Bill Ledford, equipment manager at River Bend YMCA Golf Club in Shelby, NC, grew up working at a filling station owned by his parents. His mother taught him at a young age the value of treating people the way you want to be treated. Bill is one of those guys you meet once and feel like you have known him your whole life. For most of his career he was in field service for the Jacobsen distributor. Now he is semi-retired and just turning wrenches at a golf course. He still helps his wife, Mrs. Peg cut some yards like they have been doing for over 40 years.
Transcript
Podcast Intro
welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the technician that wants to get reel follow along. As we talk to industry professionals and address hot topics that we all face along the way we’ll learn tips and tricks. I’m your host, Trent. Manning let’s have some .
Intro
📍 Welcome to the real turf text podcast, episode 79. Today, we’re talking to bill Ledford equipment manager at Riverbend. Why MCA. Golf club. And Shelby North Carolina. You may know him as old lead buddy.
Bill is the lone ranch in his shop. I’m so glad that we were able to do this interview. Bill is such an amazing person. And once you meet him, you’ll understand why. Truly one of a kind.
I hope you enjoy this episode.
Interview
Welcome bill to the Real Turf Tech podcast. How you doing today? Bill,
Doing, doing great, Trent. Appreciate very much you having me.
I’m, uh, honored to have you here. You are a legend in our industry.
Oh, wow. I, you called me that when we saw each other the first time, Met each other face to face the first time. And , that’s a little bit hard on me, but no, I’m, honored and privileged to be where I am in this business. I got into business to help. Born and raised in film station, in a record business in Shelby, North Carolina. And one thing that always happened to me is my dad. My dad and my mother raised me to treat people the way you wanna be treated and try and help.
that’s what something that I always tried to pride myself on. I was really bad because if somebody called me early enough in the daytime and I could go I, you know, if their unit was down, I tried to go.
I mean, it didn’t always happen that way, but, you know, at least by the next day we tried to have something in place. And get somebody help. and that’s something that I always, I just, I’m so appreciative of being able to do that. people that I’ve worked for saw that side of me.
I tell you a little tale on Al Wilson who is quite a fellow for. He gave me an opportunity, he gave me 12 years experience of 12 years of the experience of being with him and just absolutely said, Hey, go do it. And that’s something that we were blessed to have that I had several guys in my career that I, Need to publicly think and I’ll miss somebody if I start naming names, which I will. But, when I started my career at Porter Brothers, PE and I lived about eight minutes from Porter Brothers and I was able to come home and, eat, if I wanted to. We had, back then, we had 45 minutes for lunch. And so the first day I never forget, I. Home Herisha. My daughter met me outside and said, Well, how did the first half day go? And I said, Well, it went pretty good. I said, You know, I’ll, I’ll be fine till we can find, till I can find something. Well, guess what, Here it is, 38 years later and I’m still here and I’m still blessed.
It’s, it’s really cool. You know, it’s really cool. So,
No, very, very good story. So how did you get into the turf?
Well, what happened was I, did several jobs and stuff in my young years and, got started cutting some grass on the side after work. And I started I cut, Chuck Boat was a guy at Porter Brothers and CE. Who later became one of the best friends of mine ever. And we actually, Peggy, Peggy had 20 yards that she did.
So as she, transcended into that with, I got started with Chuck and with CC things weren’t going real well for me in my other position. And, and I was looking for something and I said something to Chuck one day and he said, Well, I tell you what you do, so you just be in my office tomorrow, more afternoon at one o’clock and we’ll talk.
so I was like, okay. So I went in there and Bob Hamrick was involved in this, and he’s a big, he’s in the, this, again, these are older fellows I’m talking about, of course. But it’s people that really had an impact on me Bob and I. And his family, our families go, went to church together.
And,
Mm.
anyway, when Bob Hemrick found out it was me, he said, Hire him. And so we we went and talked and had a good meeting and kind like. From there on, then we went on Father and, I felt like that I was really cool with it and that it was something that, it was gonna be okay.
and trust me, as it turned out, it really has done me, well, I’m in So, in
That started me at Porter Brothers I fell in love with the business to be honest.
Mm-hmm.
and I’ve had some people when you know this, you and I have talked about this, I had some people that say, Hey, when you get it and you sold, you won’t get it out.
You will not. it’s just, and it’s a great business I’ve had so much enjoyment with people that I’ve dealt with over the years and been so blessed have not had. Really many. I don’t really have many bad things to say. I had a few things along the way that wasn’t satisfactory with me customer wise, but probably part of that was me, I had won a gentleman and I’d, been doing with spill service for just for a little while, and I stopped at his place at dinnertime to work on a green scheme.
When I was working at Porter Road he would not let me work on it during dinner time.
Oh,
that, and that was, I mean, and there again, that was part of my fault. Hey, I, you know, I said, Okay, no problem. You know, but I’ll tell you what I can’t work on. I’m not gonna stay here and, and put up, you know, not, not do something for this hour.
So I went on the beach and came back through there and actually got, got the unit fixed on Friday morning. But, just it’s real piddly stuff, you know what I’m saying? hopefully in my career. I never made anybody mad or did anything that, offended anybody or anything like that. Cause I, that’s not me.
I’m just not that way
Tell me what you think about relief, Grinding.
Here’s been my, here’s been my thing with relief, grounding. There is a purpose for a relief grinder. Okay? If it, if there were not a purpose for a leaf grinder, these manufacturers would not put that mill in relief on there.
Mm-hmm.
I did when I first started growing, I did a tremendous amount of relief riding and other words, we had a spin grind.
