About

Peter Howard  

Director

Howards Equipment Director, Peter Howard, started his career with the Victorian Caterpillar dealer in January 1984 as an Apprentice Diesel Mechanic. Peter Won the Apprentice of the year in 1987. He worked as a Field Serviceman on many interesting jobs including installation of the backup power Generators at Melbourne Police headquarters in St. Kilda Road, Overhauling 16 cylinder D399 Cat Gen set engines on board the Nauruan Vessels docked in Melbourne, Various repair jobs on the engines atop of the city skyline cranes, engine repairs onboard fishing boats out of Geelong port, and of course the nicest of jobs being repairs of Rubbish Compactors at the bottom of Melbourne Rubbish tips in the middle of the night!! 

He was then offered a job as the Product Support Representative for the Melbourne and Geelong area in 1989. This included direct onsite discussions with customers relating to their upcoming service department requirements and managing the repairs through the dealership workshop. Peter’s background in mechanics helped him keep customer satisfaction at a high level.

Several years later Peter applied, and was excepted, for his next role as New and used Sales Representative for the Construction line of Cat equipment for the Northern part of Melbourne, Bendigo and Seymour areas. At this time Caterpillar had purchased part of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Japan which saw the new lines of Excavators arriving into stock not being of the usual Cat standard and created many issues for clients especially in the northern part of Melbourne. Luckily, he still had the Dozer, Grader, Motor Scraper, Compactor and Backhoe line to sell and they were exceptional machines!

During 1993 Peter decided to “Give it a go on his own” and resigned from the Cat dealer in October 1993. He started Howards Equipment Pty Ltd and immediately started travelling locally to locate, purchase and sell equipment, the first two purchases were soon made being a Cat D6C Dozer and a Cat 613A Motor Scraper, neither were even fitted with Cabins let alone air conditioners! Peter could see the need, in the Australian market, for lower hour later model machines so he then ventured to many overseas country’s to procure better quality used equipment that was currently available.

Fast forward to over thirty years later and Peter is still supplying many repeat and new customers with the quality equipment that clients have grown to expect from Howards Equipment. His workshop, near the town of Kilmore, north or Melbourne, turns out some of the best quality used equipment at fair prices that you could find across Australia.