Making waves: 2025 Manufacturers Rep of the Year, Mega Western Sales

“Mega Western Sales sets the standard; their people are top-tier.”

If this is how a customer describes your business, you know you’re doing something right. Derek Fett, general manager for Rancho Dominguez, California-based mechanical contractor Murray Company, is describing Santa Fe Springs, California-based rep firm Mega Western Sales.

“You can feel the pride and ownership in how they operate, which makes sense given their ESOP structure. That accountability shows in everything they do, from how they follow through to how they anticipate our needs,” Fett continues. “With Mega Western, we’re not just working with a rep agency; we’re building a trusted, long-term partnership.”

Comments like this are why Mega Western Sales has been awarded the Supply House Times’ 2025 Rep of the Year Award.

Celebrating 55 years in 2025, Mega Western Sales is a leading full-service manufacturer’s representative for plumbing, HVAC and building materials with four locations covering California, Nevada, Hawaii and Arizona. The company’s 137 employees became owners in 2020 when leadership made the decision to transition to an ESOP – a call that insiders and outside partners alike agree makes the business stand out.

Ownership culture

Marty Hayes, principal and CEO, joined Mega Western Sales back in 2014, acquiring it from its founder, Dave Dempsey, and then President, Mike Smith. After acquiring the business, Hayes worked to bring on an impressive group of Principals that now lead Mega Western Sales — Josh Buscaglio, principal and president, Joe Mento, principal, residential, Scott Lanning, principal and Nor Cal director, and Tom Duddy, principal, commercial, and Bethany Harrington, director of architectural & facilities maintenance.

The Executive leadership brings experience from all sectors of the supply chain, from wholesale to manufacturing to other rep agencies. This group came into an agency with a longstanding, impressive reputation, and has guided it to evolve into what the next generation of rep agencies needs to be to thrive, but they don’t take for granted the hard work Dempsey and Smith did to build Mega Western Sales decades ago.

Mento points out that although the business is no longer family-owned and operated, it still feels that way. “We’ve got decades-long team members and family members working alongside each other,” he says. “Our success as new principals starts with building trust with team members so they know every decision we make is for their best interest.”

The decision to go 100% employee-owned is one that Hayes says helps attract the five-star individuals Mega Western Sales wants to have as part of its team. “When you sell ownership to your team, people treat the business as if it's their own. Becoming an ESOP has changed the mindset, the culture, and the grit behind everything we do as a team.”

Jessica Ortega, operations manager and 20-year-long team member, says the ESOP transition makes every team member know their contribution matters.

“At Mega Western Sales, we believe every team member’s contribution matters. We support each other and are committed to growing both personally and professionally. We cultivate an environment where everyone feels valued and empowered to do their best,” she says. “Through open communication, continuous learning, and a customer-first mindset, we drive our success and foster strong, enduring partnerships with customers and manufacturers.”

The impact of the ownership culture spreads outside the company’s doors; customers and manufacturer partners feel the power of every team member being an owner as well.

“Mega Western leads with purpose. Their employee-owned model fuels a collaborative culture of accountability, and their segment-focused approach ensures every customer receives expert, tailored support,” says Jill Ehnes, president of Delta Faucet Company. “They’re not just keeping up – they’re setting the pace, driven by their attentiveness to the end-user, smart investments in advanced analytics, and a team that truly cares.”

According to Buscaglio, the ESOP structure even influences line card decision-making. “We think about acquiring lines through the lens of our team. Whether it be warehouse, customer support, or the outside sales specialists, we think, ‘how is this line acquisition going to affect them?’” he explains. “Because, as employee owners, company success translates to individual rewards .”

Despite the notorious 30-day contracts that rep agencies often work with, when choosing lines, Mega Western Sales is looking for partners, not products. “We avoid looking at line acquisition through a lens of only bottom-line revenue,” Buscaglio says. “Adding value to our team owners and how new lines will affect them long-term is far more important.”

There’s a saying on Mega Western’s conference room wall that summarizes it’s view on fostering a “think like an owner” mentality — “If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.”

Duddy points out that encouraging team members to think like an owner is a journey that leads Mega Western to better decision-making. “This culture of ownership encourages people to make decisions with a wider view, outside of the scope of just their role, for the betterment of the company as a whole.”

