600 people spread across a roughly 600-mile sales territory. With the Citation Mustang, typical flights run under two hours. Berry Companies has established or acquired seven companies over the years, dealing in brands including Bobcat, Yale, and Komatsu equipment. Walter Berry said aircraft were directly tied to geographic expansion, including an early move into Colorado: "We went into Colorado early because we could see the growth potential of that state. That would have been very difficult and expensive without an aircraft."

This is a case of a privately held distributor treating aircraft ownership as an operating tool rather than a perk, tying fleet decisions directly to sales-territory geography and acquisition timing. Across a roughly 600-mile territory with about 600 employees, commercial air travel and long highway drives are both impractical, so the company's own aircraft compress travel to under two hours between locations.

In distribution and multi-site industrial businesses, this kind of internal air link often determines which states get entered early and which wait, since travel time and cost shape how quickly management can support a new location. Berry Companies points to its early entry into Colorado as a direct result of aircraft access, ahead of what ground travel or commercial routes would have allowed.

The company's progression from a 1948 Cessna 170 to a Citation Mustang, its first jet, also traces how aircraft needs shift as a distributor adds locations and brands. Whether further fleet upgrades follow additional geographic expansion, or whether the current jet stays sized to the present six-state footprint, will depend on how much further the company's territory grows.