Joe Hensler is winding down his 31-year run in the forklift business.

His sale of Team Power Clarklift-West Inc to Pacific Material Handling Solutions Inc was disclosed on 31 July.

In 1978, Hensler responded in October to a Chicago Tribune help-wanted advertisement for a forklift salesman and he took an initial position in customer service sales with a prominent forklift dealership on Chicago's South Side.

Subsequently, he moved into the sales arena and became sales manager in January 1985.

But he felt capable of doing more.

Hensler encountered an opportunity and, in October 1987, acquired Clarklift-West Inc in Sacramento and eventually added four other locations in northern California.

The company adopted the Team Power trading identity in January 1989 but legally remained Clarklift-West.

The broader identity was helpful as Hensler added representation for Doosan and Linde in most Team Power locations and Mitsubishi in one site in the San Francisco Bay area.

While selling all of his forklift assets last month, Hensler retains the Redding-region Shasta Lake, California location, which deals with agricultural tractors from Deere & Co of Moline, Illinois and Kubota Tractor Corp of Torrance, California. The tractor business accounted for less than 10% of total Team Power sales, says Hensler, who anticipates having 10 employees.

Hensler has been active and articulate in addressing forklift-related environmental issues before the California Air Resources Board. The regulatory agency has sought tighter emission standards including those for off-road large spark ignition engines such as the power sources in many forklifts. Hensler and others in the materials handling industry have negotiated with the agency for some concessions in applying the tougher emission standards.

Commenting about his future, Hensler observes "there comes a time to move on".

In addition to operating the tractor business, he plans to pay more attention to his interests in restoring automobiles and traveling.