Reel Turf Techs Podcast
Reel Turf Techs Podcast
Episode 140: Jim Merritt
In this episode of the Reel Turf Techs Podcast, we sit down with Jim Merritt, founder and CEO of JRM, Inc. Jim’s journey in the turf industry began as a teenager working on golf courses, eventually leading to a successful career as a superintendent in North Carolina. Frustrated with the quality of aerification tines in the early 1990s, he started crafting his own—building a product that lasted longer and performed better. What began as a side project evolved into a partnership with Redexim Holland, paving the way for JRM’s creation.
Jim shares the origins of his innovative approach to bedknives and reels, the importance of listening to customers, and his vision for the future of JRM. He also reflects on his unconventional career path, from his family's accounting tradition to pursuing turfgrass science at the encouragement of a mentor. Join us for a deep dive into the mind of a turf industry innovator, his philosophy on success, and, of course, his two heroes—Jesus and Tarzan.
- Tweet us @ReelTurfTechs and @MTrentManning
- Email us at ReelTurfTechs@gmail.com
- Check out our YouTube Channel
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 Welcome to The Reel Turf Techs Podcast, episode one 40. Today we're talking to Jim Merrit, founder and CEO of JRM, incorporated. Jim started working at a golf course as a teenager, and that led to its successful career as a superintendent at several prominent golf courses in North Carolina. Frustrated with the quality of verification times in the early 1990s. Jim started making his own tines that could last and pull cores longer. Jim made tides for his deep tide verification business before landing a contract with Redex Holland. This contract helped Jim officially incorporate JRM and the rest is history. Let's hear a little bit of that history today. Let's talk to Jim. And just a friendly reminder. Jim's two favorite heroes are Jesus and Tarzan. Tell me a little bit of your background and how you got started in the turf industry.
Jim Merritt:In 1967, I was 16. And my dad, who was born in 1919, was 11 years old when the Great Depression hit. So he saw a lot. And it formed the person that he was. So, he was a conservative, no nonsense kind of guy. Fought in World War II. And He told me. He said, son, get a job. I mean manual labor. You're not laying around the house this summer. And so, um, I went to work for Reynolds Park Golf Course, which was owned by the city of Winston Salem. They own two golf courses. And I went to work on the maintenance department. And that's where I got started. And of course, I was just a kid. And it was a very enlightening experience. I worked there probably eight summers in a row. All through college, all through high school, then post-graduate, when I went on and got my turf degree, I was still working there during the summers. The superintendent and the foreman were the same. Stayed there the whole time. They knew me from one season to the next. So I got to know those men very well. And I got to work with, um, men that were. in their 40s and 50s. Now, here I am a kid,
Trent Manning:so
Jim Merritt:I saw a lot, learned a lot from those men. It was a different world from what I had grown up in, and so it was a real eye opener for me. but I I went to college, got my college degree at Campbell, and when I came out the superintendent there at where I had been working at Reynolds Park, Convinced me to go back and get a concentration in turf grass science.
Trent Manning:Okay.
Jim Merritt:I looked at NC State and quite frankly, I was Less impressed than I was with Catawba Valley Technical Institute. I went up there and I met with a Harry Dubose who was a professor up there and Harry was just one of those individuals that was Capable of of really communicating effectively. Brilliant guy. And, um, so I chose to go there. And they had a real focus on turf grass. And I was there and did well, I guess. Harry became, I didn't know that Harry was as close to my age as he was, but he was, he's five or six years older is all. Harry and Gail became good friends. They're still good friends. And He, when I he helped me get the job at Charlotte Country Club. So, as soon as I graduated, I stepped right in to the assistant superintendent position at Charlotte Country Club. So, that was 77 and I stayed there for 5 years through 1982. Why did
Trent Manning:you started working at a golf course at a really young age, why did you want to continue to pursue that? You just really enjoyed working outside or
Jim Merritt:there's a
Trent Manning:lot that goes into that.
Jim Merritt:Yeah. Okay. My dad was an accountant, his dad was an accountant. I did not want to be an accountant.
Trent Manning:Uhhuh.
