Company Getting Lift From Standing Mower

December 18, 2006

AUBURN, Neb. - Steve and Sean Skaggs hope to ride a new kind of commercial lawn mower to economic success at Auburn Consolidated Industries.

They will be standing, instead of sitting, on these models.

Auburn Consolidated and Wright Manufacturing of Frederick, Md., say they are the only companies in the country that are making stand-on mowers.

The power mowers are touted as smaller, faster, more agile, more effective on hills, easier on people's backs and less expensive than the more common sit-down models used by landscaping and lawn care companies.

"We're extremely optimistic about things going forward," said Sean Skaggs, 28, who owns Auburn Consolidated with his 37-year-old brother and their mother, Donna Skaggs.

It is a niche market in an industry that brings in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to companies like Exmark Manufacturing in Beatrice, Neb., now a division of the Toro Co. of Bloomington, Minn., and Sweden's Husqvarna Group, which also makes lawn mowers and other equipment in Beatrice.

About 40 companies, including Auburn Consolidated and Beatrice's Encore Manufacturing, claim about one-third of the market in commercial mowers, while the top four companies, including top-seller Exmark, claim about two-thirds of the market, said Luke Prussa, senior marketing manager at Exmark.

Auburn Consolidated, which had about $50 million in revenue last year, was founded 80 years ago as a blacksmith and machinery repair shop. It employs about 130 people in Auburn, a southeast Nebraska city of about 3,450.

The Skaggses received the rights to make stand-on mowers in 2005, when they bought Great Dane Power Equipment from Deere & Co., which had acquired Great Dane in 2000.

After a patent dispute over the stand-on mower between Great Dane and Wright Manufacturing, Great Dane purchased manufacturing rights in 2000 for a version of the equipment from Wright, which developed the machine in the early 1990s, holds several patents on it and also makes the product.

Bill Wright, majority owner and president of Wright Manufacturing, said he is optimistic about the stand-on market.

"It's becoming popular," Wright said.

Prussa of Exmark said his company, which employs up to 700 people in Beatrice at peak manufacturing times, could enter the stand-on mower market by developing a version that does not conflict with Wright's patents. It has looked at that possibility, but the market has not grown enough to make the investment worthwhile, Prussa said.

Bob West, a spokesman for Lesco Inc. of Cleveland, said his company announced in November that it would carry Auburn-made, Great Dane branded stand-on mowers. Lesco is the country's largest distributor of professional turf care products, West said.

"They have a very innovative and quality product that we did not have in our lineup," West said. Laura Sherman, who owns Mower World at 13595 Giles Road in Omaha, said her shop sells stand-on mowers made by Auburn Consolidated.

"They're nice because they're easy to use. The guys love them because you can hop off them easily to pick up trash."

The machines are fun, Sherman said.

"You can spin it around in a circle. Forward, reverse, it has very quick response."
Wright and Sherman said some people who have not tried the machines are wary because they are different.

"Once they're on it, they are sold," Sherman said.

Stand-on mowers range in price from about $4,900 to $6,600, while riding mowers cost about $1,500 to $2,000 more.

Homeowners with large lawns might gravitate more quickly to buying a riding mower because they consider them more relaxing, Sherman said. But for workers spending 12 hours a day mowing lawns, standing is less tiring than sitting, she said.

Bill Harley, president and chief executive of Outdoor Power Equipment Institute, a trade group of lawn and garden power equipment manufacturers, said stand-on mowers are a niche market and his association does not track their monthly shipments.

"That doesn't mean it's not growing," Harley said.

Auburn Consolidated found its way to making commercial lawn mowers after first branching into manufacturing in 1926 with trenching equipment. Over the years, it also has made mowers, backhoes, loaders and agricultural planter frames that can be mounted on tractors.

The company's factory and headquarters sits on 80 acres on the southern outskirts of Auburn. It includes six, half-million-dollar lasers that precision-cut thick sheets of metal, six welding robots and an assembly line designed to quickly accommodate the color schemes and design specifications of different product orders.

The Skaggses' late father, John, was general manager when he purchased Auburn Consolidated in a joint venture with Kubota Corp. of Japan in 1976. In 2003, the Skaggs family bought the rest of the company from Kubota.

Now, Auburn Consolidated makes mowers and other equipment for larger manufacturing companies like Case New Holland and Deere & Co. Auburn made its first commercial mowers in 1997, when it began making a now-discontinued line for American Honda.

The Skaggses introduced their own line of commercial riding mowers in 2003 under the EverRide brand name and bought Great Dane two years later.

Auburn Consolidated does about 70 percent of its manufacturing under its own brand names and 30 percent under other companies' brand names. It is working toward a ratio closer to 50 percent each, Steve Skaggs said.

Drought and a slower economy cut into sales across the lawn mower industry this year, and inventory built up at Auburn Consolidated, which had to lay off about 70 workers in August.
"It was one of the rottenest days of our lives, having to tell them they can't work here anymore," said Steve Skaggs, who along with his brother grew up working at the plant.

The Skaggses hope to hire people back when stand-on mower sales take off, he said.