In the last post, I told you how busy Mike says he is and that was before I told him he had to cover the whole country when Larry retired. Mike and Larry were Regional Managers and their responsibilities included sales, new machine training, machine servicing and retraining, and phone tech support. Mike is also our Director of Sales and Marketing, so I guess he may be right about being too busy. Also in the last post, I introduced Larry’s new responsibility of taking over all tech phone support and he can be reached on his direct line at 813-845-4945.

This still left Mike spread too thin so we pondered several ideas as how we might be able to handle the field tech support and we wanted to maintain a high level of service. We came up with Grinder Gurus, highly qualified equipment managers all over the country, who will come to your shop to train, retrain or service your grinders. These are the same guys who taught Mike almost everything he knows and helped him develop “Cutline is King”. They have also collaborated with me on many of my designs or performed prototype field testing. They have also all drunk the blue Kool-Aid with years of experience using our grinders correctly. In fact, they developed some of the advanced techniques that we now teach. And yet, they still had to go through our certification process. I believe, because they are equipment managers, they will do an even better job than Mike or Larry and, more importantly, they will be more available so the wait times will be reduced. So let’s meet our inaugural class of Grinder Gurus.

Wyatt Harris grew up around turfgrass as the son of a superintendent, and has worked in the industry for 13 years. He enjoys helping other turf mechanics solve their cutting unit problems and use their SIP grinding equipment to it's full potential.

Kevin Hennigar, licensed small engine mechanic, has been in the golf course industry for over 25 years. Kevin and his team started using SIP grinders 4 years ago.

Chris Johnson, CTEM, has worked in turf equipment maintenance and reel grinding since 2009, with a passion for precision and performance. Chris is committed to helping others grow in the industry through hands-on training, and real-world insight.

John Patterson, CTEM, is a life-long mechanic who found the turf industry in 1993 and has been an Equipment Manager for thirty years. John started using SIP grinders over twenty years ago and along with being a Grinder Guru, is the Georgia state sales representative for SIP.

One other requirement for being a Grinder Guru is that apparently you have to have a beard.