An old I learned on an old, near 500 near. So I learned my spin, grinding. And then what we’ll do is take that unit off. Let’s say that was off of Greens King four. We would actually. We would actually take it to another old single blade Foley grinder. Now you really are starting to see how old I am.
Okay. And, and we’d put a relief grind on there. So I’ve been a part of that. and some folks who are in the grinding business. And I, I’ve been so blessed because, part of my career. A goodly part of my career has been done. I’ve been doing, doing grind. I think that it, if you look at relief, grinding, you’re actually gonna help that product. when you do it now, you are able, there’s able to be a little bit of degree of relief grind when you grow, when you spend grind, depending, but a lot of people make a lot out of that because look, you got two, two cylinders that are turning in the same direction. So if you grind anywhere on that cylinder, You really can’t put, I mean, there’s not a ton you can do, as far as relief.
Right. What I tried to do, and the guy who really started me grinding, two Fells, Ed Wright and, Jerry were, they just taught me the basic stuff and said, If you have trouble with this, come see me and we’ll talk. And, I was so blessed to have those guys when I was at Porter Brothers.
Cause they, we kind, I, we kind of was on the same vibe and it worked out really well for me like that. but, you don’t see Harley as much relief grind in, in the field now as we used to do. as a distributor guy. You know what I’m saying? In other words, most of the time what, what they’ve done now, Trent, is they’ve built in some of that relief and that mild relief and, it, that’s what’s going on with it now.
but, I have been in the past a proponent of it simply because, Okay, so if the backside of that reel. Does absolutely nothing for us, but get us to the front side of that rail. Okay? And so if you are able to cut a half of it off the back, then you make sure you don’t have any scrubbing or anything like that.
And it frees it up a little bit, Less horsepower, less wear, the whole thing. that’s pretty.
Exactly
That’s, that’s pretty much my, my goal on my field there
No, I hear you. I agree with you. What’s your favorite tool?
We just talking about it, my, my grinder. I, I’ve been very blessed at River Bend Russell and I, Russell was Spanglers and superintendent. he and I have been friends for almost 60 years.
Oh wow.
What happened was his mother worked in Shelby, my mother. Ran a filling station in record business, and Shirley Spangler, Russell’s mama would go by our place every day, at least twice.
And her and my mother were good friends. And that, Excuse me, that’s how we got to know each other through that,
Mm.
it is been good. I had a heart attack, 19 years ago and there’s probably a lot of people that still, that are in the business that remember, because I missed one of the main service meetings in Charlotte and, the first guy in the emergency room in Shelby with me, other than my family was Russell.
Oh wow.
Yeah. One of, one of our boss, one of our bosses, had called him and said, Hey, you better check on lead and see what’s going on. And, uh, so you know that that’s how, that’s how we, how we got going. And we, we kited years ago, Trent. we kited each other about working at River Bend together in our, in the twilight of our career and, and all that kind of stuff, Not knowing exactly how that was all going to work out or if it would work out.
Thank goodness it has worked out. It’s been a great move for me.
No,
Yeah. Now, I mean, I, I, I work three days a week. Again, grind a lot cuz we sand a lot, you know? you, I mean, it, it’s one of, I mean, you gotta do that if you’re going to, if you’re gonna be in this business, the, the, one of the major things you need to learn is how to properly grind rails and maintain rails.
Cause that’s, that’s part of the show with this game, you know? And,
Well, and honestly, I kind of think it’s the bread and butter of the game we’re in and we end up doing that a whole lot more than we do repairing stuff. We do a lot of PM stuff, oil changes, grease, and maybe changing some bearings here and there, whatever. But that’s our bread and butter is those cutting
I, I totally agree with that. Yeah. That’s, and again, I was in a situation where I was traveling where I didn’t have a time, I didn’t have time to do a lot of that. In other words, it was a, what I tried to do in my, in my system of, for my own system, I would travel. Let’s say I had four calls that I was doing.
I would go to the father’s. Which meant me leaving sometimes at four o’clock in the morning when I was going to Raleigh. I’d leave at four o’clock in the morning, drive to Raleigh and let them open the gate, let me in, and we’d do that call and then I’d work back up the road. Then I was not four or five hours from home when I got done with the, with what I got, what I had to do, you see.
And, uh, that worked out really, really well for me. I enjoyed that. I enjoyed part of the travel. I enjoyed because, you know, you gotta, but there’s a, there was a ton, I mean, a ton of windshield time.
I mean, you know, but, but there again, I just, yeah. I never did I. That never did affect me, as far as me not wanting to do it or anything like that.
what happened to me and made me retire was I just, you know, I got 70 years old and I, I really didn’t need to be doing that, you know, out there on that road all the time. So, that’s, that’s what happened.
What do you do to relax or find your balance?
Well, and I sent you something. I hope you, God, still got that picture. there are several things in my life that are important. Of course, Peggy and pe I have, Peggy’s my wife and, uh, ti is my daughter. I have a son-in-law and we had, three grandchildren. we lost one of those boys.
And, and, and a lot of those, a lot of you folks will know about that, quite devastating thing to our family. we,
I couldn’t
we manage, we’ve managed to, have a new norm. you just gotta kind relate with stuff and, but, we just, I. like being able to spend time with them. That’s really, really important.
Peggy. P’s one of those people who said, you know, let, look, you can’t ever get that time back. I think as an older, listen, don’t, we’re gonna slip one in on her here, but, The older I’ve gotten, the more I, I see what she means. You know? And of course we, she and I are both very competitive.
played softball for 25 years. She won several state championships. I never was forced enough to win, a state championship. We played in several, but we never went, ever won one. And we’re both very competitive. So what we started doing now is, is playing God together and, There’s some shootout matches.
