Hews Co LLC

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From that humble beginning in the basement of a three-story tenement at 883 Congress Street, Hews Company has grown to where today it has operations in two states, employs 50 people, and is northern New England's largest truck-equipment distributor. The business has always remained in the family. A third generation carries on now from a 28,000 square foot facility in South Portland, ME and a 7,000 square foot shop in Bow, NH. Known as "the man with the million-dollar smile", Roland Hews and his two employees quickly earned a reputation for quality auto bodywork. In addition to bodywork, they also built early van bodies, constructing them with oak frames, covered with cold-rolled steel sheets.During World War II, Roland worked in the shipyards. In 1945 he relocated to an old barn that stood near where Westgate Shopping Center is today. Claude Hews, who joined his father in business in 1946, remembered that old barn was unheated and really cold. In 1946 a 40x120 foot Quonset building was built on St. John Street. At that time the firm was concentrating on building van bodies and providing customers with a growing line of truck equipment. Hews Co. points proudly to a number of firsts: -First company in Maine to build refrigerated van bodies. -First company in Maine to sell and install over-the-road mechanical refrigerator units. -First company in New England to build all-aluminum frame truck bodies. In the 1950s Hews began expanding rapidly with distributions of a wide variety of truck equipment. In 1954 they became the sole distributor for Superior buses in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. There also were more firsts in the mid '50s: -Designed and manufactured the first all-steel pulpwood truck bodies for Great Northern Paper Co. These all-steel bodies replaced the heavier short-lived oak-framed bodies used at that time. -Introduced the telescoping hoist to make the pulp bodies self-dumping. -Designed and built the first self-loading pulpwood pallet truck bodies for