Dick Heim had finished with his day's work. His trailer was loaded and he was tired. Ahead he could see his driveway. The furthest thing from his mind was the accident about to occur. As he slowed to make the turn, a vehicle behind slammed into the rear of his maintenance trailer, driving Dick and his trailer into a tree.
"I could see in my rear view mirror the guy wasn't paying attention," Dick recalls. "There was nothing I could do but hang on. I was banged up pretty bad, especially my right shoulder."
After several weeks of recovery, he tried to go back to work mowing lawns, but couldn't. His shoulder wouldn't let him shift his front-cut rider into forward or reverse.
That was three years ago. At the time, Dick nearly panicked. If he couldn't resume mowing and maintaining lawns, he would have to find a new career. Not a pretty picture for a man in his mid-40s. On top of that, his only other career path had been closed to him prior to moving to Florida. An allergic condition forced him out of a Smith & Wesson factory in Massachusetts where he had worked for nearly 20 years.
"I was allergic to the oil and once you leave a factory job for something like that, you can't get another," he adds.
Dick's family doctor had a solution. He was going to put him "out to pasture" with 100 percent disability. Dick resisted. "I wanted to work. I just couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life sitting around watching television."
The sky around Dick's home was looking pretty gray until a fellow lawn maintenance contractor introduced him to a Walker mower. "It was perfect for the size lots I was doing," Dick tells. "And there was no shifting to bother my shoulder. The only problem? I didn't have the money to buy the unit."
He told his doctor about the Walker. He told his doctor using the Walker was one way to get away from being put on disability. Voila!! His doctor wrote him a prescription for a Walker. His insurance paid for the machine. And the rest is history.
Today, Dick is far from retired. He does 150 yards per week, about 30 a day, with his lone Walker. And he's enjoying it more than ever, bad shoulder and all.
Tight Niche
Dick moved down from Massachusetts in 1978. After working with his dad mowing mobile home parks, the younger Heim set out on his own. His business evolved. He moved from trailer parks to commercial properties, bought more equipment and hired on more help.
Then the competition arrived. In 1978, there were three other maintenance contractors in the Zephyrhills area where Dick and his dad had set up shop. Now, there are at least 75 maintenance companies. With overhead and competition taking their toll, Dick gave up his commercial properties five years ago, let his employees go and sought maintenance work once again from mobile-home owners.
Despite the fact there were a "ton" of mobile homes in Zephyrhills (Dick says about 170 plus parks and 300,000 mobile homes), he looked 10 miles south to Plant City where there were fewer homes and fewer competitors. He developed some good relationships with a couple of mobile-home owners and built his business to the 150 yards he does today, all in one park.
"I did it all on credibility," he adds. "Building a business takes time, but the process is accelerated in mobile home parks where yards are small and neighbors get a ready glimpse of the type of work you're doing."
Dick Heim does good work, and he does it at a pace he enjoys. He gets to the park around 8:30 or 9:00 every morning; edges, trims and mows five or six lawns per hour until around 2:30 - with a long lunch hour, he adds with a smile; then returns home to unload his clippings, relax a little and get his machines ready for the next workday.
"You can't beat it," he tells, "I charge $8 per lawn, mow five lawns per hour and do 30 a day. That comes out to about $240 a day five days a week. And I have virtually no overhead."
On average, Dick mows each lawn about 40 times a year. With nearly a third of his clients requesting full service, e. g., bug and weed control and washing and waxing the mobile homes, Dick grosses over $50,000 annually.
Easy Street?
Even with the Walker mower, maintaining 30 yards a day, alone, is not as easy as Dick conveys. Midsummer Florida heat and humidity can be "killing" and he still walks several miles every day edging and trimming. Shortcuts are in order.
"My new rider allowed me to go back to work, but I still had to fork the clippings off my trailer at night," Dick adds. In addition to taking an hour to unload the trailer, the process was also taking its toll on his shoulder.
To rectify the situation, Dick came up with plans for a unique trailer that allows him to back his Walker up the trailer ramp to another ramp on the back of his dump truck. Up the trailer, up the dump truck ramp, unload and off again. The entire process takes about 30 seconds. At the end of the workday, he drives the rig home, unhooks it from his trailer and dumps the clippings in the back of his yard where he lets the pile compost. Toward season's end, strawberry fanners from the Plant City area truck it away at $25 per load.
Borrowing an old cliche, Dick believes in "working smarter and not harder" and it's paid off for him. And he attributes a lot of his success to his equipment.
"Lawn maintenance people can skimp a little on trailers and trucks. But when it comes to their maintenance equipment, they have to go top of-the-line. Period."
Dick's Walker, for example, is in its third season and has over 900 hours. Every day he backs it up the two ramps at least a dozen times, carrying his 250 pounds and another 200 pounds of grass clippings. "Never a hint of a problem," he boasts, adding, too, that mowing conditions in Florida are notorious for being the most difficult in the country. He sharpens his blades every day and replaces the 20/50 weight oil twice a week. "You need the higher viscosity because of the high temperatures," he notes.
Dick found his niche. And frankly he's proud of it. He's also proud of his Walker which, he claims, saved his career. "The secret's out in Florida about these mowers," he adds. "You can't find a used one anywhere. People just know if you want something durable and easy-to-maintain, buy a Walker. It will last a good long time." Not to mention the fact it's easy to operate.
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