Matt Rees - Great Northern Equipment

Matt Rees, owner of Great Northern Equipment, an equipment dealer based in Spokane. Which has placed ads in the Exchange every week for over 20 years! He remembers the days when he came down to the office, hand wrote the ad, and then handed over a picture which was scanned in. Nowadays everything is online & emailed!

He got started in the logging industry from a very young age and was always around equipment, & started buying & selling logging equipment around 1993, and eventually started the company Great Northern Equipment in 2014. Matt is very proud to have supported the timber industry since 1993.

Today, the company is very well versed in all types of equipment, and Matt buys from private sellers all over the Inland Northwest and even Canada, he says he brings in about 50% of his equipment from Canada. He also gets equipment from dealership trades, company buyouts if someone is retiring & also at auctions.

Matt says one of the most challenging parts of the business is financing, there are about a half dozen companies that specialize in Equipment financing nationally. But a lot of the time, a private buyer already has their own financing figured out from their local bank.

Used equipment really holds its value, sometimes a piece of equipment can increase in value year to year based on the industry & supply and demand. Finding parts to repair equipment can also be challenging, parts are in high demand and often there’s a wait time of over 6 weeks.

You can read Matt’s ads in all editions of the Exchange every week, as well as on his website, GreatNorthernEquip.com If you’re looking for a piece of equipment, give him a call, 509-535-4427.

Meet The Exceptional: Shelby Palmer

Shelby Palmer, an EWU Design Alum, has been a Graphic Designer for The Exchange since September 2022, and has grown to love the publishing industry. Shelby has 2 design degrees, an Associates in Applied Science in Digital Design and a Bachelors in Visual Communication Design.

At the Exchange, Shelby wears many hats, including ad design, page layout, web design, social media, email marketing, website maintenance & more! Whenever there is a challenge or an opportunity to learn, Shelby eagerly steps up and handles any problems and creates a better workflow. Recently, Shelby was nominated and received the Rising Star Leadership Scholarship through the National Association of Community Publishers. As a Rising Star she attended the ACP Conference in Norfolk, Virginia, this spring, where she got a chance to network with other industry professionals from across North America and engage in discussions for the future.

Shelby also had the opportunity last year to travel to Amsterdam & attend the Digital Marketplace Association’s Annual Fall conference. This conference was a full leap into the world of AI, marketplaces and what it looks like to be an industry leader. While learning about where the world of marketplaces is going, she got to explore windmills, clogs & Dutch cheese.

The Exchange is thrilled to have a bright talented star who has mighty dreams of expanding the Exchange even farther west especially towards the TriCities/ Yakima area where she was raised. Meanwhile Shelby plans to fine tune her talents here at the Exchange, and enjoy her home with her husband Travis and dog Arnold.