Week 9 Winners
Joel Misukonis
Misukonis Enterprises
Bloomington, Ill.
Bobcat Unleashed Me
“I first heard of Bobcat® machines when I was 23 years old. My younger brother was considering buying a Bobcat machine for his newly started homebuilding business. I thought it was a bad idea. That machine was $15,000! He didn’t listen to me and I’m glad he didn’t. The first year he had his Bobcat 753 skid-steer loader, he really put it to work. He used that machine all the time. He excavated, removed trees, cleaned up debris and graded his yards. He used it for just about everything.
“Several years ago, I started buying rental properties. I’m a teacher, and each summer, I buy a small home, renovate it with a couple of my students and rent it out before school starts. It didn’t take me long to realize that a Bobcat machine would save my back and a lot of time. For several years we used rakes to grade, sledgehammers and jackhammers to break concrete, shovels to remove shrubs, and our bare hands to move materials. My brother encouraged me to buy a Bobcat machine, and I listened — he seemed to have better judgment. Now I use my Bobcat loader for everything.
“Four years ago, I used my Bobcat 553 to tear down a garage. In two hours, I had the garage completely torn down and the debris removed. It would have taken me days of hard work to do the same thing by hand. Last year, I built an addition onto my house. I did most of the excavating with my Bobcat machine while my wife used a rented Bobcat mini excavator to dig the footer. We worked as a team: She scooped the dirt out of the hole and I moved it out of the way with my 553. I have saved thousands of dollars grading my own yards, removing concrete, digging out stumps and removing snow. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. You don’t have to be a contractor to make a Bobcat machine work for you. Now I’m encouraging some of my ex-students and workers to buy a Bobcat loader for their businesses.”
Kelly Collins
K&L Enterprises
Mount Pleasant, Ontario
Bobcat Unleashed Me
“This is a story about a red-haired, freckled boy who was two years old in 1969. He wanted a Bobcat® machine bad! As he grew up, he accumulated every boy toy there was — but unfortunately, no Bobcat machine was in his collection. The red-haired freckled boy started a street-sweeping business. He got married — to me — and had three children. The third was a boy. For his first birthday our son got, yes, a Bobcat toy. For his second birthday, he got a trailer for his Bobcat toy and a bigger Bobcat toy on his third birthday. Life was good. The red-haired, freckled boy worked long hours but always had time to come home to his family and play with his son — and, of course, the Bobcat toys.
“One cool late fall afternoon, my son was playing with his Bobcat toys. He had more than a few of them now, lined up under the coffee table. He had his finger to his chin, deciding which one to take.
“Then, I heard the phone ring. A Bobcat S175 (a real version) was due in our driveway momentarily. I started pacing. It was too late — I knew it couldn't go back, but where would my husband put it? His shop was full of street sweepers. Somehow, he managed to fit it in. My son ran out to the shop, but now it was past his bedtime, so out I went after him. I opened the shop door, and there they were: one small red-haired, freckled boy and my 39-year-old husband. They were both looking at the new S175, smiling from ear to ear. Instantly, my anxiety and anger subsided. They were in their moment of glory. Nothing and no one could take that away.
“We have tried and tested her many times in the past three months, sweeping, scraping and pushing snow. No longer is our street sweeping a fair-weather business. Bobcat has enabled us to continue year-round services. My anxiety does periodically reoccur as attachments appear, but diminishes quickly as I watch our business continue to flourish. Thank you, Bobcat; you have given my husband and son a dream come true. More importantly, you have given our business a machine that can get any job done.”
Devin Scheel
Firm CRS
Draper, Utah
Bobcat Unleashed Me
“When I was growing up in the suburbs of Salt Lake City, my father taught me the importance of hard work. My father would supplement our family income with concrete jobs. I started helping my dad break out and replace driveways, sidewalks, curbs and gutters and do other flatwork in 1995 as a sophomore in high school. We started with a couple of 16-pound sledgehammers and pry bars, a four-place horse trailer, and a heavy-duty pickup. We would break up the cement with the hammers and pry bars, load the broken pieces in the horse trailer and haul it away. Then, we’d unload the trailer the same way it was loaded — by hand. This went on for years. I remember working all day, and then going to Legion baseball at night. Talk about being tired!
“One job was to break out and replace broken sections of sidewalk, curb and gutter in a new residential development. I hired a friend to help with this job. To this day, we reminisce about how tired we were from breaking out the curb and gutter with sledgehammers and pry bars. We actually got excited when we came across a section of sidewalk that needed to be broken out, because it was much easier to remove. The best part of that job was the ride in the truck to unload the trailer full of broken cement. I'm sure glad those days are long gone.
