Frank Granata has uncovered a niche in Glendale, Arizona. That niche is apartments, 33 of them to be exact, ranging in size from 200 to 700 units. Five crews provide the weekly maintenance, two offer installation and enhancement services, and yet another tends to palms and other trees. Greenscapes also fertilizes its properties five times a year and installs and maintains irrigation systems, the lifeblood for desert Southwest properties.

Brad Dieken drives truck during the day, something he’s been doing for 34 years. His wife, Tammy, has been an assistant school librarian for more than a decade. They have two sons. The oldest, Wayne, works construction. Eric is a full-time student at Illinois State University in nearby Normal, Illinois. For the busy family, time is a premium. So they mow after work, on weekends and during holidays.

Four days a week, B.J. Godfrey repairs equipment for an area landscape contractor. Then on Friday, Saturday and Sunday he operates his own equipment, maintaining 23 properties in and around Acworth, Georgia. In between, he plays drums for three bands. Busy, you say? Absolutely. And in all three cases—repairing equipment, making music and mowing lawns—he’s doing something he loves.

In Walker Talk Volume 4, Randy Ingenito was featured in an advertisement mowing the Stanley Works headquarters in New Britain, Connecticut. The owner of Ingenito Landscape and Construction, LLC is still there, mowing with the same Walker Mowers and providing the same excellent service demanded by his client. 

Ben Slafter says he has Walker Mowers because they have helped him grow and develop the residential market. In fact, while most business owners create a business model and then buy equipment to fill a need, it appears that the owner of Slafter Mowing in Berthoud, Colorado, did the opposite.

Across the last 55-plus years of being in the manufacturing business, we have developed business philosophies that have helped us make progress while keeping on track. I thought it would be interesting to give our readers a distilled list of some of these philosophies. We would quickly say that our ways are not the only ways or even the best ways in all cases; we would simply suggest that our ways fit us and who we are, and they are a collection of learning from our experiences.