Jim Merritt:And so, um, I love outdoors. I love nature. and so I enjoyed going to work and listening to the birds and the see the squirrels and the rabbits and run around and play. And I'll never forget I was trying to get my nephew. To do the same thing, to get on that path and go work during the summers, during the, and he's my brother's kid. I said, but Joe, you'll get to see the rabbits and the birds and the squirrels. He looked at me and he says, Jim, I don't give a, about rabbits, squirrels, and birds. He went to become a pizza delivery boy. Which my dad would have never tolerated for me. They didn't have those things in 67. But, um, Dad wanted me to work hard. He wanted me to see what it was like. To know that I didn't wanna be digging mud in ditches at 50 and it, so I went on and became a golf course superintendent later. And I, like I said, I was at Charlotte Country Club five years, then I took the head grounds position at Salisbury Country Club and I was there five years. And when I went to Salisbury it was a little different because they had rubic code tennis courts. And I was over everything outside, including the pool. So I had to learn about pools and I had to learn about maintaining tennis courts and various other things and watering them and, but it, but also you had to learn the various committees. You have a tennis committee, you got a pool committee. And those people, their paradigm is pool and so you have to navigate those personalities. If you can follow what I'm saying. And the ladies, you have honeybees at the pool around drinks. They don't like that. I mean, it's just learning to navigate personalities, which I've never been the best at. But, um, I went on from Salisbury Country Club to Twan Gotham Country Club, where I was golf director and general manager. And As general manager, that was a whole new look at the world. I had to, I was responsible for all the club budgets, and I had to get those assembled from the departments, and tidy that up, I had to attend every board meeting, and it was, again, it was an eye opener as well. Edenton is a very, it's up on the Alvin Wallace Sound, it's a very unique community. You had a board of directors, which I answered to the president, ultimately to the board. Some of them were, um, locals. The granddaddies had grown up there. Others, because Edenton's so pretty and it's right on the Albemarle Sound. And it's three miles wide where the country club is. It's beautiful. And it's kind of freshwater, mostly. Some of them get a little brackish. So you have leaders in their field from around the country would retire there, and they did, and they'd get on the board of directors. So I had some really amazing individuals that I worked for. And became friends with, a guy by the name of John Penn. He went through the Cornell Hotel School.
Trent Manning:Oh, okay. Okay.
Jim Merritt:Wow. And then when he got out, he was general manager. And he was general manager at Oakmont Country Club. Three years of which they had the U. S. Open there. Oh, wow.
Trent Manning:Yeah.
Jim Merritt:He was Orford Caesar's palace. He turned it down because he didn't want to raise his family there and became the, uh, general manager of the New York, was it, New York Athletic Club, I think it was. Okay. It was another big deal club. Huh. So, and so he was on my board. He was the number two tennis player when he was at Cornell. So he loved tennis. I liked tennis. John and I got to be good friends.
Trent Manning:So he
Jim Merritt:and Barbara and I became good. His wife, Barbara, we became good friends. And, so that's kind of how it led to a foundation of over many years watching things take place. And so that's how I got into it. And that's where I, you know.
Trent Manning:Where I
Jim Merritt:went.
Trent Manning:All right. How did you start making your own tines? What, and what inspired that?
Jim Merritt:I I wanted to make a little extra money. So I bought a Verti Drain, which was made by Redexum. They're out of Holland. And I bought a tractor, Mitsubishi 45 horsepower tractor. I thought, we'll go do this. Now, this was in 19, I incorporated in August of 1992. Okay. Okay. And I bought my Verde Reign and my tractor from the Redexum distributor out of Charlotte, which at that time was E. J. Smith Group, or E. J. Smith Son. When I was at Charlotte Country Club, I got to know those men at E. J. Smith. Because I was running over there all the time picking up parts for Charlotte Country Club. It was just across town. Those men in 77 grew into positions of authority and E. J. Smithson's son. And they became my friends and I stayed friends with them. So, when I started, I bought my vertigrain from them. I started doing this thing and the tines weren't performing very well. Most of my customers were also my friends. Because I had been an assistant when they were assistants. Yep. So I grew up with those men as well. And so now I'm going on to a friend's golf course and he's going to do soil exchange and the tines won't pull a cord but like two greens. And then it becomes clogged up and then you're not doing soil exchange. That was not only an embarrassment to me, I knew what my friends wanted. So I decided that I needed to do something about this. So I went to a local machine shop in Statesville and I asked the guy if he could make, I showed him one of the tines, I said, can you make this? He goes, huh. I said, good. And so he started making them. I went back to him, it probably wasn't three times, and had him dimensionally change those parts. And next thing you know, I got tines that worked. I mean, worked. Full life of the tine. And I recognized that was a pretty good thing. And I knew there were other contractors out there that had been in business for much longer than I had. Redexen introduced the Verde drain in 1985 to the U. S. Okay. It had been innovated in Europe specifically to do soccer fields. But now they introduced it in 1985 and they actually had a field day in 1985. Now I met Salisbury Country Club in 1985. They had a field day at Charlotte Country Club on number five green. They had all the superintendents come around and whatnot. And my boss, my former boss, Johnny Burns, called me and said, Jim, Remember how you used to sit in the office on winter days and just dream of going six inches deep on these drains? I said, yeah, I do. He said this machine will go ten, eleven inches deep. You need to see this. So I went down for the field day. Ruud Fransissen, the president, or general manager of Redection, was there. And their senior engineer, Marina Sriniki. And I met them both. Clueless that I'd ever have any other contact with them. I did stay later. Everybody else kind of left. But I was the only former assistant, so I stayed and chit chatted. Then I went on about my business. So now we are in 1993. And I've got a time that's working pretty well. And I started calling other contractors that had gotten into the contracting business years before that I knew. And you can kind of domino it, you know, and find out from another. And so I sent them some time and said, here, try these. They got back with me. I figured everybody's having to use the same time.
