Fabick CAT Breaks Ground for Major Expansion

Company leadership and staff members of Fabick CAT, the Fenton-based Caterpillar light and heavy construction equipment dealer at #1 Fabick Drive, wielded shovels and ceremonially broke ground Monday for a major expansion to its business.

The expansion is a new Customer Engagement Center, a place where Fabick employees will be able to interact with customers and conduct all aspects of the Fabick business. It is expected to be completed this fall.

Fabick CAT employees were joined by local business, community and government leaders for the soggy groundbreaking event. A light rain kept the grounds muddy, but Fenton Mayor Dennis Hancock looked for the silver lining.

"Any day that we get to break ground for an expansion of a business in Fenton is a beautiful day," Hancock said.

Doug Fabick, president of Fabick CAT and great grandson of the company's founder, John Fabick Sr. said the new customer engagement center would be an instrumental resource for the company and for the businesses that it deals with.

When it's finished, the center will have seven to 10 corporate offices, a conference room, a balcony, a new merchandise store, a condition monitoring area, a machine oil testing lab, and the a new Fabick TV production room, according to Mike Pospischil Fabick CAT general manager.

Fabick CAT has a long history in Fenton, dating back to 1917 when John Fabick Sr. founded the company with three employees and a small store that merchandised Cletrac Crawler tractors and John Deere farm implements. The company has more than 600 employees now, many of whom work at the sprawling Fenton campus. In 1925 Fabick began an association with Caterpillar Inc., the dominant manufacturer of construction machinery, an association that continues to thrive today.

One other thing has remained constant since the company's founding 95 years ago, the company's credo: "To ever serve our customer better."

The new Customer Engagement Center may have gotten off to a wet start, but the rain didn't dampen the enthusiasm of the Fabick CAT employees and guests who donned special hard hats and used shiny shovels to mark the next phase of Fabick CAT's long history in Fenton.