Cradle to grave

A close second to choosing lines and product sector expansions that benefit the team, Lanning adds that Mega Western chooses brands that align with customer needs. “Whether it's a wholesaler, a large-scale contractor, a builder or business development agency, we want to add value,” he says.

The mentality is to build line cards that help Mega Western service projects from cradle to grave — from working with architects and designers to contractors, and then on MRO side after things are built. The agency has strategically segmented its business to include specialists in all market divisions that it serves. The business’s divisions are: Residential, Commercial, Light Commercial, Industrial, 3PL, Mega Western Luxury, Mega Architectural and Western Maintenance Sales.

Mega Western got into the 3PL (Third Party Logistics) business several years ago when it first partnered with Charlotte Pipe. Hayes points out that not many large manufacturers are based in California, so there is a need to bring inventory over to the West Coast where it’s hard to find and justify the cost for space. Through this division, the company houses inventory for manufacturers from all over the country, making it easier for them to service customers faster and more efficiently.

Although data and analytics are cornerstones of a successful rep business today, Mento says Mega Western’s growth strategy is rooted in relationships and the way they segment their business to “attack the market.”

Segmentation works well for their business because of the collaboration that happens among different teams. “When there’s a hotel being built in our area, we want to get everything from the boilers to the fixtures,” Mento says. “The synergy we have among segments makes for a fun place to work; no one is stuck in their own silo.”

Through its specialists in each market segment, Mega Western makes it a top priority to remain engaged with the complex and changing needs of its customers. “Over the years, there have been several real-world examples of Mega Western collecting input from us, bringing that input back to their manufacturers, and then providing practical solutions which we can implement in our designs. We can rely on Mega Western to provide timely and accurate information for us to in turn share with our clients,” says Adam Hickey, president of plumbing contracting business W.L. Hickey Sons. “Their team will follow up with our project team, acting as an extension of our procurement team.”

When thinking about product diversification and business segmentation, Mento says it goes back to adding value, not revenue. “We strive to be a single point of contact for anything that water or chemicals run through.”

Expanding into AZ

In July of 2025, Mega Western Sales announced its expansion in the Arizona market via the merger with Bobier Sales, a leading plumbing rep agency based in Phoenix. This strategic integration of two Southwest rep agencies with strong reputations, relationships and line cards positions Mega Western Sales – in conjunction with Bobier Sales – to be a true force to be reckoned with in the Arizona market.

Marty Hatley, president, Bobier Sales, has been with the business for more than 20 years, and says the timing is right for Bobier to change its corporate structure. “We are joining our teams to create a dynamic new team stacked to embrace changes in the market,” he says. “The ESOP model allows my team to be owners in the business, which was something I could never offer them in our current corporate structure.”

The joining of Bobier Sales and Megs Western Sales makes sense for a handful of reasons, according to Hatley. The two agencies have worked well together in aligning markets for years, served on vendor committees together and have several impact lines in common.

“At the end of the day, this is two companies at their pinnacle coming together to be the dominant agency in Arizona,” Hatley says. “Bobier will retain all of our current manufacturers and continue to serve our customers as they expect from us.”

A partner, not just a sales team

You can count on seeing someone from Mega Western Sales at all of the major industry organization events and trade shows — AIM/R, ASA, ASPE, ASHRAE, MCAA and PHCC, for example. And it’s not just one of the five Principals; the company sends its boots on the ground team members to these events to ensure the Mega Western team is available at every possible event to represent their manufacturers.

“It’s important for reps to invest time in associations to learn best practices and build the entire rep community up,” Buscaglio says. “We want there to be other strong reps in the market, because if there aren’t, the rep model suffers.”

Lanning says the difference between being engaged with the industry or not is the difference between being transactional and transformational. “Engagement helps us be a part of not only the transacting of selling the products, but in the transforming of how we do business, how we meet customers' needs, and how we support our associates and customers.”

From 3PL to in-house training, Mega Western is always looking for new business offerings to expand the breadth of what it can offer its partners; things far beyond just selling product.

Looking ahead, the goals driving future growth go back to Mega Western’s team member-owners. “We have to grow in both size and market impact for every team member that is an owner of Mega Western Sales,” Mento says. “Evolving as a real strategic partner for our manufacturers is another way we want to grow, always expanding how we can be more valuable to them.”

Buscaglio agrees, adding that being a part of an ESOP is a fun and rewarding thing to experience. “We are impacting lives and families in a way that is different than a normal business; we’re working together for the greater good.”