Photo by Howard Owens.
Of the dozens of people milling about a spit-polished brand new LandPro Equipment site on West Saile Drive Friday morning, not many could compete with the diehard dedication of John Deere collector Marty Frenchie, who was scoping out the trademark grass green-colored tractors in the 75,000 square-foot building’s showroom floor.
Frenchie, as he’s mostly known by his friends, has 13 tractors, and “maybe” looking for number 14 during LandPro’s grand opening ribbon-cutting ceremony. He’s familiar with all of the dealers and decided to visit this branch on the town’s north end of Batavia during the morning’s festivities.
“It’s great, it’s close to home,” he said, sharing why he collects Deere tractors. “I got it in my blood.”
Frenchie, while not a farmer of the county’s 200,000 collective acres, certainly fell into the group to whom Glenn Gibson represented. The Ag & Turf Division business manager for the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast U.S. for John Deere, Gibson gave “a heartfelt thank you for everyone who made this day possible,” from the financial end of things and LandPro ownership and employees to “all of the city officials that helped support this project, and the construction teams that built this absolutely beautiful building,” he said.
“But most importantly, thank you to our customers that LandPro has had the privilege of serving,” he said. “Just a little bit on the history in Genesee County. So John Deere has had a location here since the 1950s. And if you get a chance, there is a beautiful painting that's in the showroom that really depicts that history really well and all of the dealer organizations who have supported this region. Agriculture is the number one industry in the region in Genesee County, with just under 500 farms, operating about 200,000 acres and generating about $250 million to the local economy.”
“Genesee County is very, very important to John Deere and, more broadly, the whole Western New York region. And so … we really appreciate the investment that (Argonne Capital Group) and LandPro are making to build on that legacy here in the region. Today, we are focused on serving the greater good to help the world produce food, fiber, fuel and infrastructure to meet our needs by 2050,” he said. “There'll be 10 billion people in the world, so we'll need to increase our agricultural production by 60 to 70 percent. To tackle these challenges, two years ago, John Deere launched our smart industrial strategy, and our aim is nothing short of revolutionizing the agriculture and construction industries. We want to unlock customer value across their production systems and across their equipment life cycles to make sure that change and that productivity is sustainable for all.”
What does that mean?
- Leveraging technology to enable smarter, more precise and productive machines to add value throughout the life of their machines to keep them operating and minimize cost, he said. Continuing to focus on innovations, such as alternative power and electrification across many product lines.
- Autonomous solutions — the company’s tillage tractor that they can operate day and night.
- A continued focus on artificial intelligence and neural networks on machines “in order to help growers take crop management from a field level down to the individual plant level.”
- And a great example of that is our new sea and spray sprayer — spraying just the week. So you're realizing a 70 percent savings in the chemicals applied, he said.
“So you may have heard the tagline ‘nothing runs like a Deere.’ And that's true. But our commitment goes beyond the products. And it goes to the communities that our exceptional dealers serve. And so, together with our dealers, we run so that life can leap forward,” Gibson said. “So I'll finish where I began. And that's just a huge thank you to everybody who made this day possible. And as good as today is, our best days are ahead of us. And I think the investment in this building in this community is a shining example of just that.”
LandPro President and CEO Tom Sutter recalled standing in a rural field 20 months ago with cattails up to his eyes, “trying to figure out where this thing’s gonna go,” he said. And on Friday, he recapped that being surrounded by a team of “phenomenal” people, all of whom he wanted to thank, he could only admire the finished product and look back in awe at what they all endured.
Managing a construction project that size from the ground up, for starters. The land was wild with trees and foliage and, of course, full of cattails. Anyone who drove by during its development would have seen the skeleton of structural beams, a scene quite the contrast to a paved sidewalk surrounding the 75,000 square-foot building with a showroom entrance, corporate offices, a large training room, walls decorated with colorful agricultural photos in plexiglass, a 54,000 square-foot shop with a drainage system and heated floor. Other challenges were COVID-related issues and delays.
Sutter thanked the county Chamber of Commerce, GCEDC, Batavia, and many company and corporate members.
“It’s great working with all of you. I mean, look at this. Look at this beautiful building behind us. They put it in from the ground up. So I can't thank you all enough. You put up with a lot of hardship. So thank you all guys for putting up with that,” he said. “And our customers are so important, you all make this happen.”
Chamber of Commerce President Brian Cousins was on hand with the big pair of scissors and to offer his congratulations. LandPro is twofold, he said, in its benefits for Genesee County and beyond.
"I think it's absolutely fabulous. They've obviously been a staple inside the county for a very long time. It's great for both consumers and agricultural support throughout our region,” Cousins said. "The store is beautiful. It's always great to see the people expand; they get additional jobs, and they get additional support. So I think it's just a wonderful asset to our community as a whole. Agriculture is the number one industry in the community. So having another branch and another support and a larger mechanism to be able to lean on for a resource for our agricultural workers or even our residents is outstanding.”
The location is at 4540 W. Saile Drive, Batavia. For more information, go to LandPro or call 585-948-5261.
Photo by Howard Owens
Photo by Howard Owens
Photos of Friday's ribbon-cutting for LandPro Equipment's grand opening of its West Saile Drive store and shop, by Howard Owens.
