I feel very lucky that our company is associated with two of the best technical support people in the turf industry. Jim Nedin is a consultant and Tom Hurst is the factory representative for Bernhard & Company. Between Tom and Jim they have over 85 years in the business and have volunteered for too many professional tournaments to count. When I have had a chance to be with either of them working with a customer or just sharing lunch, the opportunity to learn from them is off the charts.
Jim Nedin started as a mechanic then became a Superintendent.From there he became the Service Manager for the Toro Distributor in Pittsburgh. After years of award winning work, he then joined the Toro Company's service department. He is now a consultant for our company and Toro.
I have had the opportunity to introduce Jim at some of his talks and when I do I always say the same thing....There are people who know turf and there are people who know equipment but Jim is the only one who knows both. Technically I have never met anyone who knows specifications and understands why equipment works better than Jim. From harmonics to the K factor, he is scary smart.
Tom Hurst was the Service Manager for the Jacobsen distributor in Philly for 40 years. Towards the end of his career he began to focus on being their Bernhard grinder specialist. Leading them to being the number one sales distributor in the country for Bernhard for years. After a short retirement, Tom became the factory rep for Bernhard. Tom is one of the good guys. Always with a positive word and a helping hand. I sat in a meeting back in the '90's where we talked about his impact on our competition's sales and my boss said " He is only one guy and I am pretty sure he does not have a twin!". There are not many technicians in the Philly market who were not trained by Tom in how to grind reels and bedknives.
These two men in their own right are legends in the turf business. What is an interesting part is that these two are both experts in reel technology. The funny part is they both members of the same church of customer satisfaction is the most important thing but sit in different pews of Spin vs Relief.
There are many reasons why Jim and Tom are as well respected as they are but the key is they never leave anyone hanging.
I would urge you if you ever get the chance to work with Tom or Jim, jump at it.
WJC
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Learn me somethin'
Our company recently held Turf Equipment University, our customer training event. This year we had the event in partnership with the University of Maryland, in the first week of January, & Penn State-Berks County, in the second week of January. The PA event was held at The Ace Conference center in Lafayette Hill. TEU's have multiple tracks for Superintendents/Sports Fields & Grounds Managers/Technicians/Irrigation Contractors &Technicians.
I was fortunate enough to be the track leader for the Superintendent classes for the last two TEU's we have held in conjunction with Penn State Berks Campus & Dr. Mike Fidanza. Dr. Mike is one of the true good guys in the turf business. Always with a smile and a kind word. He also spoke at a field day I organized at the Philadelphia Union's stadium, this past year summer. Dr. Mike kicked us off with a year in review to start. He had some great pictures of his trip to China, this past summer, with some other turf professors.
After Dr. Mike, Bill Brown, CGCS from Hartefeld National GC gave his turf & social media talk. Bill is speaking at the Golf Industry Show this year. If you want to hear someone who is really at the cutting edge in the turf industry in the use of social media, I would urge you to catch Bill's talk.
Following Bill was John Gosselin, Superintendent at Aronimink GC & host of the AT&T event for the PGA the past 2 years, and Mike Giuffre, Director of Golf, Grounds & Maintenance at Congressional CC, host of the 2011 US Open. I had to use a cheat sheet for the introduction because of the unreal list of professional tournaments they had hosted between the two of them (OVER 20!). John focused on the pre tournament experiences he had with great behind the scene information and then discussed the week of the tournament. Mike spoke about the US Open and some lead up but focused on what happens afterwards. He had some truly amazing things to deal with and some great photos of things returning to normal.
Next on the agenda was Jim Nedin, to discuss the upcoming Tier IV government regulations & the truth about clip rates. Jim is currently a consultant for our company. Jim is without a doubt one of the smartest guys I know. I always say when I introduce him, that there are guys who are turf experts and then there are guys who equipment experts but he is the only one I know who knows both to the incredible amounts he does! He was a former Superintendent/Service Manager for a Toro Distributor/Worked for Toro in their Service Division and is now back consulting.
After lunch was Tim Moraghan, Principle of Aspire Consulting. Tim was the Championship Agronomist for the USGA for over 20 years. His topic was the 20-50 Rule. The sad truth that if you are at a club for 20 years and are in your 50's, you should be doing somethings to protect yourself. Tim was honest in what he is seeing out there. This was still being talked about that night at the dinner.
Dann Harris, of DHC Consulting was the final speaker of the day. Dann spoke on the topic of manage and motivating employees. His discussions are always highly interactive. Dann also was our last speaker on the second day of our event. That topic was hiring the right people.
In addition to Dann, on the second day, we had Paul Danielson from the Toro Company to speak about acquisition strategies. Paul is a great resource for financing information.
We also had Anne Holderried of Ameriprise Financial to speak about retirement planning.
In the end some we had a chance to get many turf industry leaders on one all-Star line up card.
I think I know what our customers opinion was of TEU but I know for me, I was really excited about how much information was provided by our speakers. They did an incredible job in making our Turf Equipment University special and for that I wanted to say THANK YOU!
WJC
I was fortunate enough to be the track leader for the Superintendent classes for the last two TEU's we have held in conjunction with Penn State Berks Campus & Dr. Mike Fidanza. Dr. Mike is one of the true good guys in the turf business. Always with a smile and a kind word. He also spoke at a field day I organized at the Philadelphia Union's stadium, this past year summer. Dr. Mike kicked us off with a year in review to start. He had some great pictures of his trip to China, this past summer, with some other turf professors.