Trent Manning:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Because as I back then it was just one distributor, right?
Jim Merritt:And so, um, they got back with me and said, man, these things work great. How much you want for them? I said I don't know. Okay, so I made three or four dollars a time, not much.
Trent Manning:But
Jim Merritt:I started going around and finding out about others. I even found out about a guy named Bob Doty in Ohio and started, he's a contractor up there, started selling tithes to him. And this is where it really turned spiritual for me. So please allow me to do that. Oh, of course. One morning, late March, I woke up on a Monday morning. I just woke up and knew I needed to Now, they had cell phones in those days, but they didn't call Europe, and so I didn't know how to call Europe. So I thought, okay, so I called back down to my buddy at E. J. Smith's group that I bought my Verti ring from and said, Troy I'm making tithes. He said, yeah, Jim, I know you are. We aren't selling as many now. I said, sorry about that. And he said I said, you think Rex would be interested in my tithes? He said, I don't know. And I said how do you call Holland? He said, you don't have to. The North American importer is in Wilkes Barre, PA. It's an 800 number. Here it is. Charlie Otto. Oh, okay. I hung up the phone, called Charlie up there to Wilkes Barre, PA and got Charlie Otto on the phone. And, of course, I introduced myself and explained why I was calling. I talked to Charlie for, I don't know, seven or eight days. minutes. Charlie stops me and he says, Jim, what made you call me this morning? I didn't, I was not expecting that question, obviously. I said Charlie, I honestly, I just got up this morning and knew I needed to call Redexum. And it was dead silence. Seemed like forever, probably only 10 seconds, but it seemed like it was forever. And he comes back and he says, no one knows this yet. But Redexum just lost their supplier for tines. And I said back to him, I said Charlie, I know who does know it. And he said, yes, he does. The next morning at 7 a. m., I'm woken up by a rude friend, Sisson, whom I had met in 1985 at Charlotte Country Club, calling from Holland to talk to me about tines. How cool is that? I didn't expect it. Yeah. But that's the Heavenly Father at work. And nobody understands the real power there. I don't think. So, we talked and he said, Do you have a fax? I said, yes. So he said, I'm gonna, Marinus Renicki, is going to um, fax you over the list of times that we need for testing. Who's gonna fax over? Marina's, who was their head engineer. Okay. Redickson's head engineer, and whom I also had met in 1985. And I'm sort of putting the pieces of the puzzle together as this is unfolding quickly. And they said to use our FedEx number and just FedEx the stuff to us, which I did. I went to the machine shop and said, He said, okay. Made them. to my spec, and then I shipped them over there to them. Probably a week at the most. They called, Rude called me back. Said, Jim, your ties work great. How much you want for them? Oh, okay. I said I'll have to work you up a matrix for them at.
Trent Manning:I
Jim Merritt:said, I'll get it worked up and I'll get it to you. Not having a clue what I was going to do here. Okay. So I called back down to my buddy, DJ Smith's group. I said, Troy, can you get into the computer and see what you're buying these tines for from Rodexum? He said, sure. Because he was wholesaling them, right? So that's what he did. We went down it part number by part number. And I just backed it down, I think, 35%. I said, I took what they were paying and I backed it down 35%. Rodexum probably wouldn't make that. And I said, that's the price I'm gonna put on it. I went down. It took us a good hour and a half to go down through all those parts and pull it up and It was instrumental though. So I took those prices, knowing there's no way the machine shop was gonna make them for that. And I sent it over to Redexum and within a day's time they accepted my pricing. Okay? Yeah. So now, then we put a contract together, an agreement together. First a letter of intent, and then an agreement together. Which basically guaranteed me half a million dollars for five years. Wow. How cool. That was cool. Except that's just a piece of paper. Okay, I had no clue how to make anything. I grew grass. Yep. I didn't have a building. I didn't have any equipment. I had nothing but a nice piece of paper. So I said, I'll go to the banks. I'll show them this piece of paper. So I did. I went to the bank. And I explained what I wanted to do and they asked me difficult questions like what have you been doing for the last X number of years? I said I've been a superintendent. I've been growing grass. What do you know about manufacturing? I don't know anything. Mr. Merritt, it's wonderful. You've got a nice contract, but he's in Europe. What if he doesn't pay you? Oh, they're nice people. They'll pay us right down the road to a bank. Just going down the road to another bank. So I went to many banks. And finally found a bank that would take a chance on me. Now I had some cash. And I'm still looking now for someone to make these things at a price that would work. And I'd heard of a machine shop in Lexington. I was living in Winston Salem. So I'm driving down Highway 150. And it's a 55 mile an hour zone, and I was probably doing 65. And I come by. A sign said Dalton's Metals Works. And I catch it out of the corner of my eye and I did a bat turn right into the driveway. And I come in here. And it was that original building, 60 by 80, on an acre and a half. And I walk in the building and it was pretty much empty. There was one guy standing in the back by one piece of machinery. I walked back there to him and I said, introduced myself. He introduced himself and he said, I'm Jack Dalton. And I said, hey. I said, what's going on here? I'm selling out. Oh, okay. Good. You're selling all your equipment. That's good. What are you going to do with the building? We'll sell it, I guess. I said, have you ever heard of a purchased money mortgage? He said, no. I said it's underfinancing. Would you be interested in something like that?