“In late 2004, my dad splurged and bought a Bobcat® S185 skid-steer loader, followed by a 12-foot hydraulic dump trailer. This is how Bobcat unleashed us. Now, when it comes to breaking out concrete, we rent the breaker attachment for our S185 and go to town. Instead of taking all day just to break out and haul off a basic residential driveway, we can do that, and pour the new driveway. What a difference — in and out!
“When I tell people I'm in the concrete business, they say, ‘That's sure a hard way to make a living.’ I tend to think back to the ‘not-so-good old days,’ and say, ‘If you only knew.’ Today, I’m thanking my dad for a couple of things: teaching me the importance of hard work and buying me a Bobcat skid-steer loader. I also thank Cyril and Louis Keller, who long ago thought it would be better, smarter and faster to use a machine instead of a sledgehammer and pry bars.”
Steve McClintock
Action Tree Service
Fort Collins, Colo.
Bobcat Unleashed Me
“I own a tree service. Due to the seasonal nature of the business and the diversity of projects we get involved with, I need people and equipment that can quickly adapt to new situations without losing efficiency. Versatility and functionality are important in this service-oriented business. It's expensive to have dedicated equipment sitting around waiting for a special task to pop up.
“I have a Bobcat® 753 with a grapple, and rock and snow buckets. When working on trees, our 753 is an excellent multi-function tool. It gets into tight spaces where a truck is not possible, like fenced-in backyards. The grapple easily gathers brush or very long, large-diameter pieces for transport to one of our trucks or trailers. Some companies use a grapple truck, which is a single-purpose tool and only useful when you can drive the truck right to the debris pile. A more versatile and efficient business model solution is to use a Bobcat machine with a grapple, teamed with a dump truck or trailer. One man in this machine can lift a log in one piece and carry it from the backyard to the street without cutting it into smaller pieces. This saves our backs, cutting time and wear and tear on the saws. We get the job done faster with less effort and fewer people using our Bobcat 753.
“The 753 allows my company to tackle more jobs simultaneously — using the same number of people — than before we bought it. And, when it comes to ripping out roots, bushes or hedge rows in backyards or tight spaces, nothing beats the digging power or lifting power of the 753. Formerly, it took a crew of four to six guys with shovels and pick axes several hours to do this work. Now, a crew of two using the 753 and grapple can dig out and pry up roots, bushes and hedges in minutes — and yet we get paid the same as when we had a much larger crew working most of the day.
“The ability to move snow in the winter allows me to keep more employees working year-round. The 753 has more flexibility than a plow, and can perform detail work like no other machine. In December 2006, we had several feet of snow fall on warm streets and sidewalks in a single storm. The bottom couple of inches were solid ice, and plows just bounced off the stuff. Our 753 got right down to the pavement on the first pass. We were hired by plow-equipped landscaping companies to make them look good. The finished product was extremely satisfying to each of the homeowners’ associations and shopping centers we worked for, and it allowed us to take contracts away from outfits that used plow trucks alone … Our Bobcat loader is simply an indispensable workhorse.”
Robert Molinet
Sierra Landscape Management, LLC
Newton, N.J.
Bobcat Unleashed Me
“Bobcat® equipment has always played a major role in allowing my company to grow and work as efficiently as possible. Over the years, Bobcat skid-steer loaders have been vital to my company's hardscaping and lawn installations. When I started Sierra Landscape Management, LLC in 2004, we used Bobcat 863 loaders rented from Tri-State Rentals, located in Newton, N.J., to efficiently move and grade topsoil for our new lawn installations. These wonderful machines were able to accomplish in one day what would otherwise take my crew a week to complete by hand. This time-savings allowed my company to stay competitive as well as keep our profit margins where we needed them to be. Without Bobcat skid-steer loaders, this efficient growth would not have been possible.
“Over the years, we have tried several different skid-steer and track loaders; however, it was July 2007 when Bobcat equipment truly won me over. We were on a hardscaping job with a rented T190 compact track loader. This job was unique, because all the material needed to be moved up a slope in a small lake community. We had chosen the T190 for this job because of its exceptional handling on slopes. We didn't know just how well that little machine worked until halfway through the job. On day three, we received a horrendous amount of rain. The jobsite turned into a mud pit within a few short hours. These conditions would have rendered many wheeled skid-steer loaders useless for several days. Well, the T190 was able to work through the site conditions, carrying pallets of block and material up the muddy hill and allowing us to stay on schedule. It was only because of the T190 that we were able to complete the job on time, and all with minimal site disturbance due to its low ground pressure.
“We are a small company that relies heavily on our equipment, whether owned or rented, to make our jobs profitable. It was because of Bobcat equipment that this job was a success. My company will always look to Bobcat equipment in the future for all our labor-saving needs.”