After Dr. Mike, Bill Brown, CGCS from Hartefeld National GC gave his turf & social media talk. Bill is speaking at the Golf Industry Show this year. If you want to hear someone who is really at the cutting edge in the turf industry in the use of social media, I would urge you to catch Bill's talk.
Following Bill was John Gosselin, Superintendent at Aronimink GC & host of the AT&T event for the PGA the past 2 years, and Mike Giuffre, Director of Golf, Grounds & Maintenance at Congressional CC, host of the 2011 US Open. I had to use a cheat sheet for the introduction because of the unreal list of professional tournaments they had hosted between the two of them (OVER 20!). John focused on the pre tournament experiences he had with great behind the scene information and then discussed the week of the tournament. Mike spoke about the US Open and some lead up but focused on what happens afterwards. He had some truly amazing things to deal with and some great photos of things returning to normal.
Next on the agenda was Jim Nedin, to discuss the upcoming Tier IV government regulations & the truth about clip rates. Jim is currently a consultant for our company. Jim is without a doubt one of the smartest guys I know. I always say when I introduce him, that there are guys who are turf experts and then there are guys who equipment experts but he is the only one I know who knows both to the incredible amounts he does! He was a former Superintendent/Service Manager for a Toro Distributor/Worked for Toro in their Service Division and is now back consulting.
After lunch was Tim Moraghan, Principle of Aspire Consulting. Tim was the Championship Agronomist for the USGA for over 20 years. His topic was the 20-50 Rule. The sad truth that if you are at a club for 20 years and are in your 50's, you should be doing somethings to protect yourself. Tim was honest in what he is seeing out there. This was still being talked about that night at the dinner.
Dann Harris, of DHC Consulting was the final speaker of the day. Dann spoke on the topic of manage and motivating employees. His discussions are always highly interactive. Dann also was our last speaker on the second day of our event. That topic was hiring the right people.
In addition to Dann, on the second day, we had Paul Danielson from the Toro Company to speak about acquisition strategies. Paul is a great resource for financing information.
We also had Anne Holderried of Ameriprise Financial to speak about retirement planning.
In the end some we had a chance to get many turf industry leaders on one all-Star line up card.
I think I know what our customers opinion was of TEU but I know for me, I was really excited about how much information was provided by our speakers. They did an incredible job in making our Turf Equipment University special and for that I wanted to say THANK YOU!
WJC
Saturday, January 7, 2012
The Show Must Go On!
Our company was one the vendors who purchased a booth at the Eastern PA Turf Conference this past week. I have been attending this show since I was a kid back in the 80's as a crew member at Merion GC. How things have changed. It is now a table top show, which is OK. When the show was at it high mark, Philly Turf would bring over 15 pieces of equipment. As the winner of the "who gets to haul the Toro GM 580-D" every year, trust me I am not complaining. After multiple times of near death experiences towing the biggest piece we sold in the snow and ice of January, I am very happy to walk in with my box of literature in hand!
The most important thing I have noticed is attendance is definetly up. I was not in attendance at the Atlantic City Show back in the fall but I had heard that also was better attended. For the first time in my career, I am going to attend the New England Show next month. I have always heard great things and there is a group from the Philly area going up together. Really looking forward to it.
The unanswered question is why? We have all listened to everyone in the turf industry talk about how trade shows are a dieing. As for the Eastern PA show, my guess is a good speaker line up/ strong sprayer licence credits/ replacement of attending the GIS. It will be really interesting to see how Vegas is attended.
There are two pieces to the revitalization of the regional trade show that if someone focuses on I think they can accomplish their true goal, grow revenue! The first part is getting the word out to the non-golf turf managers. When the shows attendance was much higher, at least 50% of the attendees were municipalities/landscape contractors/School Districts. I spoke with a Public Works Director and said I will have to get back to you I am at the show in Valley Forge and his response "What Show?".
As we spoke on the phone, I got him to the PA Turfgrass website and he said it was something they would have liked to attend. The second piece is to make your vendor partners feel like they got something out of their investment. It sounds like the AC Show had the right idea, attendees had to walk through the trade show floor to get to lunch. There were a bunch of people I saw at lunch or in the silent auction area that never made it through the trade show floor. I know running the gauntlet of vendors is not the highlight of any ones day but even the walk by and wave is better than nothing at all.
WJC
The most important thing I have noticed is attendance is definetly up. I was not in attendance at the Atlantic City Show back in the fall but I had heard that also was better attended. For the first time in my career, I am going to attend the New England Show next month. I have always heard great things and there is a group from the Philly area going up together. Really looking forward to it.
The unanswered question is why? We have all listened to everyone in the turf industry talk about how trade shows are a dieing. As for the Eastern PA show, my guess is a good speaker line up/ strong sprayer licence credits/ replacement of attending the GIS. It will be really interesting to see how Vegas is attended.
There are two pieces to the revitalization of the regional trade show that if someone focuses on I think they can accomplish their true goal, grow revenue! The first part is getting the word out to the non-golf turf managers. When the shows attendance was much higher, at least 50% of the attendees were municipalities/landscape contractors/School Districts. I spoke with a Public Works Director and said I will have to get back to you I am at the show in Valley Forge and his response "What Show?".
As we spoke on the phone, I got him to the PA Turfgrass website and he said it was something they would have liked to attend. The second piece is to make your vendor partners feel like they got something out of their investment. It sounds like the AC Show had the right idea, attendees had to walk through the trade show floor to get to lunch. There were a bunch of people I saw at lunch or in the silent auction area that never made it through the trade show floor. I know running the gauntlet of vendors is not the highlight of any ones day but even the walk by and wave is better than nothing at all.
WJC
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