Trent Manning:No.
Jim Merritt:Yeah, maybe. I put a deal together with him in a matter of days. Went through the attorneys and now I have a building. So, at that point, I put an ad in the paper for a machinist, a guy by the name of Jim Kent, who had, from up north, he had been a machinist on a nuclear sub for like eight years. And he had decided he didn't like it north, he didn't want to move down here. So he was here looking for a job. And so he came in and he said, Jim, let's go shopping. Bought some equipment, hired some operators. He made my fixturing, and I started making tines. Just like that. Just like that.
Trent Manning:And you were you still a golf course superintendent?
Jim Merritt:No, I quit that in the winter of 93. When I realized I had good tines, I felt like I needed to devote myself to JRM. And many people have said that was a bold move to me. It was just It wasn't I don't know how to describe it. It was this is what I need to do. Yeah, I can't I can't describe it But other than that, but you know, that's what how I got into making times noted up jrm Um, as a kid, 17, 16, 18, I'm watching. We were air fighting at Reynolds Park. There were two golf courses that were owned by the city, Reynolds Park and Winston Lake. And they'd shuffle me back and forth. So I was watching. And over the years, I noticed that Toro didn't even have a greens air fire. They didn't have one then. Okay, but they came out with one in, I don't remember, late 70s, early, early 80s, but, um, they were improving the machine. There was no focus at all on trying to improve the quality of the tines. And, I was at Salisbury Country Club in the fall of 86, and we were aerofying our greens that fall for fall renovation. And, um, Like most, every golf course out there, you've got one or two greens that are your problem greens, and you're just, you know, you're tough, and so At that time I was getting about three greens per set of times. And It so happened that number ten green was a low pocketed green, big trees around it, back creek, horrible air circulation. It was just a problem green, and I wanted to get as much depth on that green airification as I could. And so I was changing the tines prematurely because I wanted the tines, you'd get decent depth on your first green, second green and start to wear, third green is nothing but butter and to go away. And I didn't want that. So I'm down there, my mechanic was working on the top dress. My assistant was changing cups on the front nine because the ladies didn't mind playing on bumpy greens. So they were waiting for us to exit, verifying number 10 green. And they're up there watching, right? The ladies are all up there watching. One of them happened to be the wife of the chairman of the greens committee. And I knew what was going on. So I'm changing tines and I'm down there doing it a little early, prematurely. And here comes my boss. He comes down the car path. I knew what was going to happen. Hoi Pope drives up to me and asks me what I'm doing. I said, I'm changing. I'm about halfway done. I said, I'm changing times. He said some unpleasant things to me. And then just drove off. I thought I'm going to finish changing times. So I did. Point being is, the next February, the It wasn't really called an international conference and show that year, I don't think. But it was in Phoenix, Arizona. And I went to it. So I went to the Toro booth. The big Toro booth. I said, I walked in there and I said, Do you have an engineer here? They said, Sure. Bob, come over here. So Bob comes over and I said, Bob, make me a tine that will do all 18 holes. Where I don't have to stop my air fire. Where I can keep on going and get it done. He said, can't be done. Turned around and walked off. Left me standing there in the middle of the Toro booth. I was standing there looking around. So I thought, okay, it can't be done. I didn't know. So I left. So how did the lenient time change things? When I started making tines for Redexum, I really got going heavily, 94, 95. And, um, That's when I started looking at trying to come out with a tine that would do all 18, 19 greens or 20 if you've got two practice greens without having to change the darn things. And it took me several attempts and whatnot, but that's, we figured it out and I introduced the delineum tine in 1998. Okay. Okay? Yep. And there was surface tension because times have been costing a buck, maybe a buck and a quarter, and I'm saying pay me 10. You gotta be crazy. And I'm saying, yeah, but look at all these tines. You add up all the cost in these tines. Look at these few little tines. Yeah. It's less expensive. But the real joy, the real benefit is you start it. Usually when you're air fine, you start at daylight. Equated dark. You get the golf course open sooner. Everything starts with aerifying. If you get it done, then all your follow up processes are not held up and you can move right along. And, if all you gotta do is stop the machine and put gas in it and rotate an operator for lunch or whatever and keep it going, Wow! What a beautiful thing that is. I've noticed over the years that every time you stop an aerifier to change tide, you kind of open up Pandora's Box. Mmmm you could strip and bowl or you have all kinds of stuff. And you're usually not doing it in the most pleasant places. You're doing it on a car path or somewhere. And your operator, you don't trust them to do it, so they're down in the woods hunting golf balls. You get done, you stand, you gotta call them back up. I mean, it's just Pandora's box. I knew most superintendents were dealing with stuff exactly like that, so. And your debt stays consistent. Debt stays consistent, which affects your absorption, your uptake, it affects everything. And, but I had to give some times to them. They didn't believe it. So I started giving tithes away. Again, just like I had done previously, here, try these. And when they did, they just, it took off. And then, I mean, we started selling tithes and we had to modify our, we had to have an inventory, we had to do a lot of different things.
