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