Week 2 Winners
Robert H. Adair
R. H. Adair & Company
Belchertown, Mass.
Bobcat Unleashed Me
“In January 2003, I purchased a used Bobcat® 864G compact track loader from Tim Helline at Leppo Equipment in Canton, Ohio. I have been around excavating my whole life, since my father, Robert W. Adair, is in the business. I always believed in the old-fashioned method of backhoes, bulldozers and full-size excavators. In my senior year at Smith Vocational High School in 1999, I worked for a guy by the name of Jim Dimos from J.C. & Company in Northampton, Mass. At the time, he had a Bobcat 753F. I spent hours in that 753 grading lawns, filling leachfield beds with sand, landscape raking and breaking rocks with a hammer. I began to see how compact equipment could be very productive.
”After graduation on June 14, 2000, I worked a year or so for Ed Kirby at Orchard Hill Farm Equipment of Belchertown, Mass., to save up some money to buy a new pickup truck. I worked on the side doing odd jobs such as cording wood, brush mowing, raking and grading with an old Kubota L185DT tractor loader my mother, Diana L. Adair, had on her horse farm. One day while I was considering leaving the dealer to work for my father, Dad approached me and said that he had just rented a Bobcat 773 skid-steer loader with tracks on it. He rented it from the dealer I now do business with, Bobcat of Greater Springfield. He said it was a grand machine and that there was a new model out we had to go see. Two days later we were at the dealer when salesman Matt Stack drove the new 864G out and I was in love.
“At 19 years old with little money, a new pickup truck payment, and a small customer list of about eight, a new machine would be a stretch. As life would have it, I read an ad on Equipment Trader Online on Dec. 22, 2002, and I found a used 864 from Leppo. Tim Helline was more than helpful in getting me into the loader. Five years later, my 864 has helped me build R. H. Adair & Co. through contracting and sub-contracting. It has helped pay for itself, several trucks, a new tractor loader for Mom, and my first house.
“I am proud to say that slowly but surely my little company is growing and I owe a whole lot of it to Bobcat compact equipment …”
Mikey Melton
Almost Heaven, Inc.
Reno, Nev.
Bobcat Unleashed Me
“I retired to Reno, Nev. from the United States Air Force after 28 years of active-duty military service. I began building my retirement home … Days would often pass before I would even get a call back telling why they (contractors) hadn't shown up. Hence, I began thinking about ways to do it myself.
“After much research online and visiting local equipment dealers, I purchased a Bobcat® 753 skid-steer loader and bucket. During the first few weeks of my Bobcat ownership, I confined myself to doing work on my own 11-acre building site, as planned. But after a few weeks, neighbors began to ask me to build, excavate and cut in driveways, parking pads and building site pads; remove dead trees; clear fire breaks around their homes, etc. Before I knew it, I had a budding business on my hands.
“During the end of that first year, Reno had very heavy snowfall. My phone began to ring off the hook with calls from homeowners wanting me to plow their homes and cars out of the snow. At first I began simply using the Bobcat bucket, but found, after talking with my local dealer, that a Bobcat snowplow would save me lots of time, allowing me to take care of many more customers. I purchased a Bobcat V-blade snowplow and during that winter acquired over 60 snowplowing customers; more than enough business to pay for the snowplow in that first winter.
“I was amazed at how quickly my ‘business’ had grown simply by word-of-mouth ... a business that I never consciously intended to start. After all, I was ‘retired’ from the U.S. Air Force and had planned to stay that way. That spring, a devastating beetle infestation invaded and killed thousands of pine nut trees in the Reno and surrounding areas. My phone again rang off the hook with calls from many snowplowing customers, along with many people they had given my name and phone number, to come dig up their infested and dead trees before the beetles could spread. I immediately purchased a Bobcat 709 backhoe attachment and grapple. I had so much work that spring digging up and hauling dead trees away I totally paid for the Bobcat 709 backhoe, grapple and a dump trailer …
“After that, I decided that I'd better accept the fact that I had a real business on my hands … I incorporated as Almost Heaven, Inc. in 2005 …That's my true success story!”
Roger Schoon
Schoon Backhoe, Inc.