Go, Let me tell you, you talking about, you talking about two, two old folks having the good old time. We have a good time. We enjoy playing, with each other and yeah, it’s, it’s cool. It’s way cool. she’s been in the cleaning business and imagine this, she’s been in the grass mowing business for about 35 years.
And, uh, yeah, and, and, and her, she, she, she’s taught me a lot about working and about stuff, the way to treat people. And, you know, I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m so blessed we, uh, coming up on 54 years December 29th. So all thank you.
That is
appreciate it all you, all you guys that know me know she’s a good woman to have put up with this old bird for that long, but, We’ve been so blessed by our family, you know,
That’s
and, I, I gotta put in a plug for Tisha too.
She is involved with hashtag NYC Tree girls, hashtag NYC Tree Girls. So any of you guys that want a good laugh and, stuff, her and a youth director here in town, Became really, really close friends when we lost trip, our grandson. And this girl has done a tremendous job for Tisha and, they go to New York every year, dress up as Christmas trees.
Okay.
and spread cheer. So, anybody, Any, yeah, anybody that would want to, I’d love for ’em to tune in. Okay. And you might as well unloosen your belt because I’m promise you, you going to have a belly full of as that’s that’s true.
Yeah. Yeah. That’s good
Yeah. Absolutely.
What’s one of the strangest things you’ve seen on a golf course in 38 years?
There’s been so many things that have, there’s been things that have happened to me on the road and, stuff that have thrown me before a curve ball.
Well, what’s one of the strangest things you’ve seen on the
well, I’ve had, I’ve been very unfortunate and had several incidents.
I did. 75 to 125 miles a year on a, on a service truck. And, and I, you know, I, I was blessed every single day because, I mean, you know, it was, what I’d do is I’d normally leave. My house here and, uh, traveled two hours to make that first call. I mean that, you know, that, that was hard.
I really, I mean, I enjoyed, I guess I probably enjoyed the travel part of it too. Cause, you know, going places and with being with people and you get, you get acclimated people. I had a guy that, that, used to work in Charlotte, than he and I were good friends. Well, he had called me and we had set something.
When I’d get down there, he’d have it tore down for. You know, I mean, I mean, you know how that works cause you’ve done the same, very same thing. But what it was was, I mean, my job, my job was to help people and make their equipment or their life better. And I had, I’ve had a lot of people that would do stuff like that for me.
And that’s, that’s pretty cool. I mean, you know, you, you know, you got a big deal going on. Pull up and the guy’s got half of it done. I mean, he’s got the tear down done and those kind of things. I think the biggest, the, for me, the biggest thing was my, the people that I dealt with. and it’s really funny cause I still have people that I’ve dealt with for golly bum for 40 years, almost 40 years.
and we’re still friends and we still communicate. So I’d say probably that, that’s probably the biggest thing with me is the fact that, people out there, I was so blessed cuz I made just a lot of friends. I, I was try, I always tried to be an outgoing, My mother, my mother taught me. I was 10 years old, she said, Bill, don’t you ever forget this. You need to treat people. Always treat people the way you wanna be treated. And, and it’ll work tr it’ll work today. I mean, you know, there, there’s, you can change a lot of stuff and we, there’s a lot of stuff changed in the bi, in the business, in the industry.
but you, you, that’s one thing that’ll stick and, and will work pretty much every.
Oh yeah. No, that’s, that’s great advice. Props to Miss Ledford
Yeah,
steering you down the right path there.
Yeah. She, she, she did, you know, and that, and, and and I’ve had a lot of people, I’ve had people in this business that have really. I don’t know, Mentor to me, you know, Jerry Thrift and, and Ed, those guys helped me a lot to get, they, they gave me the basic stuff to work with, the, the ability to work with.
And we did set up at Porter Brothers and we did, you know, repair Porter Brothers. We did service calls at Porter Brothers. and, and it was good. I mean, it was a great. I mean, it was a tremendous company. Uh, a lot of the people, the guys out there that’ll be hearing this No, remember that name?
It’s, it, there’s nothing. It does me any, I You wanna see a big smile if somebody walks up to me and say, Oh yeah, I, I remember you, I, I remember you from the Porter Brothers days. I was like, Boy, you get to be your, your age agent out too
Uhhuh. That’s funny. That’s good stuff. Well, you already beat me to the next question of do you have a mentor? So what’s one of the best lessons you learned from your
well those guys. and there’s been been a lot of, of people along the way Bob Hamrick probably was one of the guys who, who started me down the path of customer service. and then, Freddie Proctor was a good friend of mine. He did, he did Jacobson calls in eastern part of the state.
I did Jackson calls in the western part of the state. Okay. And when we were together, when, when we, and we worked together for I think about 10 years, there weren’t many mornings at five o’clock in the morning that we weren’t. and we, what we would do is he’d say, Hey, you know what you think about this?
How, how do we need to get this straightened out? What’s your advice? And I’d do him the same way. We just kind of bounce stuff off each other. And, you know, yourself, it’s really, it’s, it’s good to be able to do that because somebody’s saying, Well, you know what? You’ve been there, you’ve done that. Can you please gimme a shed?
A little light on that, you know? And. and, and, and that, that was, he and I were good friends. Lord have mercy. been, there’s been so many people in my career that have helped me. you know, and then of course, and then the last, the last 12 years I would work, I guess you’d say, worked for the public.
