Aaron Traffas: Hello this is Aaron Traffas with Purple Wave. Since 2004, Purple Wave has been working closely with the state of Kansas as a provider of on-call auction services. Today, ahead of next week’s auctions for the Kansas Turnpike Authority and the Kansas Highway Patrol, I’m going to visit with our CEO Jerrod Westfahl about this relationship Purple Wave maintains with the state and other governmental entities. Hi, Jerrod, and thanks for joining me.

Jerrod Westfahl

Jerrod Westfahl: It’s good to be with you, Aaron.

AT: Let’s talk about this contract. What are the bullet points and what has it meant for state agencies over the last 7 years?

JW: Well, the State of Kansas Department of Administration has been fairly progressive in the way they’ve talked about asset liquidation services. Over the past seven years, they’ve essentially let out a contract for what they call “on-call auctioneering services”. That contract sets a standard set of terms and conditions under which really any state agency, political subdivision, school district, state hospital, etc…may hire the on-call auctioneer without going through a separate contract RFP process. It’s really added a lot of efficiency to the way state agencies in Kansas are able to take surplus equipment, vehicles and other property and liquidate those through a public sale.

How does this contract affect cities, counties, school districts and other smaller government entities?

You know, the smaller governmental agencies are the ones who probably benefit the most from the Department of Administration’s contract because they’re taking the central administrative services – the back office, if you will, that comes from the centralized Department of Administration and all the work that the department does to identify the best auctioneer liquidation service available to state agencies. They go ahead and get that service lined up and ready to go, get the terms negotiated, determine what Purple Wave is expected to do and what Purple Wave gets paid, and then, really, it’s an off-the-shelf opportunity for those smaller government entities to take advantage of what we think is a fairly effective service without a bunch of front-side heat loss or expense or administrative burden of going through the hiring steps. It’s an off-the-shelf, set-it-and-forget-it almost type of option which is a really nice feature for smaller government entities in particular without their own departments of administration to take advantage of.

What are some advantages Purple Wave offers over alternative liquidation methods or even the use of local auctioneers?

We’ve done an awful lot of work with a lot of the agencies and subdivisions, counties and cities in the state of Kansas over the past seven years. Going into our first year of work under the on-call auctioneer services contract, we believed that an Internet auction would really provide a few benefits, and the past seven years have proven those things out. So those benefits include things like a really transparent process. Property-accountable public employees – part of their job is to be good stewards for the taxpayers of the state of Kansas, and when it comes to disposing of fixed-capital types of assets, making that disposition of assets in a very transparent and public way is really important to those public employees carrying out their jobs effectively as trustees, if you will, of public money. So the way in which Purple Wave conducts public auctions and does it with a high degree of transparency before and after the auction is over is a real advantage to the way we, in particular, do our job. You know, some other things is it allows – a no-reserve online auction, if done effectively, really maximizes the amount of exposure that a particular set of assets gets to the buying public and sets up a competitive environment where the maximum number of potential buyers are aware of the sale, they understand the terms of the sale, they have an easy ability to participate and place a bid and compete with each other. In an auction format, it’s really difficult for traditional, local auctioneers to simply reach the same type of audience that a well-run online auction, conducted by a firm that’s been doing online auctions for a long time, can do. That extra reach is important because, at the end of the day, that is essentially an insurance policy that the government sellers can show to their constituents that says, “Hey, we got the top dollar that was available in an auction format by using this Internet only auction system.”

We have two featured auctions next Tuesday, one for the Kansas Turnpike Authority and one for the Kansas Highway Patrol. What can you say about the quantity and type of assets in each event?

So these are a couple of the sellers who have historically been using Purple Wave to sell some heavy or higher-value assets. With the Turnpike Authority, we have 171 items coming up in next week’s sale. Those items range everywhere from a nice, relative for its age, low-houred John Deere wheel loader to several vehicles that were used in both the road service and road maintenance fleet and in the passenger fleet that the Turnpike Authority maintains. Just a good, well-rounded package of equipment that is going to be offered for sale to the highest bidder closing out on Tuesday, October 25. Most of these assets are located in Emporia, Lawrence and Topeka. There are a few in Wichita as well. On the Highway Patrol sale, which is also closing out at the same time – its last day for bidding is also October 25. There are just over a dozen vehicles of different makes and models, most of them are later model, including one recreational vehicle. These vehicles are all offered for sale to the highest bidder by the Highway Patrol as part of its law enforcement effort. These vehicles were seized as our service men and women of the Highway Patrol were carrying out their duty to enforce things like the drug laws in the state of Kansas. It’s a good opportunity for folks to buy some vehicles that our law enforcement took away from some folks who probably weren’t quite ready to sell them yet. Keep a close eye on that opportunity. Most of those vehicles are sitting in Topeka and once again will sell to the highest bidder closing out on Tuesday, October 25.

I’ve been speaking with Jerrod Westfahl, Purple Wave’s CEO. Thanks again, Jerrod, for taking the time to speak with me.

You’re welcome. Take care.

To learn more about Purple Wave’s government services, visit purplewave.com/government. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by using the link at purplewave.com/podcast. You can also find links to view and bid on the items in the auctions on Tuesday, October 25, for the Kansas Turnpike Authority and the Kansas Highway Patrol on our main auction calendar at purplewave.com.