Celebrating Excellence: The 2026 Customer Awards
Every year at Evolve, I look forward to a lot of things. The conversations. The energy on the floor. Catching up with customers I have known for years and meeting teams doing incredible things with our platforms. Evolve is, at its core, a community gathering. It’s the one time of year when dealers, vendors, and the VitalEdge team are all in the same room, and you can feel the warmth of what this industry has built together. But the moment I look forward to most is the awards.
The Customer Awards were created to do something simple but important: stop and recognize the dealerships not just using our technology, but truly living it. This industry does not pause very often to celebrate itself. Everyone is too busy running operations, managing service lanes, growing rental fleets, and taking care of customers. That is exactly why this recognition matters, and why we are proud to do it in front of the whole community.
At Evolve 2026, we were proud to recognize five award categories and a group of winners that represent the very best of this industry. Here is a closer look at each one.
Growth Catalyst Award
Winners: Equipment One Company, Wade Incorporated, and M-L Holdings
This award recognizes a dealership group that has executed a transformative growth strategy, whether through acquisitions, market expansion, or organizational scaling, while maintaining operational excellence through the VitalEdge platform.
Equipment One Company has long been a pioneer in IntelliDealer adoption. They haven’t just used the platform; they’ve advocated for it, participating in webinars and trainings and sharing their experience with other dealers. This year, they added Business Intelligence and CRM to their technology stack, continuing a journey that reflects a real commitment to being at the forefront of what is possible.
Wade Incorporated brought a different kind of growth story. Their acquisition of Reynolds Farm Equipment in added five stores to their operations, bringing their total to 19 locations. What struck our team is the intentionality behind their growth. They’re going beyond adding more stores; they’re building a scalable enterprise with technology as the foundation. That is exactly the kind of growth we want to celebrate.
ML Holdings made consistent investments in their technology journey throughout 2025, and they did so during a period of economic headwinds that caused many dealers to pause. Cloud CRM upgrades across McClung Logan and Power Equipment Co., new migrations for Cherokee Truck and ML Utilities, expanded user adoption, onsite consulting and training, and new product onboarding, all guided by a clear vision of where they want to go. That kind of commitment in a tough environment speaks to leadership that understands technology is not a cost center, but a growth driver.
Excellence in Analytics Award
Winners: Sonsray and Dynamic Equipment Group
This award honors a customer that has embedded business intelligence into everyday decisions, using VitalEdge analytics for parts forecasting, technician performance, rental utilization, or financial optimization. When a dealership reaches this level of data maturity, it shows.
Sonsray was honored for advancing analytics within its Thermo King vertical, using our BI solution to enhance insight into performance, customer trends, and resource planning. Their progress over the past year reflects a meaningful commitment to building operational visibility across the organization, enabling faster, data-driven decision-making and driving measurable performance improvement.
Dynamic Equipment Group earned this recognition as an early adopter of our Business Intelligence as a Service solution for IntelliDealer. When they learned about our real-time integration and in-house management of the platform, they moved quickly. The team has made data central to how they lead the business every day, and they are building an analytics foundation to match their long-term growth ambitions.
Rental Excellence Award
Winner: Bramco
The Rental Excellence Award represents the highest standard of performance in rental operations: disciplined execution, full adoption of our software suite, and a strong, collaborative partnership with our team.
Bramco is the inaugural winner of this award, and there is no one more deserving. They are one of the top-performing rental dealerships in the IntelliDealer and Integrated Rental network. Their adoption of the Integrated Rental system, the depth of their engagement with our team, and their willingness to advocate for us in the market have made a real difference. When a dealership was evaluating partners, it was Bramco who spoke on our behalf. That kind of trust is earned, and we do not take it lightly.
Trusted Partner Award
Winners: Ahearn Equipment, RDO Equipment, and Darr Equipment
This is the award that means the most to me personally, because it is about something that cannot be manufactured: long-term belief, collaboration, and shared success.
Ahearn Equipment joined IntelliDealer as a single-location dealer over a decade ago. Today they operate three stores and three rental locations, and they have been with us through every phase of that growth. They have participated in beta testing for CRM and BI, been a resource for other dealers in the network, and brought a collaborative spirit to every part of our relationship. Jeremy and the Ahearn team are exactly the kind of partner that makes this work meaningful.
RDO Equipment has been an IntelliDealer partner for more than 20 years. That relationship runs deep, and it has produced real results: collaborations around system automation, API Gateway, and AI integration that are shaping where IntelliDealer goes next. RDO has been a beta tester, a challenger, and always a partner who makes us think harder about what we are building.
Darr Equipment exemplifies what a trusted partnership looks like in practice. Earlier this year, they provided a customer testimonial that highlighted the strength of our relationship in a way that was genuine and generous. Their willingness to share their experience with the broader market reflects real confidence in what we have built together, and a belief that when this community succeeds together, everyone wins.
New Dealer Award
Winners: Stephenson Equipment and Maverick Environmental
This award recognizes new customers who hit the ground running. An implementation is never just a technical exercise. It is a change management effort, a people effort, and a test of leadership. These two winners passed that test with distinction.
Stephenson Equipment engaged closely with our team from start to finish and pushed us to be better along the way. Dale Heiner and Steven Franz led their team through a multi-location IntelliDealer rollout with the focus and discipline that sets a dealer up to win for years to come. We are proud to have them in the VitalEdge family.
Maverick Environmental went live on e-Emphasys ERP in late 2024 and moved quickly to make the platform a catalyst for business transformation. Their early adoption of BIaaS, focus on standardizing processes, and disciplined approach to change management resulted in measurable operational progress in a short time. Katelyn Hatem, Natalie Edwards, and the broader Maverick team did the hard work, and it shows.
A Reflection
Every name on this list represents a relationship built over time. It represents account teams, implementation specialists, support staff, and leaders across IntelliDealer, e-Emphasys, Integrated Rental, and VitalEdge who show up every day for these customers. But it also represents something bigger: a dealer community raising its own bar. The conversations at Evolve, the peer connections, the willingness of these winners to share what is working, all of that makes this industry better. That is what I am most proud of when I look at this list.
Congratulations to all of our 2026 winners. You inspire us to keep raising the bar, and you make this community worth celebrating.