It was Al, Al Wilson. And you know, I mean, so , so. He and Janet came to Jacobson when the distributorships changed and he got the distributorship, and I’ll tell you a good one here on on, on us. And so there were 12 people sitting in this room, and Janet now we’re doing the talking and interviewing and saying, Hey, here’s what we’re gonna do.
And so he got around to meet and. I shook hands with him. We’d been in the business a not well, not really against each other cause he was in the irrigation business. He was in the pump service station, irrigation and that kind of stuff. And I was in the in turf equip business. And we got around each other, we’d been around each other, never met each other face to face, shook cans or talk or anything.
And for 25 years and all of a. He shook my hand and he said, Hey. He said, You don’t have to, you don’t have to do, you don’t have to tell me anything about you. He said, I’ve already researched you. And I said, Oh, really? You have? And I said, What would, what would happen? I mean, what if, What kind of answer would I get if I asked you what kind of research you’d done on me?
I was being just a little bit. Smarter, you know,
Mm-hmm. .
at me and he said, I’ll tell a good one on you, a real good one. He said, You had a full football scholarship at Appian State. You went up there one day and was back home the next day and looked at me and green real big and said how close I. Hey. I mean, he was in my back pockets, you know what I’m saying? So I knew, I knew then what, what, what I was dealing with. And he, uh,
Yeah. Yeah.
you know, that’s, that’s one of them, that’s one of them deals. Yeah. But, I, I’m so blessed cuz cause people, I mean, You know, helping people is, My biggest thing is I’ve, as you all heard me say already, and, I’m so proud of what I’ve been able to accomplish and, and, and do with people and what the business means, you know, And I want, I want very much to, to, I would love it for somebody else to.
Listen to what I’m saying and say, Hey, you know what? Maybe this is something I might need to try.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I, it happens. I, I got proof. I get emails from time to time about people enjoying the show and what they liked about it and that kind of stuff. And that’s, that’s why we’re here, that’s why we’re doing this podcast. If we can help one technician out, we did our
job
Right, Right, And you, and you asked me about hobbies. I, I can’t leave this one out cause a lot of ’em know a lot of guys that will know this. But I’m very involved with the Piedmont Pistons, which is a Shrine GoCart Club.
Okay.
the biggest 72 year old kid you ever saw. Okay. I’ve never gotten off my go-cart and we’re able, we’re able to raise some money for those kids.
I mean, and I, and I look at that kind of like we talked about with technicians, helping people, you know, if I do one thing that helps one child have a better opportunity, hey. I’m happy, boy. I mean, you know, and thi this, we throw in the fact with our go-karts there’s about, well we got about 14 members and, it’s a hoot.
I mean, it, it, it really, yeah, it really is a hoot. So we’re doing good and we’re raising some money and, you know, that’s, I’m, I’m way good with that, you know.
that’s awesome. That’s really, really good. what technician, and I know you probably got more than one and that’s fine too. Just name me a few technicians you would like to spend a day in their shop working with them. And I know you have spent days in shops working with
Right, right. I guess the lead guy there, is Jerry Black welder. Jerry and I did the quail Wacovia, Wells Fargo. Whatever tournament it was named for 16 years. And in that mix, the last, the next of last year, we did the PGA together. he’s more, Jerry’s more of a brother to me, than I have, I’m an only child and he, and I just simply hit it off really well. That, that place changed colors. when a tournament went the first year of the tournament, they became Jacob. They became Jacob, and Jar was a, Jerry was a, he was a Toro guy. He, he worked with Toro and, that’s what they had at Coil. And so anyway, he just told another guy, Mr. Mola Carr. Who was a director and getting everything set up. He said, Well, he said, You know, I tell you what, I’ll work up in two tournament week and then I’ll take that whole week off you get your own technicians and cause y’all know the product and all that. And Mr. Carr told him, said, Well, I tell you what, dude, don’t, let’s, let’s sit on that just for a minute.
Said, I’ve got a fellow I want to talk. And if he’ll come help you, I think you’ll be happy. Well, Jerry and I had been friends and so on, you know, not, I mean, not like we are now or we’re in the first part. so he called me up and he said, Hey, He said, I need to talk to you. He said, I want you to work tournament at Quail Hollow, Jerry Blackwell. I said, as so long as, as my people, as and people are cool with it, I’m cool with it. I’d be glad to. So for a while, for, for a while, I always went over there a week before the tournament and worked that week Jerry and I did trying to get stuff ready. And,
Right,
that I’d say he’s probably one of the, he’s one of the key guys with me.
You know, cause we, we, we developed, I mean, we developed such a good relationship our families Peggy would come over there and of course she spent some time with Jill and it, it just really was, really was cool. And, and, and I, again, what I’ve tried to do, Trent. In my, in my business happenings is, if somebody had a issue going on.
I’ve made some friends up and down the road and I mean, I have people at Sam, one of the guy, one of the guys with S S T S D I spraying systems out west.
Mm.
people, you know, just, I mean, when you call. They, they, I’ve been blessed. They’d helped me but I guess probably the lead guy, technician parts Jerry I don’t wanna leave anybody out cause there’s a lot more those
Oh, no, no, no. I, I get that and yeah, the, all the amount of people you’ve met in the last 38 years, traveling the road for most of that time, that’s a lot of people. And nobody’s gonna hold it against you that you didn’t say their name. I mean, personally, my feelings are a little hurt because we have met
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
and you didn’t say you wanted to work with me, but that’s
fixed me up. I, you got me, You got me where I didn’t know what to say. So, don’t happen that.
