When Bud PeCoy of Mid Country Machinery, a construction equipment dealer and rental company headquartered in Fort Dodge, Iowa, decided he wanted to raise awareness about breast cancer, he did it — literally. In fact, he not only raised awareness, he lifted it more than 80 feet in the air.

PeCoy, along with partners Mark Swedlund, Lucas Peed and Bob Conaway, were looking to find a way to “give back” to the community when they learned that the wife of one of their customers suffered from breast cancer. Seeing this as a worthwhile cause, they decided to create a breast cancer awareness campaign by purchasing two special JLG Model 800S telescoping boomlifts to add to their rental fleet.

PeCoy and company had the machines painted a special pink color at the JLG factory and added custom decals to the boom with their company's “Reach High For The Cure” slogan, and other decals promoting Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the world's largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists. In addition to painting and decaling the booms to promote breast cancer awareness, Mid Country Machinery also signed an agreement with the Des Moines chapter of Susan G. Komen for the Cure to donate 10 percent of all income derived from the rental of the machines for the next 54 months, an amount that is expected to total between $25,000 and $30,000 during the life of the agreement.

Because of the current volume of construction activity to build and enlarge existing hospital facilities throughout Iowa, PeCoy plans to send the 80-foot-tall pink JLG boomlifts to those sites as often as possible. In fact says PeCoy, “If painting our booms pink and adding decals to support the cause can increase awareness of breast cancer, we may even order more pink booms. Hopefully, this is just the beginning of our contribution.”

Bill Hindman is president of Industrial Marketing Services, Elk Grove Village, Ill.