I don’t like stress,” says Dwight “Bud” Steinhauer, owner of Steinhauer Services in Clayton, Delaware. “Hence, I’ve grown slowly by word of mouth, and most of my customers are my friends.”
For someone who doesn’t like stress, though, this mowing and maintenance contractor has a strange way of keeping it at bay. For the last 20 years, five days a week, he has driven 50 miles one way to service his customers. He mows, trims and mulches their properties in the summer and removes the snow from their drives and walks in the winter. All of Bud’s customers live within a one-mile radius of each other, and 90 percent of them are nearly within driving distance of his two Walker Mowers.
“I know some contractors around here put more miles on their vehicles in a year than I do driving all the way to Wilmington and back every day,” he relates. “Their accounts are spread out and, at most, I might move my truck two or three times in the course of the day.”
Long Story Short
With his wife, Anne, who helps with weeding, planting and shoveling snow in the winter, and young daughters, Kimberly and Wendy, Bud lives on a subdivided family farm. Seventy acres in total accommodate two brothers, Dennis, a landscape contractor, and Dan, a builder, and his parents, retired dairy farmers.
Bud’s 18 acres accommodate a beautiful home (which he and his brother Dan built), a work shop, and a burgeoning blueberry patch. The story, though, begins in Wilmington where another brother, Dave, operated an outdoor power equipment dealership.
“I worked for Dave as a mechanic for two years prior to starting my business in 1993,” says Bud. “Dennis also worked in Wilmington at the time and had a few too many mowing accounts. I picked up a half dozen from him and started mowing lawns.
“My first mower was a new 48-inch Scag hydro (walk behind), one of the first hydros sold in the area. It worked well for a year or two until I acquired larger properties. Then I added a new Grasshopper zero-turn mower.”
For the next few years, Bud was taking on large and small properties alike in and around Wilmington. “I was running nearly 20 miles a day and even had three apartment complexes to maintain,” he recalls. “It was stressful. Fortunately, I landed a couple of properties in a relatively high-end neighborhood.”
Bud notes that they weren’t high, high-end properties like many of the DuPont estates in the area, but they were nice. The homes were in the $500,000 to $600,000 range, and each had small yards compared to the larger estates.
Trimming the Outer Circle
Bud soon began to trim away the “outer circle” of properties. For every new “neighborhood” property, he gave up one where he had to drive several miles to maintain. On the day the Walker Talk editor visited, Bud and his nephew, Lyndon, were in a neighborhood development removing the aftereffects of an early snow.
“I probably work for 40-plus customers right around here,” Bud pointed out, moving his hands in a half circle. “The snow is really not deep enough for the snowblower today, but I will use it on a couple of drives this afternoon while Lyndon operates the Walker Mower with the snow blade. We will be done by 9 or 10 this evening.”
When it really snows, the three of them—Lyndon, Bud and Anne—will work until midnight or later, and then make the long trek back home, hauling a trailer with two Walker Mowers powered by 31-hp and 25-hp liquid-cooled Kohler engines. The trailer also accommodates a Walker snowblower and blade attachment, along with a Honda track snowblower.
During the growing season, the same 12-foot open trailer will transport one of the two Walker Mowers, this time equipped with a 48-inch GHS deck. A Ford F-350 with 265,000 miles on it does the heavy road work. Bud mows Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Monday and Tuesday are for extra work like mulching, fertilizing and planting small gardens. Saturdays are for catch up. Bud uses the GHS decks on all properties, and “ramps” the debris up his trailer and onto the truck.
Something to do with the Operator
Steinhauer Services’ first Walker Mower was a new 25-hp model that Bud purchased in 1997. A year later he acquired a used 20-hp unit. Both eventually logged more than 4,000 hours before he sold them.
“I purchased the Walker Mower for a couple of reasons,” Bud explains. “They’re small and maneuverable, making them ideal for my properties, and they deliver a great cut and vacuuming job. I’ve learned over the years that a great mower operator can do a decent job with an average outfront mower. With a Walker Mower, however, even an average operator can do a great mowing job. I like to say that the cut it delivers has something to do with the operator, but more to do with the mower.”
Bud laughs at his first impression of the Walker Mower. “I thought they were a bit jumpy, but instead I found their movements to be very precise thanks to the fingertip steering controls. You don’t have that kind of control with machines equipped with long levers, ones that you move back and forth with your arms. That motion can be very tiresome by the end of the day. My Walker Mowers are very easy to operate, and that’s important, especially during the summer when the temperature approaches 100° F.”
Being so far from the shop, it’s also important that his equipment is reliable. In fact, likely the most stressful part of Bud’s day is working so far from home. A travel kit equipped with a tool box, a couple of idler pulleys, and a belt or two reduce the stress.
“Over the past 17 years with my Walker Mowers, I’ve been forced to drive back to my workshop only a handful of times. On three occasions, an engine was an issue. That’s not bad considering the number of hours my machines log.”
When asked if he plans to grow his business, Bud says categorically, NO. “I have 50 mowing accounts and another 10 snow accounts that don’t overlap. I enjoy my work and I enjoy my customers. I’m a bit unusual because 95 percent of my communication with them is faceto-face, right on the jobsite. This is a relationship business, though, and having a personal relationship with customers is important to me.” As Bud points out, bigger companies often lose that personal touch.
Driving that distance every day has to take its toll. “Not really,” Bud adds with a shrug. “I guess I’ve been doing it so long that I don’t know any better.” Well maybe, but the truth is that Bud knows what it takes to keep customers happy—and that works no matter how far away customers are or what business you’re in
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