Well, I don’t, I’ve, I’ve just, I heard, you know, I’ve actually, I guess just heard about you last year when I was at the Carolina Show, but I didn’t just hear about you from one person. I heard from, I mean, probably at least 10 different people were telling me about you and then they named the Ward and Your Honor last year up there.
And, Daniel Barnes, when I interviewed him, or before I interviewed him, he said, You really need to have Bill Ledford on.
Oh,
And I said, Well, I’ll see if I can make that happen. And I hated to meet you under the circumstances that we did at Eric Duncanson s funeral, but, uh, you’re just one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.
And it’s kind of funny after we met, I feel like I’ve known you my whole life and I’m sure a lot of other people can relate to
Well, ire, I appreciate the kind words. I mean, that makes me, that makes me feel, And I, and I had, I had that immediate connection with you whenever you called me. Let the legend, I, I come home and I said, Pick. I said, You blew this. She said, what now? You know, she, Cause she starts from tales over the last 38 years, you know, cause we, we
Oh, I’m sure.
Trade, you know, She, she’s my, she’s my rock. And it is really funny because what most people call her is Miss P. Most people in the industry that know her and have had dealings with her knows that she keeps me pretty much in line. And we we’re, we’ve been blessed to be together for a long time, you know, but yeah I told her, I said, You know, I said, I met TR Mann the day.
I said, He’s such a nice guy. I. And I said, Guess what he did to me? And she said, What? I said, He called me a legend and I said, Lord, have mercy. I wanna crawl under the pew. You know? Oh Lord have mercy. But that’s, that’s great. That’s awesome.
Well, yeah. Your reputation procedures, you for sure.
taskTracker
As an equipment tech one of the most tedious jobs is keeping your parts inventory straight
but that job just got a whole lot easier With using AASB task trackers parts scanning Technology I can scan or see parts into the inventory And as I use them I can scan them into a work order If you hadn’t had a chance to check out the technician side of ASB task tracker I highly recommend you reach out to them At ASB task tracker.com To schedule a demo
There’s a really great software
And I use it on a daily basis
Using task tracker has made my life so much easier I love being able to pick up The scanner and scan parts and inventory
Let’s get back to the episode
Tips and Tricks
What kind of tips and tricks you wanna
Well, I’ve,
you’ve seen in all this
I’ve got one, and, and this is, this really is a, it will be a shocker to some, I’ve been a Jake guy pretty much all my life, pretty much all my whole career. And so I go to River Bend, retire from the business, from Phil SE Bend, go to work at River Bend. Well, Russell was a Jake sale.
He, he worked for gns and he was a Jake salesman. And for a long, long time, all that was at River Bend was Jacob. You know, cause Mr. Porter was involved with Jackson and that was his golf course. and but so now, so I go over there and what do you think’s the first thing I work on Greens, more wise, 2,500 John Deere.
Okay.
So what I, what I’ve done is, is I, and I told him, I said, Look, I got some stuff I do. Real life like, and, and a lot of people don’t do this, and it’s okay, and I’m not, I’m not trying to push what I do onto somebody. I just do it because I, I know it’ll work and I know it’s, you know, something as simple as torquing bed.
I back and bolt.
Okay.
simple. You know, a lot of people run ’em in with impact range going Yeah. And they don’t have, you know, issues. Well, with a new, Where I started doing this was with the new true set reels from Jacobson. If you do them the way we used to do the Oppos screw reels, guess what?
You’ll never get that thing to cut because everything is so spring dependen. You see? Well, if you look, if you look at the John Deere reel, it’s spring dependent as well. So what I started doing was I started doing 20 foot pounds on, on back in both. Now I know when I go to 20 and click it, it’s not binding anything up. You see what I’m saying? and that’s one thing that I’ve done and I’m thinking a little bit of a, a lot what I’ve done is I’ve adapted some of my, you know, you can’t do some of that stuff, but one way, you know what I’m saying? I mean, there’s certain criteria you’ve gotta meet when you’re doing that.
I just accept, I, I just took some of my Jacobin bras and put ’em in that, in the reel, you know, And do, do it like I used to, like, I’ve. And I’ve been very blessed. we’ve been very fortunate. Uh, Russ does a tremendous job over there. just knows that golf, of course, like the back of your hand.
he’s, he’s taught me a lot of me, he, he wouldn’t take credit for it, but he and I have had some grinding sessions and he showed me some stuff like, another one that really shocks me. So, I grind, I ground Jacobson reels or, or reels in general. And I always start at the leading, when I start grinding that bed knife.
Okay? I start grinding that. I grind it on, I was grinding it on one end. Well, most of the time when you grind the bed knife and you know this where you’re going to have you perk trouble as a swag in. If it don’t cut right, it ain’t going cut right in the middle. Okay. So we started, he started showing me and I, what I’ll do now tr go to the middle of that bed knife and I use on blue mark or red mark or whatever I got in the machine paint or whatever, and I’ll scratch as much of that. From the, from the top down, I’ll get as much of that knife in one pass on a scratch test. And what I’m doing is I’m changing my angle a little bit. You see what I’m saying? And when I’m able to do that, I, I’ve found for me, it, it really makes a huge difference. I have had very few problems with what I call swag in the middle.
By starting in the
Yeah. And, and, and, you know, there, again, that’s just something that I know, to relate to any of these guys out there that have 3,800 rails and have five 70 Farwell rails. they, they need to, when they’re grinding and done, they need to squared up. They need to lo if they don’t know how, they need to learn how to squared up what it does.
