SABI Magazine February March 2016 | Page 37

Profile 1. Jerry why did you choose automation and mechanisation as a career path? On graduating from Fresno State College with a BS degree in agri-business I was introduced to King Ewing, owner of Ewing Turf Products in San Francisco. He was the leading expert for controllers, remote control valves and pop-up Buckner sprinklers for landscape and turf. Buckner were at the ‘tipping point’ creating a revolution in automation in irrigation but were about to go into liquation, for faulty installations. The company was bought from Buckner’s widow Mona Buckner and family by Gladden Products. I was the first new hire and we designed a family of new replacement pop-up sprinklers, adding a range of automatic controllers, valves, agriculture impact sprinklers – we turned the company into an international money making machine with sales skyrocketing from $1.5 million to $18 million. Ultimately we sold the company to John Manville Corporation, the biggest asbestos, pipe, insulation and building products for $16 million. They wanted the Senior Buckner people to move to their new headquarters in Denver. I resigned and decided to immigrate to South Africa, to create a new irrigation company, with two partners. 2. The sixties was a momentous decade. Yes, I was at the “right places at the right times”. After sojourning and touring with the Austrian-based President of Buckner in Austria, I appointed new distributors in North America and Western Europe. As Assistant to the President and Board Member, established new licensees in Sydney, Australia, Mexico City, Vereeniging South Africa and offices plus warehouses in Zurich, Switzerland to supply Europe. I returned to Europe and Africa every year as we continued to grow the business. 3. Yours was an enjoyable “seventies in South Africa”! After cashing in my shares, marrying Susi, my Swiss wife, we immigrated to South Africa, arriving on 7 January 1970 with four suitcases. All our goods were in a container plus a new Royal Blue Fleetwood Cadillac (duty free) shipped from San Francisco. We spent the next 10 weeks in a rental car driving over “12 000 clicks” conducting product education “automation and mechanisation of irrigation symposiums” from Limpopo to the Cape Peninsula, with our distributors, customers, universities and government entities. SABI | FEBRUARY/MARCH 2016 35