Pocahontas, Iowa
Bobcat Unleashed Me
“We purchased a Bobcat® 435 excavator with FastTrack™ after visiting CONEXPO-CON/AGG® in 2005. We looked at every make and model (of competitive excavators) there. The one thing that impressed us most about the 435 was its ground speed. You see, our work is most often in large corn and bean fields in Iowa. Sometimes, we have to track a half mile or more to get to the work we need to do. The 435 gets us there twice as fast as any other machine on the market. It also gets us into and out of any adverse condition we may encounter, such as mud holes and standing water.
Before we got our 435 we used a rubber-tired backhoe, which would get stuck very easily. The 435 just gets in, gets the job done and gets back out. We also use it to backfill tile ditch. We use a wide bucket to backfill, by just running parallel to the ditch and pulling the dirt back into the ditch — versus pushing it in from the back side of the spoil pile with a loader or a blade machine. This also reduces compaction in the field, which the farmers really like. Another thing is its portability: just run it up on a trailer behind the pickup, chain it down and head down the road. We don’t need a large lowboy to haul it with. We also like the great visibility you have by not having to look around the boom. You are closer to your work, and that makes it easier to see what you are doing.”
David Vumback
Empire Construction LLC
Wallingford, Conn.
Bobcat Unleashed Me
“Bobcat unleashed me when we won a bid to remove snow from a condominium complex in my home town of Wallingford, Conn. I tried to clear the snow with my trucks, plows, and hand shovels. I realized that I needed a skid-steer loader to do the job. I needed to stack the snow and clear the driveways to the units without pushing snow back on the road. We had a big storm coming and I didn’t want to let my customer down. So, I loaded up my 6-year-old daughter and my wife, who was nine months pregnant with my son. We went to Long Island, N.Y. on the Port Jefferson ferry to buy my first Bobcat® skid-steer loader. We took the Bobcat S175 home on the ferry in really rough waters — I'm happy that my wife didn’t go into labor on the boat! We made it home safely with our new Bobcat machine. I am able to clear snow in less than half the time it used to take. It has unleashed me to spend less time at work and more time with my family. Thanks, Bobcat!”
Howard Tucker
Fast and Reliable Snow Removal
Leadville, Colo.
Bobcat Unleashed Me
“Between Christmas and New Year’s Eve of 2006, the foothills surrounding Denver, Colo. received upwards of 70 inches of snow from two significant storms. My friend, Scott Szorno of Care Enterprises, Conifer/Bailey, Colo. asked for help plowing snow after the first storm, which dumped 42 inches in less than two days. I hurried over to Conifer from my home in Leadville to help move some snow.
“On the eve on the second storm, Scott tragically lost his son. This was his third loss of a child in less than a year and half. I received a call first thing in the morning from Scott pleading for my help. Even though there was less snow from this storm, this call was much more urgent. Scott, his wife Carrie, and their daughter had a much more important issue to deal with.
“I knew my GMC 5500 with a snow plow was going to be useless under these conditions. The snow banks were 6 to 8 feet tall already. Wind had been blowing the snow all week, creating 12-foot drifts. I knew the only equipment that could be easily trailered in the blizzard and be of any use was a Bobcat® skid-steer. I quickly called my friend Dan at Buena Vista Tool Rental in Buena Vista, Colo. I arranged for a trailer, Bobcat 763 and a 6-foot wide, two-stage snowblower. Dan — upon hearing my explanation of the situation — gathered everything up and was waiting for me when I arrived.
“For the next three days, we ran the skid-steer loader with a snowblower attachment. It was able to break through quarter-mile long driveways that had over 4 feet of snow. The Bobcat machine could raise the snow blower to bust through the berms that the county road crews left at the end of some driveways. Having the ability to direct the snow away from houses and garage doors made driveways a breeze. The Bobcat machine was able to maneuver in tight driveways that larger equipment would not have been able to get into without doing major damage. Even with the large quantity of snow, the snowblower made room for snow from future storms. The loader and snowblower worked well on cobblestone driveways too, without doing any damage. The loader was able to get all the snow moved in a tight self-storage yard. Larger equipment would have been impossible to get into the tight areas.
“… Scott and his family are doing as well as can be expected. I went to help as much as I could. The community of Bailey, Colo. and Andy Long from Marble, Colo. were unbelievable in their support and help. The community housed and fed us and made sure we had everything we needed. I know that Scott was happy to see me pull into Conifer with the Bobcat loader. It was the very least I could do to help out a friend!”