Trent Manning:Supercharged course maintenance with Task Tracker, the leading golf course maintenance software in the industry. Built for precision and efficiency, Task Tracker simplifies daily operations, optimizes water usage, and keeps your team on track. With real time updates and streamlined workflows, It's the essential tool for modern superintendents. Learn more at www. clubessentials. com backslash task tracker. Let's get back to the episode.
Jim Merritt:Yeah, how did you learn metallurgy? Coming up with that. In 1994, I bought a machinist handbook. About that thick. And so I read the title. Most of what, I couldn't begin to tell you what it said, but it didn't matter. I was buying steel tubing and solid rod at mill minimums already, and I knew that. But I was buying them and going through a metal manager, Metrolina Steel out of Charlotte. And, of course, they were, they had their profit margin in there. I recognized that. So I started trying to call Steel Meals and buying directly from them. And I noticed when the tubing would come in, it said Plymouth Tube, Streeter, Illinois. I got their number, I started calling up there and asking them to give me an open account. They wouldn't do it. But I got, I went up the food chain to their CFO, and he happened to love golf. So I called him and pestered him. And we'd talk. Five minutes about business and then thirty minutes about golf. Eventually, and I cannot remember the man's name now, he said, Jim, look, we got an excellent discount program. It's two percent in ten days. You take the discount, this first order, and then after that you've got an open account for thirty days. I said, yes, sir. And you better believe I did that. And it was like a domino effect. Plymouth Tubes is well known. So once I got an open account with Plymouth Tube, I was able to springboard off of that and get open accounts with other steel mills. Okay. And so I, so, when you do that, you're in an arena there where you have access to metallurgists. Ah yeah. Yeah, they're the best that's out there. And so I'm out there picking at that, trying to figure out everything I can. And so you have people come by and visit you. Yeah. And that's how I learned a lot about steels and metallurgy from those men and women. And I learned a tremendous amount from them. And I sucked it up as best I could. We were having to do heat treating as well, so you learn about that to some degree too. It's just a right angle learning curve. You know? As you grow up. I mean, you never quit learning. No. Not ever. Life stays good. Like the old saying goes, sometimes it's not what you know, it's who you know. Because who you know might know what you need to know. You're exactly right. You are exactly right. Who do you listen to? One of the most important things you'll ever learn. Who do you listen to? And this is something that, over a period of time, you kind of check it. Obviously, you want to listen to those that make good decisions and are right. Yeah. You see? Yep. And you figure out who's right and who's not. Pay attention. You can't have your pride getting away. You can't have your ego getting away. You gotta, you have to decide based on right and wrong. Yeah. Easier said than done sometimes. For human beings it is. Yes. Explain how you started making bed knives. So you're making all these tines and you say, okay, let's make bed knives. Sort of. Yeah. Again, having been exposed to the industry, I knew where the volumes would be. I knew what items would be were large movers. And I knew also where I felt like there was vast opportunity for improvement. I just, I don't like to make another me too. Yeah. I like to make things better. That's what it's all about. As a superintendent, I evaluated, um, the value of a part, not just the cost. It was how, what did that part do for me? Yeah. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. The cost would, if I felt like it was a really good value, I could justify the cost. So, bed knives. My brother was a naval aviator during Vietnam and he told me one time the wing spars of our high performance jet fighters are coined. What's coining? Okay I know what a quarter is. That's coining. No, that's not coining. So I started researching coining. Noodling around and calling and just asking questions so I could learn. And I realized that When you coin a piece of steel, you change it on a molecular level, and you enhance certain parts of that material. It's a squishing of metal. Huh. And when it's engineered, the die is engineered correctly, it will, the metal almost becomes fluid. And it moves the metal into the business end of whatever part it is you're making, a true coining die does. So, in this case, I wanted my greens mowers, I wanted them coined, and the relief behind the strike point is what I wanted to give coined, and I wanted that material to flow up into the strike point, and make that strike point just as durable as possible. I wanted it to hold an edge. I know they have to work in harsh environments, and grit, and tin top dressing, and all that stuff. So, I started trying to find someone that could, Manufacture a coining die for me to make a bed knife. It, easier said than done. And we went through three or four different companies before I found somebody that could really knew how to make a coining die. They could hold it true, you know, across that 22 inches basically at that time. You got, you get 3, you gotta hold it true. So, you have your Heat treating is also involved in that because when you, coining builds stresses in the metal and it likes to move. Heat really makes metal move. So there are certain things that had to be done to try to overcome those hurdles. And we had a lot of years where we had failures and stuff. One of the things that I want my company to do always, as long as I draw a breath in part of this company, it'll do it. Listen to the customer. Listen to the people. Listen to the mechanics. Listen to the superintendents. They will tell you what they want and what their needs are. And react to that. Don't just let