An enduring commitment to quality

By Emma Peterson. 

Scott Totin shares how decades of field experience and continuous refinement keep Van Mark tools essential on the jobsite. 

In 1964, when Gene Van Cleave founded Van Mark Products, his goal was simple – build the best portable bending brakes in the world. Now, over half a century later, Van Mark Products has an extensive line of products that include the Mark II TrimMaster®, Trim Cutter™, Trim-A-Slitter™, SureCut 90™ and Trim-A-Gutter™. To learn about how the company is continuing to grow and innovate to this day, we sat down with Scott Totin, Van Mark’s eastern United States regional sales manager.  

Scott offers a unique perspective into the world of product development as he has extensive experience as a contractor working in the field prior to moving over the representative side. He explained, “I've been in the industry overall for almost 40 years. And while I would say the majority of that time has been as a sales rep or a manager of some sort, probably one-third of it was as a contractor in the field. So, I know the limitations of what the tools can and can't do from the perspective actually being in the field doing it.” 

It is this insight that makes Scott the perfect person to talk to about the work Van Mark is doing to create tools that best serve contractors in the field. Scott explained: 

We're constantly refining our tools. As an example, 6-8 years ago we changed the way our castings were made so that they were lighter and stronger. It’s a lot of small things like that, not obvious, huge innovations at this point, but we're always listening to what contractors are asking for and talking about different things that we could do to make things better. 

At the end of the day, it’s this dedication to making improvements and designing tools that directly respond to contractor needs that has given Van Mark the incredible legacy they have. As Scott put it, “It's really fun to have a big release of a new product, and we've had those. But sometimes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. It may not be the most exciting product to have in your showroom.  But it's definitely something that when a guy needs it, he will be so thankful you have it.”