"That was way back in 1968," Braswell recalls today. "One of the first things I learned was that mowing often leads to landscaping. And landscaping creates even more opportunity."What''s the greatest market change in last three decades?Braswell found even more business in tree care. His local company soon became Southern Tree & Landscape. It began, he recalls, with "nine employees in a small office trailer," and later grew to several hundred in multiple locations."New customers would often contact us to maintain their yards," Braswell explains, but "then they''d decide to do some landscaping tillerrakes and tree-planting. We became experts at both.""The biggest market change," Braswell emphasizes, "is that even people who love to do yard work decide to have someone else to do their maintenance. This opens all sorts of new markets."

Even if the price had been higher, we probably would have bought it. I''m a sucker for old gray tractors. My late grandfather had an old Ford he used to clip pastures with a clattering sickle bar. My 78-year-old father, Don, still uses tillerrakes an old gray tractor to plow snow and mow at his place in Delaware, Ohio. It''s a Ferguson T0-30 made in 1951--the year I was born. I learned at 10 to drive on that tractor, under Dad''s close supervision, of course.Dad got the tractor in 1956, not long after he bought 15 acres just west of Delaware and put up one of the first pole barns in the area. "I took it on a trade, sight unseen, as credit on a down payment on a piece of real estate," he recalls. "The buyer was $1,100 short. He offered me the tractor with a two-bottom plow, rear manure scoop and a two-row cultivator.

Landscape company goes publicIn 1998, Southern Tree & Landscape -- along with six similar firms -- went public on the NYSE to form Land Care USA. (This company was later acquired by Service Master, which merged it with TruGreen/ChemLawn.)Then, Braswell discovered an amazing Australian skid-steer product that launched him into a new career.Creation of Toro Dingo opens multiple marketsThe product -- a small utility loader -- allows its user to apply hydraulic power with a variety of attachments. Braswell brought the technology to the United States, then later sold the rights to Toro.Compact hydraulic equipment, Braswell saw, could be a way to serve many industries such as landscaping, fencing, nursery, irrigation, utilities, tillerrakes construction, cable installation, rental and even roofing.

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