Yeah. I mean, it just makes it, it makes it so much easier on adjustment, you know, And I’ve actually had some units, we’ve got 2, 5 70 fairway units that we, that we mow with. And I’ve actually had some of those units, not many thank goodness, but I’ve actually had some of those units that will actually come out in the process.
You know, you, those units go down, no telling how many times in, in a mowing and.
You know, I just, I that if I was given a Jake guy a tip, I, I’d show him that about thirty eight hundred and five seventy reels. I think for our area here, the seven inch reels are, are what’s gonna work best. And I’ve heard that from some other people. From some other people, and I’ve, I’ve been really blessed in the business too, because I’ve been good friends with competitors. In other words, I mean, I had a guy call, I’ve had people call me and say, Hey, let, I’m, it’s so and so’s golf course, and he’s got trouble with a 3,800, and he, this guy might be a green guy or red guy, you.
But I, I like the fact that we were competitive, but we never, we never, I’ve never talked about somebody else’s product and I’ve been blessed. Nobody else has ever talked about mine. And that, that’s all, that’s, I mean, that’s, that’s the way it ought to be. I mean, there’s enough business out there for everybody.
You just got, you gotta work and work through that, you know, sometimes. So, And my theory was I didn’t want nobody talking bad about Jacob, so why would I wanna talk bad about somebody else? I just, I just don’t do that. I’m not that guy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. And good on you for that cuz there’s a bunch of people that like to, what is it, Throw stones at a glass house
And, and, and it ain’t, that ain’t good. You know, I mean, really,
No, no, no, no. It is not. And like you said, we’re, we’re all in this together and if I can help you with a Jake or a Toro or a John Deere problem, I’m happy to help any way I
Right, right.
that’s one thing that’s always bu me, and I hadn’t been on Facebook much lately, but I used to see it in all those things where somebody had an issue with whatever color it was, and there would be, some person would say, Oh, well just buy the other color. And that doesn’t help.
right.
Yeah.
You know, can, can the technician, go to the board and approve the purchase of a hundred thousand dollars mower?
Probably not. He has an issue and he’s
just looking for help. And if you can’t help the guy out, just go on about your day.
Well, that’s, that’s kind,
You know, you, you don’t have
I am. I mean, you know, and we, we fought a little bit of battle, you know, when, when, when this thing, when we first got. Turf Technician Association started. Well, we tried to start one golly bu several years ago. and before we ever got going and we had the wrong people in place and it was all about them.
Well, this, the Turf Technicians Association is not about them. It’s about our associa. And what we’ve managed to do, and I’m really proud of this, is we’ve managed to keep that pretty colorless. You know, if, you know, cause you’ve been to the meetings, you don’t hear a bill Ed getting up, talking about Jacob all the time.
And we had a, we, we had a thing and it, it is probably gonna happen this year. I’m, I’m not sure, yet, I’m. Sure. I’m gonna be able to go to the show, with all the stuff that’s going on with me healthwise. I hope I will be, cause I hope I’ll be down there with you. but I just kind of gotta, I told Kim today I’m gotta put it on hold a little bit till I, you know, sleep.
But we had, and, and this thing started with Rex Floyd. Rex Floyd called me up and he said, left said, We got a, Chuck Morman called me and he wants us to tie up two hours, with 125 most asked questions by a turf technician. Said, uh, one, one of the, one of the vendors was not able to come and he wants us to do that, and he said, If we can tie up two ours, He said we’ve done good.
So we, we proceeded to go in there and start, you know, we had a couple John Deere guys. Scott White was there. we had some of the old boys, uh, the two Toro guys, Bob Rogers, Andmore More, and Freddy Proffer B on the Jackson. And we just talked, you know, we started that meeting at eight o’clock and left there at 15 after one. And, and just proceeded, Rex went on and took it a step father and he said, Hey, he said, We’re gonna have a meeting, we’re gonna have a meeting at such and such room number at three 30 to maybe talk about a Turf Technician association. And what’s really, what really makes me feel good is we had, there was 23 guys at. Right. And we made all the, the, the big three guys made a comment about it being colorless, you know, to be fair to everybody, because you got one, two, and three. Anyway, you go, you see. And, we made it colorless. And when we got in the meeting, they, those guys had gotten together and talked about it and already decided who was going to be the first P.
Who’s gonna be the first vice president, the first secretary, and the treasurer. And they already pretty much knew what they wanted to do. So it was a matter of us putting it in place. And thank goodness it’s worked like it has, because that’s a very good tool for, for somebody coming in that wants to learn the business.
You can get some great
Mm-hmm.
And, and it’s just for your time and your attentiveness, that works. So, again, I’m very
When didn’t y’all just celebrate? 20 years last year, I
20 years. And at, I, I, I’m, I, I tell you, I mean, I’ve managed cuz people that I’ve, that I’ve worked with for work with have said, Hey, just like al When we had, he’d set up all the meetings, he’d set up everything that’s going on, turf, move ins and all that stuff at the show, right? And we’d sit down in a, in a meeting, in a conference room and talk about it. First thing he’d tell me, he says, Tac your baby. You, you attended tac. We’ll attend to the rest of it.
You attend ThinkTech. So he allowed me to, to have some input into what was going on. And, Collie. I mean, we’re, we’re so blessed. We start out with 23 guys and I think, I think, and I don’t know the number totally, but I think it’s over 200 memory.
Oh wow.
you know, that’s, that’s, and, and, and it’s been very, very positive.
