Crown Equipment, one of the world’s leading lift truck manufacturers, today announced the winners of its annual Summit Awards recognition program that honors Crown’s top manufacturer-owned branches and independent dealers for excellence in sales and customer satisfaction. This year, 12 winners were chosen from Crown’s nationwide network of more than 100 branches and dealers.

Crown Lift Trucks of Dayton, Ohio, and NorthWest Handling Systems of Portland, Ore., were named the top Crown branch and dealer, respectively, for 2008. Both earned the prestigious James F. Dicke Pioneer Award.

Crown Dayton opened in 1975 and has won seven previous Pioneer Awards. This is the first time NorthWest Handling Systems of Portland has won the Pioneer Award after earning a Summit Award four previous times in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2007.

“This year’s winners excelled in a variety of categories, including overall sales growth, operational efficiency and, most importantly, outstanding customer service,” said Crown Senior Vice President Jim Moran. “The theme that unifies these winners is their ability to deliver value to customers above and beyond the value of our products.”

Summit Award Winners
The Summit Award recognizes top-performing branches and dealers.

Crown also recognized branches and dealers that
performed well and continue to move toward the summit.

These branches received an Ascent Award:

This is the 14th year Crown has recognized exceptional members of its retail network with the Summit and Ascent Awards. Moran says the program encourages first-class performance and helps Crown identify and spread best practices within its retail network.

About Crown Equipment Corporation

Crown is the number one brand of electric lift trucks in the United States and the seventh largest lift truck manufacturer in the world. Crown’s award-winning line of lift trucks has earned a reputation for exceptional product design, engineering and manufacturing. From the smallest hand pallet truck to the highest lifting turret truck, Crown seeks to provide users with safe, efficient and ergonomic lift trucks that lower total cost of ownership and maximize uptime. Headquartered in New Bremen, Ohio, Crown manufactures lift trucks that are sold throughout the world.