Yoder & Frey, a heavy equipment auction company, hired Mike Thurston as senior vice president for the United States and Jeff Schatz as sales manager for Florida and the Eastern Seaboard.
Thurston will concentrate on expanding Yoder & Frey’s business across the United States. Thurston has a background in auctions and finance, as well as in funding large assets in the construction and machinery sector.
“I had always known of Yoder & Frey, as over 50 years ago they pretty much put the modern-day parade and ramp style auction on the map. I had always worked around them in the industry and then my brother joined the company. Following a chance meeting with Jonnie Keys five years ago, as his business, Euro Auctions, acquired Yoder & Frey, they were always on my radar. Jonnie and I kept in touch and then in late 2022 we had a conversation and here I am,” Thurston said. “Euro Auctions is still a family business run by the Keys brothers from Northern Ireland. It is Europe’s No. 1 and has an enviable global reputation. I was always impressed with the Keys family and the world class auction business that [they] have built in Europe and beyond. With sites in Northern Ireland, England, Spain, Germany, the Middle East and Australia, the brothers now want to accelerate the development of the business in the U.S. through the Yoder & Frey brand, and that’s what I have been brought on board to do.
“Yoder & Frey, as part of the global Euro Auctions family, the businesses foster the same values that I have had all my working life. Take care of the customer, take care of the teams, attract the best people, and the business will take care of itself. We are going to drive the Yoder & Frey brand, and whilst we are a U.S. company based in the U.S., we are part of an amazing global business which is successful, financially secure and probably the largest wholly privately owned auction house in the world. We’re going to build on the brand and drive it across the U.S., from coast to coast.”
Schatz joined Yoder & Frey from an OEM, where he was director of dealer development and responsible for building the company’s dealership network in the United States.
“I have been working with auctions for my entire career. Placing our product in key auctions across the U.S., building awareness to our brand through curiosity in our product and capitalizing on those interactions to have prospective dealership conversations. My previous role in a family owned and manged business had taken me as far as I could go and I wanted more,” Schatz said. “Yoder & Frey has great potential for development, and I want to be part of that process. As a company built on family values, the business is part of a global brand that is relatively unknown in the U.S.; however, Euro Auctions are one of the most surprising global organizations that I have had the pleasure to work with and the U.S. market knows very little about. Leading with the Yoder & Frey brand, with the backing of Euro Auctions, I shall be working to build brand awareness, looking after our customer base, whilst communicating with the market the exciting things happening in the business. I have the same ethos as Mike, which is customer focused, and I shall be focusing on developing new business relationships with dealers.”