There’s been no, you know, there’s been no take back. There’s been, I mean, you know, and, and I’m, I’m really, I’m really proud. Of course, I’m honored and proud that those guys thought enough about. The name, the Turf Technician of the Year, the Bill Ledford Turf Technician of the Year.
Yeah. Yeah.
I, I, well, it is again, I mean, you know, it, it makes me really, really proud of, of what I’ve done and what I’ve tried to do in industry.
And, you know, it’s been, it’s been. Now I’ve just been so blessed. I I can’t stop saying that because it’s a, it’s a way, It’s a way I feel.
Oh, there ain’t nothing wrong with saying that. And what I wanna say is, Thanks Ms. Leppard. She led you down the right path, and that’s why you, where you’re setting.
I.
All because you treat people the way you wanna be
it’s a real simple little old thing, and it, and it works. It works pretty well, you know, I mean, it still works pretty well. and, you know, we talked a little bit in our board meeting today about, you know, old dog new tricks. that still works too. I, I mean, What you gonna do in this business? What I found in this business, if you don’t learn something at least ever, a little bit different every other day than you, you need to be doing something else.
You know? Because there’s so much you can grasp. And, and what we’ve got now is we used to this, I mean, you know, we used to use, I’ll use this as a greens cut night, 180. When I first started in the business, we used to cut the bottom of a grind, a bottom of a bed knife off, so we could get down to one 50. Okay. And there again, I’m telling you how old I, well, guess what? Now they go down to Dame 78 or something, you know, which is just right now we can’t do that at our golf course. But, but I mean, it’s just so you know, everything. Everything has its place and it, it’s, we can all old and you can blend together and help each other and, and, and make it, make the business better.
I, I totally believe that.
Oh, for sure. Yeah. No, I agree a hundred percent. And it’s just a matter of working together and hopefully there’s plenty of us old people in the industry. We need to get some of these young, young
That’s, I agree with that. Yeah. Yeah, I agree with that. Totally.
So what are you, what was you wanting to talk about? Was it getting more people in the
industry or mentoring the younger
kids?
I, I, I, don’t know, it’s, first of all, it’s a great industry as, as we all know, and I, and I talked about this a little bit earlier. You know, you get it, you get it, and you sold. You get helping people when you sold, and I’m telling you, you, I mean the Hello Pete. You won’t ever, it won’t ever go away.
You, it don’t ever leave you If you get it there, if you get it in your heart and soul to help somebody and say, you know, this, this right here is what I wanna do. I think you’re way ahead of the game. I just, I mean, I totally do. and, I’ve been so blessed. To be able to do that. I mean, I still have people, Uh, another thing they did to me was they wouldn’t take my phone number. They gave me my phone number, and I’ve got people, I, I mean, you know, and Russell’s very, very, he likes for me to do this, you know, on a certain degree. In a certain degree. And I try not to let it take me away from my work. But, you know, if somebody calls. I mean, hey, he don’t say a word if I’m trying to help him. And, you know, and that, that’s, I, and there again, I still do a little bit of that. I’ve been a blessed person to be in this business and and I just, I’m, I’m glad that I am able to give. Because I’ve gotten a lot of stuff. I mean, I’ve, you know, I’m, I’ve, I’ve done fine with the business, right?
But, but
when you go out here and see the people that I’ve affected,
Rapid Fire
you wanna do some rapid fire
Well, let’s, let’s do ’em. Let’s do
Let’s do it. What’s your favorite movie?
favorite movie? Well, I mean, it’s gotta be Top Gun, you know, that it got.
got one or two. The first or the second one.
well really one because, and the main reason is cuz we have not seen two yet. So, I just, uh, that’s something that’ll stay with you. So,
Oh yeah. No, that’s, that’s, that’s a good movie. What would be your last meal?
George Ds is going to turn over, several times. hamburger.
Hamburger Steak. I love it, man. What are you eating with?
use, well, I used to, before I got away from him, I used to have, baked potato or fries. And I, I’ve kind of got away from that now due to my, due to my situation with my kidneys and my weight and so on. yeah, George used to give me a absolute fit about, eating hamburger. And, it was bad enough. Some stuff I stuff that we can’t talk about on air
Okay,
but he, I get he’s, he’s got, he’s got a grin on his face. Tr I’m sure of that
Well, I, I got a grin on my face too. What are you most proud of?
what am I most proud of? I, you know, that’s, that’s a great question for me and mine’s very, I’m most proud of my ability to help people. , the biggest thing for me in this business and the, thrill to the core with me. Is me running up and down the road helping somebody or helping somebody, period.
You know, I used to have a little thing, and a lot of people don’t know this, but I used to have a little thing if a guy called me early enough in the day I tried to be there before dark. I tried to do that, was can always, couldn’t always do it, you know, you just had to, you just had to understand what was going on.
But the, my my point is, I enjoyed, I totally enjoyed all my customers. I’ve been very, very fortunate in my chart career. One, one bad little incident and what I was wanting to do is I was wanting to work on the guys more. At lunchtime, I was actually going to the beach. And I was, and that, and, and he and I became good friends, but he wouldn’t let me work on that more.
it was lunchtime or
well, yeah, well, and he didn’t want me bothering his guys for lunch. And, you know, and I’m, I mean, after I got down there and got over it, I understood. But, you know, man, look, I mean, we’re, we’re trying to get eight pounds apples in a four pound sack, all the. Every day. I mean, I mean, that’s the way you got to look at this business and people, and I know I probably exaggerated it and went over it and, maybe done some stu stupid things and stuff about being helpful to people.