it be like me walking into this Toro booth that day. Listen to it. Learn and react to that. So we did. And through, and, Men like you, who helped us refine our bed nights to where we have an excellent product now. And so, we expanded the line and as a business owner, um, it's refreshing to, to hear that philosophy. Because I do think a lot of businesses, and especially the bigger they get, the less they're concerned about the end user. And, again, That's what it's all about. That's where your whole business is. I was an end user. And I knew how difficult it was. I can, I remember what I went through. And didn't have to be. Right. Yeah. Tell me about Butch Trogdon. Trogdon. Trog, Trogdon? Trogdon. Yeah, now that's a story in itself. Butch was the Sr. engine mechanic for the Richard Petty race team for 25 years. And Richard Petty retired, turned the team over to his son Kyle. And Butch didn't get along with Kyle very well. So he left. Now, when you're working in that, you know, NASCAR, there's no room for mistakes. It's a white glove, dust free environment they're working there. I mean, it's. So he takes his paradigm, and he goes to Star Mount Forest Country Club in Greensboro. Nice club. And they had deer walking greensmores. And they had L 95 or L 93 on their greens. I can't remember what it was. Anyway, it was a bent grass. And, um, So Butch comes there, and his paradigm was if it's a GM motor, he's not putting anything back on that motor but a GM part. Okay, yeah. He was. So, here we are, trying to get him to try our bed nights. We knew they were good. He wouldn't do it. He wouldn't have any part of it. Even his superintendent, who loved our times, put some pressure on him to do it, but, you know, not an overwhelming amount. So, one day, on a Friday afternoon, I had flown up to Chicago, helping train a dealer up there we'd put on. And I'd fly back, and I had a layover, and I was waiting Friday afternoon for my plane. My phone rings. He said, Jim? I said, yeah. He said, this is Butch Trogdon at Thar Mountain. I said, hey Butch, how you doing? He said I doing pretty well. Can I, you got time? I said sure. And he said I finally tried your bed knives. And he said I expected them to be good. I'd heard, that's why I was willing to try them. He said, but, what I'm seeing blows me away and I can't explain it. He said, what are you doing Monday morning? Can you come over here? I said, okay. He said we top dressed. This past Monday we've been cutting grit all week. And I've had to face off the bed knives every day get them cut again to go back out. He said, I got nine Walking Greens mowers. Seven of them got the original deer bed knives on them. Two of them I put your bed knives on. I have not had to touch your bedknife yet. He said, but that's not what's blowing me away. He said, come on over here and I'll show you. I said, okay, I'll be there. So I go over, Monday morning, see Butch. And he had a magnifying glass. He said, you can get down in there and you can look. And he changed out the bed knives on all the deer stuff, except for one. And he kept one of my Mowing units that he didn't change the bed knife on. He said, now look at the one that the deer were the deer bed knives on it. I looked down there with my magnifying glass. You could see these grit striations. Through not only the bed knife, but also through the real blade. He said, now look at yours. And I looked down through there and there were very much less grit striations. Same thing. on the reel blade. And he said, Jim, your bed knife is making my reels last longer. And that is huge to me. I can't explain it. But that's what's happening. I said, okay, that's good. That is huge to me. I said, very good. You're going to use our bed knives. So, so that's, so I went away. He starts using our bed knife. He wrote a testimonial for us. That was in May of that year. And in November every year we have a show at Myrtle Beach, in the Carolinas, it's a pretty good sized show, and it draws from Tennessee, Georgia, and Virginia even. And so we had a booth, and we had it set up, and Butch had written me a testimonial, basically telling this whole story, my brother Bob. So, I'm sitting in working our booth, and Fred Hartenstein walks up. Now he's the head mechanic at Augusta National. He walks up, and he was already using our tines, and he walks up and starts talking to me. So I have this testimonial in my hand, and I tell Fred about what's going on, and I hand him the testimonial, and he's reading it. And I turn around and look over my shoulder, and there's Butch Strogdon standing there. I said, Butch! Oh, hey! Butch, this is Fred. Fred, this is Butch. And I just backed out and they started talking. And next thing I know, Gus and Nashville's buying our bed knives. Yeah, that's awesome. So when you see the bastards this year, you'll know they mowed them with our bed knives. Oh yeah. That's, I mean, that's how it happened. I mean, I couldn't, I mean, who, only the Heavenly Father can do stuff like that. Yeah, that's all. That's all I just backed up and they started talking to, I don't know, they talked a pretty good while. That's cool. Do you know if Butch, is he still working? No. He retired. He's retired. Yeah. How about developing the Infinity Tine. Again, I don't like a me too, so I looked at by that time we developed the Infinity Tine, I'd learned more and more about heat treating. and metallurgies that connect to that. I mean, it's not just heat treating by itself. It's the steels and the foundations that you give to work. So we worked out a very good product there. Cause you can't just take mild steel and heat treat it and make it hard, right? You gotta have, you gotta have metallurgy before you gotta have a certain amount of carbon. You gotta have a certain, and the alloys can play a part in all that too. And, you know, it's a. It's a learning curve. Yeah, how long did it take to figure that process out? Not that long, um, because I had a, by that time I had some accumulated knowledge. And I was able to come out with that part from start