40! Greater America Distributing Celebrates Four Decades!

(Reprint from RePlay Magazine, February 1, 2025) After a 23-year career in banking, Mike Dobel found something else to do. That something else, the coin-op games and vending venture Greater America Distributing (GAD), celebrated its 40th anniversary on Dec. 4, many of those years with a Dobel at the helm.

While Mike remains company chairman at age 72, he’s sold the business to his four children, two of whom – Christine Dobel (COO) and Andy Dobel (President) – are intimately involved in the day-to-day business today.

The elder Dobel purchased GAD in September 1996 after stepping aside from his banking career. A merger would have necessitated a move, and with his children aged 7-15 at the time, that’s not something he wanted to do.

Mike Dobel, chairman and proud papa, with his two “kids,” Andy and Christine.

“So, I took six months off and had done reasonably well in banking, so I had a little capital,” he explained. Through a broker, he came across Greater America Distributing, whose headquarters is in Omaha, Neb., where he was based. Steve Wolf, the original owner of Greater America, had bought a Rowe-Moss office in 1984 and started the Midwest distributorship. In his tenure, it also grew to an office in Des Moines, Iowa.

Having gotten insights about all types of businesses as a banker, Dobel saw a big opportunity with Greater America.

“That sounds like a fun business,” he recalled thinking. “And the business was under-capitalized. I saw a lot of upside opportunity financially.” He met with and interviewed the people who worked for the business (one is still with the company today, and many others stayed until retirement).

“I grew up in Missouri playing pinball,” he said. “It was actually illegal at the time – you had to be at least 16 to play. I can remember as a kid standing on a chair playing pinball at the bowling alley.”

Fast-forward decades, Dobel was working to bring his new coin-op distributorship into the 21st century.

With the Omaha and Des Moines offices, in the ’90s, Greater America’s business was 75% vending and 25% amusement. “Over time, that’s changed to where it’s the opposite now,” he explained.

In 2001, he had the opportunity to get into the Kansas City market, adding, “For a market like that to open up was a big deal at the time. Kansas City was a much bigger market. It really expanded our market in terms of opportunity on both the games and vending side.” Since then, they’ve had a brick and mortar location there in addition to their offices in Omaha and Des Moines.

From Dobel’s takeover in ’96, GAD has also been providing financing to customers, something he said really enhanced sales.

“Coming from banking, I set up relationships with a couple banks in Omaha and we started providing financing to our customers early on,” he said. “Bringing fresh capital to the business, we started carrying a lot more inventory.”

The company expanded its offerings and became aligned with more and more manufacturers. Dobel added: “What we’ve really built this on for the last 28 years is service to our customers. We have dedicated salespeople in all the offices, and dedicated technicians.”

At Greater America’s 40th anniversary celebration are 10 of the 18 team members. Top row, from left, are: Bill Danylchuk, Andy Dobel, Hunter Kopp, Anita Kopp, Chris Wredt and Brett Zarger. On the bottom row are Noah Hale, Theresa Gonzalez, Christine Dobel and Sarah Sorensen.

A New Generation of Leadership

The brother-sister duo of Andy and Christine Dobel now runs Greater America. Andy has been active in the company for about four years and Christine for three.

Andy spent almost 17 years working for Union Pacific Railroad, out of Council Bluffs, Iowa. When his job was cut during Covid, he came into the family business and learned from the ground up, under the tutelage of Jerry Waldeck, a salesman and tech who’s been with the company since Day 1.

“He took Andy under his wing in terms of how the business runs, took a three-day trip to customers to introduce him,” Mike said. “I didn’t really ask Jerry to do this. He just did it. They were happy to teach him and show him the ropes.”

Christine previously worked on the administrative side of health care for a very large corporation for nearly 10 years. While successful in that, she was looking for a change and was pulled into GAD soon after she found out her brother was joining the company.

“It just felt so right,” she said, explaining the previous controller Regina Chambers was retiring after 30-plus years. “Both Andy’s role and my role have continued to evolve since then. My role evolved out of the controller role and into a more operational role. It has been an absolute joy and privilege to work with family.”

Andy detailed the company’s lineup of equipment, and there’s certainly plenty to serve to Midwest operators.

Greater America Distributing focuses on standard coin-op games like pinballs from American Pinball, Chicago Gaming Co., Jersey Jack Pinball and Stern Pinball. They work closely with Valley-Dynamo for billiards and air hockey, and with Arachnid for darts.

They’re an exclusive AMI jukebox distributor, and also have plenty of Golden Tee and Big Buck Hunter cabinets, plus a slate of Kalkomat boxers. With legalized gaming in Nebraska and Iowa, they also work with Banilla Games and American Amusements.

Among those at this 2000 GAD dinner while in D.C. for NAMA are Mike Dobel and wife Sue, Jim Hedblom and wife Cindy, Cass Nemmers, Joe Peterson, Jerry Waldeck and wife Theresa.

On the vending side, lines include AMS Vending, CPI, Vendo and Wittern; they’ve also been in the ATM business for about a decade.

Aside from all their great partners and products, Andy said their success is mainly due to customer relationships.

“Relationships are the reason we exist,” he said. “If you need something, you call us, and we answer the phone. That’s why people keep coming back.”

If a customer has a monitor go out on a game, for example, GAD will take one off a brand-new machine and get it to the customer as soon as possible. “Service is more than just repairing their machine – it’s taking care of them if at all possible. We have to continue to grow and provide that type of service in order to survive as one of the smaller distributors out there.

“Creating that relationship, trust and understanding is why people keep coming back doing business with us,” he noted, adding, “We also have great relationships with Shaffer and AVS. We help each other out when we can.”

They also aim to differentiate by being able to handle financing instead of leaving that up to third parties.

“The legend at work.” Jerry Waldeck works on a pinball machine. He’s been the sales and tech guy since even before Mike Dobel purchased Greater America.

“Doing what is right and fair has turned out to be typically a very good business decision we have found,” Christine remarked.

Most of her work is within the company itself. “I think we’ve made great progress in our internal systems and updates we are making to really set us up for a long and prosperous future. We’ve really been handed a strong foundation.”

Company-wide, Greater America Distributing has 18 employees. Many original employees have retired in the last 5-6 years, though many other long-timers remain. “We have some of the best people in the industry,” she said.

Mike Dobel reiterated what a great group he’s had over the years, and what a hardworking team is still there today, attributing most of the company’s success to the service they provide.

“Our success, ultimately, is predicated on having a good crew,” he said. “As a company, we really try to go that extra mile. It’s how we’ve built this. ‘Why would you do business with someone else?’ is an ideal we try and live up to – from the vending side to the games. We’re careful to provide quality service to the customers.”

With that, the Dobel family is planning for a long and prosperous future. Learn more about the company at www.gadvending.com.