HATFIELD — Working from a foundation laid down by the business it bought at 4 Linseed Road last year, Harrison Diesel Solutions is building a name for itself in the field of heavy equipment maintenance.

Husband and wife Drew and Ashley Harrison began their business out of their home in Hawley in 2019. Drew had worked 11 years at G&S Industrial on Linseed Road, half of that time as shop foreman, and after a couple of years working for engine manufacturer Cummins, he decided he was ready to go into business for himself.

One day in 2022, when he and his family were on vacation, they got word that G&S owners Gary and Mary Savard were selling the business after 40 years. He called them up, and they took the listing down right away.

Gary Savard said he and his wife were getting ready to retire and were happy to assist in the changeover.

Unfortunately, changes in the economy and the banking climate in the year and a half it took to complete the transaction made it an arduous process.

“September was the closing,” Savard said. “It was pretty rocky getting there. We had to bend a lot to help them get there, but they got it done.”

Banks were getting nervous, and they don’t like financing new businesses anyway, he said.

G&S is still in business for new truck and equipment sales, and Savard said he still has his office there.

Harrison, meanwhile, has beefed up its repair business, adding a mobile division, and offers around-the-clock repairs to its customers, in-house or wherever they are.

The company saw an opportunity a few weeks back when parts supplier FleetPride shut down its South Deerfield store. Harrison immediately offered FleetPride’s parts guy a job and is making room in its basement storage space for new inventory.

“When people need things they used to get from FleetPride, we’ll have it,” Drew Harrison said.

Engine rebuilds are a significant part of the business for Harrison and its 19 employees, nine of them technicians. Trucks and a loader filled the six double bays in the garage on a recent morning.

Harrison said he was drawn to the field because he found diesel engines fascinating. There are no spark plugs with a diesel engine; the combustion is caused instead by compression.

“I couldn’t wrap my head around how that worked,” he said.

He acknowledged that diesel is problematic in terms of its emissions, especially particulates and nitrogen oxides, but its power-to-weight ratio surpasses anything available at present.

“It’s not going away yet,” he said.

Manufacturers are working to develop electric and hybrid trucks, and he expects that a tipping point will come in 10 years or so when diesel engines will start to be phased out.

Harrison is an authorized dealer for Jerr-Dan, as was G&S previously, and has a contract with AAA to refurbish its tow trucks and wreckers.

The business has three service trucks on the road at present and is aiming to increase that number to six. Sometimes emergency calls come in. The Ashfield highway crew called them during a recent snowstorm when a truck broke down.

Independent truck repair shops are something of a vanishing breed, Harrison said; “megadealers” like Allegiance are buying them all up.

“There’s not a lot of mom-and-pop heavy-duty repair shops out there,” he said.

But, with a strong foundation and plans for growth, Harrison is well placed to buck the trend.

James Pentland can be reached at jpentland@gazettenet.com.