to finish probably a year at the most. Okay. Why did you decide to paint them blue? Make them stand out. Make them different. Yeah, to make them different. Make them different. Everybody see that's a J. R. M. Infinity Tine. And I will tell you, my staff gave me a really hard time about that blue. I mean really hard time. And, didn't want to do green. You didn't want to do red or orange. I wanted it to be unique and different. Yeah. Truthfully, I was looking for a color and I was in Lowe's. And I turned around and I went down an aisle and there was all these paint cans. Right there. And that one cap just caught my attention. I grabbed it and it's going to be our infinity. Yep. That's funny. Yeah. It's going to be our infinity time. It's funny how things like that happen. Again, why did I walk down that aisle? You know, I wasn't even there to buy paint. I wouldn't even go there to find the paint. You know, I went there for something else. Yeah. The Heavenly Father. There he was. I came back and I started painting in that color. And it just carried on over to our reels. And now, anybody that sees blue reels is going to know that's J. R. M. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So where did the reels come from? You just said, I'm making bad knifes. We might as well make reels. Yeah. I pretty much we decided we needed to start making reels and we had a pretty significant learning curve there. It took us longer than I'd hoped. I think we're on revision 17 now, so, but we've got a great reel now and we're very excited about that. It took us a couple of, two or three years, really, to get it down. Why does why is quality so important here at JRM? Because that's what matters. It mattered to me, anyway. I consider myself normal. Now, she might not. But I consider myself normal. And So I figure everybody ought to think like me. And, You know, superintendents are immensely practical people. They live in a world where they can't control life and death. You know, grass will die. And sometimes you don't even know why. I was at Salisbury Country Club when Root Rock Pythium first hit Charlotte Country Club. And I had to go back. I went down there and looked at it and it was, boy, it was so sad. And it just, it had just evolved. So we can't control stuff like that. And so superintendents are, I think, very practical people and very humbled many times by the nature of what they're in. So, I mean, I felt like if I presided, provided them a part that was distinctively superior, they'd buy it. And it would make their world more beautiful. Make it easier on them. Make their life easier. Keep the mechanics off his hands and knees. You know? Yeah. I've been on my hands and knees plenty of times. I don't enjoy it. When you can keep a guy off his hands and knees as much as possible, you've made a friend. Yep. No, you definitely have. Do you have any new products? Here? And projects? Anything you want to talk about? Or discuss? I can, I guess. I don't see any reason why I can't. You are the owner, right? So, you can talk about whatever you want to. Yeah I can do that. Um, all through the years there have been groomers and brushes that have been on mowing units to try to make the grass stand up and get a better cut and to get a better roll. And golf course superintendents, including myself, were the great links to Get a better stemp reading. Come behind and roll the greens. Some of them just, you know, these rollers are awesome. We realized that a big part of the brush, which you couldn't utilize those brushes, they were turning too fast, way too fast. So if you put them down in the turf at all, they'll burn. And in fact, if you put them down much, if you have an undulated green, it'll almost suck the mowing unit down to where it'll scalp. I mean, it really, so those brushes were, and groomers too, they really were, you couldn't get them down in the canopy. You just couldn't, you couldn't get them, they were just, they really didn't do what was intended. We have designed a brush, it's patent pending now, that goes in the same place as all the brushes did, in behind the front roller, front of the reel, but it's got it's own independent motor, and it turns at 250 RPMs, instead of 3, 000. Yeah. So, you can literally put that brush. down into the canopy of the grass and pull that canopy up, excavate the sloughed off leaves and open that canopy up to the air and the sunshine and gas exchange and all the beautiful things that makes the grass happy. Yep. So you're actually doing something that's going to be beneficial to the turf and at the same time you get a much better stimp reading. So we call it a stimp brush. Ah, okay. Awesome. That's so good. That's exciting. And you can mow every day with this brush. Getting down in the canopy. And what we have seen, if you use it every day, the grass will just get healthier and healthier. How far below the rollers are you setting that? Or is it like, because it goes kind of into the canopy sometimes? It goes into the canopy. It'll literally open up the canopy. Yeah, that's something else. And I would think, too, opening that canopy up when you did top dress, it'd be easier to work the top dress in and all those things, too. I believe, in time, it will totally change golf course maintenance. Because I think it'll affect all your cultivation practices. It'll affect your fertilization practices. The grass is healthier. It'll certainly affect your pesticide practices. Yep. So in time, we're gonna see how this does but Anytime you make the grass healthier and more robust You've done something And I can't think of anything else that was ever done to get a better stem breeding That wasn't detrimental, really, somewhat to the grass. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So, that's one of the reasons I'm very excited about this. Yeah, most all the practices we do to make a green fast is not good for the grass. Cutting it lower, rolling it, whatever. Here you can raise the cut knife. Very likely you can raise the cut knife. Oh yeah. That makes sense. We'll see.
