Frank Martin Sons is a family business that was opened in 1952 by Marc and Antonio Martin, who named the company after their father, Frank. The company started by selling agricultural equipment. As time went on and new machines were invented, along with the town of Fort Kent shifting to a more forestry-based industry, Frank Martin Sons started selling forestry equipment and all the new machinery that came along with it. Later on in 2009, a branch of Frank Martin Sons was built and opened in Madison, Maine. Now the Fort Kent branch of Frank Martin Sons is owned by Steve Ouellette. “We’ve been successful because we diversify, by changing brands, having multiple brands, and being able to jump between forestry and construction equipment,” said Fournier

      Frank Martin Sons helps the forestry industry by selling and servicing forestry equipment and parts. The three departments - sales, parts, and service - all work together in order to make one great and reliable business for forestry equipment and service needs. Doing business always has hardships, especially in today's economy.  “Tariffs are adding substantial increases to the prices,” said Fournier. “It’s making it more difficult to give upfront pricing due to brokers’ fees and causing extended timelines on parts ordered out of country due to issues at the border. Even causing parts to be sent back due to improper paperwork,” he added. 

Frank Martin Sons has three individual departments - sales, parts, and service. The sales department focuses on selling equipment to buyers. The company sells equipment from Tigercat, Hitachi, Kobelco, LiuGong, Bobcat, and Palfinger. Frank Martin Sons has equipment like bulldozers, excavators, skidders, feller-bunchers, and forwarders. The sales department is managed by Keith Michaud. 

The service department uses a lot of different manuals on machinery in order to provide the best and fastest service possible. AI has taken the world by storm over the past 2 years, with the most notable being ChatGPT. AI can be used to answer questions or even to create pictures just from a prompt. Frank Martin Sons has been evolving along with technology since the 50s to provide the top-tier service they are known for, and they continue to do so. The Frank Martin Sons team is currently developing an offline, internal AI named Frank. Frank will be used by the service team. Frank will be coded with thousands of manuals on thousands of different machines. The AI will answer any questions about the machinery the technicians are working on and will give them a step-by-step guide on what to do and what to use. Frank Martin Sons continues to provide the highest level of service to companies' machinery, and will be around for many years to come. “Continue what we’ve been doing, and be able to adapt to the market,” Fournier said.