But I mean, that’s all we had No words. No words. You know, if, if Trump Manning calls me and, and I get to his golf, At three o’clock, Hey, I’m, I’m going. that was just that and that was me. They, they’re, that’s not the common now. and that’s okay. But, but for me, doing, making me happy was, just helping somebody.
I’m been so blessed in this business and been. by everybody. I mean people, you know, thank me and, and stuff like that. I, I’m, I’m happy. I just enjoy, I’ve enjoyed my career as a field service guy. now since I’m over at River Bend, it’s, it’s really, really good for me. cause I need to slow down just a little bit.
I mean, but I, I would take nothing. The best part of my job was always being able to help somebody. And I, I had a lot of people even that would even call me and, and say, Hey, thank you. I got that thing fixed. Thank you. That’s even that much more rewarding. you know, when you know that and when it’s all, when it’s all said and done.
So, but the, there’s so many people that I needed to thank and I’m sure I didn’t do that. I mean, my, my career as a field service guy has been very, very, very rewarding to me.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh, actually done some stuff. If you’d have told me I’d have been on a laptop computer setting up, you know, chains and stuff in, in, in turf units and that kind of stuff.
10 years ago, I’d like, well, you were crazy. I, I don’t even know how to turn one on. But it’s, it’s amazing. It’s amazing how it comes out and you, and you learn it and, and, and again, I’ve been around some great, I’ve had some good. Some really, really good people in my career. matter of fact, for the most part, my career’s been, I, I’ve been good with, I’ve been involved with good people good people have returned my favors or my stuff for them.
it’s, it’s very rewarding for me.
This whole industry is field full of good people.
We meet so
Yeah. I, you know, and, and, and, and here’s, here’s the, here’s the whole thing with these, and I know we got some new guys that’ll be here in this, you know, it, field service is what you make field service. In other words, if you, if if I would’ve went to the truck every morning and unlocked the truck and got sick on my stomach, You know, had a quay feeling about it and not, didn’t want to go, then, then, then there’s something wrong with me.
I should have changed jobs. All that. It wasn’t that way. I mean, I had a guy, , I had a, I don’t know whether I, whether this is earlier or not, but I had a guy that we delivered two green smores to and two Farwell fairway mos too. Well, it was delivered on like on Wednesday, well Thursday, somebody had to go back in there and do.
Cleaning up and getting it done, ready to go. You know, at six 30 Friday morning, I stepped off my porch. He’s a good friend of mine too now. I mean, really good friend. He called me and let into me at six 30 on Friday morning. Well, you ain’t gonna find nobody at six 30, outgoing much, you know, much less somebody that would make a call.
So, all said and done. I said, How long would it take me to get down there? Or he asked me, he said, how long would it take you to get here? I said, well, I gotta get that cleared. Well, I knew what I was going to do. I was gonna hang the phone up, stay off for five minutes, call and back, and that’s what I did.
I called him and told him, I said, I punched it in. He says, iron 45 minutes. Take you a couple deep breaths. I’ll see you as soon as I can get there. And sometimes, you know, sometimes you had to do that. I mean, you know, and, and, and I probably got myself in a lot of trouble with, with my management people.
You know, like, what are you doing when you, what are you? Why are you there? You’re supposed to be such and such. If somebody called me and needed me and I knew what situation was, If I ever erred, I erred on the side of the customer
Mm-hmm.
to anyway. I thought
Yeah, no, that’s definitely the way
yeah, I think that’s the way it is. And, and that’s just a little tid for some of these new guys, you know?
Trust me and I know pretty well if you do feel service and you do feel service a proper way, you going to take it home. And your wife going hear about stuff you fixed or didn’t fix. You know, Peggy, Peggy had a thing with me. She’d tell me, you know, if I called her and told her I didn’t have, she said, bill, let it, well, she called me, let it, she said, let you, there’s no way you can fix everything.
She said, she would say that, and she’s told me that, you know, and, and she’s right. I mean, sometimes I don’t wanna admit that,
right. No, it still gets to you.
but still, I
to admit.
she, she knows. The back of our hand. Of course, we’ve been together for a long time and, and hopefully we’re together for a lot longer time. Sure. Uh, you know, it’s way good, but, that’d have to be, it is helping somebody would stand out for me.
And, and there’s so many people in, in the back of my mind I’m thinking about, you know, that I felt, I was like, go it. Boom. You know? that’s what made it all worth it for. I mean, it was real, real simple for me. It didn’t take much. and that’s what my dad, my dad told me when I was 16 years old.
He gave me the record. On the weekends, Friday night, Saturday night, and he said, I’ll help you. But if the phone goes off at four o’clock in the morning and your mother gets up, she’s gonna wake you up and you gonna go make a call, not meet.
And he had done it. He had done it about 30 years, when that was going, when he said that.
So, and I didn’t, it took me a little while to understand all he was doing was giving me some responsibility. And I’m, and I’m, I am so, so blessed, by that, you know, so anyway,
Oh yeah, for sure. Well, thank you so much, bill. I really enjoyed this.
I,
I
knew I would.
I, well, I totally, you and I have gotten to be good friends and I, I’m, I’m blessed to have that again. and look, any of these guys that need help, if there’s anything I can ever do to help them they get, they get in touch with you or, or get in touch with me if they got my number.
And by the way, that number did not change. Mr. Wil, Mr. Wilson told me, he said, that’s your number. You brought that number to tsp. And,
uh, so yeah, he’s, he’s, he’s a class act, I’m telling you. Class Act. So. Okay. Hey, thank you very much for the, for the time
Podcast Outro