Trent Manning:Where do you see JRM going in the future?
Jim Merritt:I really, that's a tough question. I mean, we're going to continue to try to do the best that we can to help this beautiful, incredible industry, which we service. Come out with new parts and try to innovate things along the way. Listening always to the end user, to the mechanics. A maintenance technician can call in here and ask to speak to an engineer and he will get one on the phone. And that is, again, one of the things that I think is very important.
Trent Manning:And that engineer isn't going to tell him it can't be done. See you later. Right? He better not. Yeah. He won't be working here long. Right. He needs to listen to what the request is. Yeah. And then, because that guy had no clue. First of all, I don't think the guy was an engineer. Yeah, who knows. He called some other sales rep over there. Some other sales guy over there. Yeah. Looking back at it, I don't think Billy Bob knew anything about steel. Yeah, probably not. But, I mean, you know, at the time, I'm just a kid. I'm going, Oh, okay. I walked away thinking it couldn't be done. No way. Knowing that it could be done. And now here we are. So that's that's gotta make you feel really good. How rewarding has it been watching JRM's? Been humbling. Progress. Very humbling. To have my peers see value in my products and what I do is probably one of the most humbling things I can ever experience. It's a beautiful thing. I've had, I have people say to me, Um, Look at what a great job you've done. Huh. And I look at them and I say, Look at what a great job God has done. Ah yeah. I mean, that's exactly how I see it. Yeah. The Lord works through people. Yep. And I'm very humbled. that we've been able to do something that I think has genuinely affected this industry. Like I say, we came out with our delineum tine in 1998. Most people may not realize, but it was in, it was 2005 when Toroio came out with her titan tine. Oh yeah. You see? And that was a definite response to our little delineum tine. And I didn't patent the little delineum tine. Should have. But it didn't know to in those days. So, it's okay. Yeah, it's all right. Yeah, competition's good. And so, so, we made Toro do a thing. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then Deere followed through too, I'm sure. So that's humbling. Very humbling to me. Yeah, now it's definitely been a positive impact on the industry. Cause, I mean, if you hadn't of come up with that. You know, who knows, would it have stayed like that forever? God created competition. We know that. You get up in the morning, look out your window, you watch the robins compete with one another for a worm. God created competition for a reason. And I Competition, if it's honorable and fair. is great when you've got people running around. Sniping behind you, that's different, but people are people. So competition is a good thing and it has shown to be a very good thing in this industry too. Yeah, it has been really good. I can't thank you enough for sitting down here and talking with me. More than happy. This has been enjoyable for sure. Hopefully our fans and audience over here has enjoyed it as well. Any other things from the peanut gallery? You know, you get a It's just like with Redexum. We got a contract with Redexum. Next thing I know, we got a contract with Liedemann. Next thing you know, we got a contract with Firefly. You know the name of it? Yeah. Firefly. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, it just snowballs. But it all has to do with quality. It has to do with the quality of a product. So, I, you know, I want the best. I don't build in planned obsolescence, ever. I have these people saying it'll last forever, Jim. What are you going to do? I mean, you know, they're probably going to buy one and never buy another one. I said, that's fine. If everybody buys one, I'll be happy. This one gives me a hard time sometimes. But a lot of companies do that, right? The planned obsolescence. They do it digitally. Yeah. Yeah, sure they do. And, I never appreciated that. Yeah. It's stupid to me. Yep, I agree. I agree with that. Thank you. thank you so much for listening to the Reel turf techs podcast. I hope you learned something today. Don't forget to subscribe. If you have any topics you'd like to discuss, or you'd like to be a guest, find us on Twitter at Reel turf techs.