An ag tractor dealer started by Homer More in 1913 is still running strong, led by the 4th generation leader of the family. At the helm today is Andy More, president, Homer’s great grandson. While he has officially been with the dealership for 30 years, he started coming into the original shop as a boy. Andy’s son Joey, now representing the 5th generation, works with the dealership on the marketing side, and Andy’s grade school age nephew, has already expressed interest in working there, even having visited to watch and help the service techs over this past summer.

“I’ve been here my entire life. I came every day from the time I was in kindergarten on, but I’ve been here full time since 1996 when I graduated from college,” explains More. “We only had a single location from the time I was first coming here. In 12 years since I became president in 2013, we’ve gone from 1 to 5 locations. I don’t know if that’s smart. I don’t know that the decisions that we’ve made and the growth are always the right ones, but we do the calculated risk of working to research it, go through and see what’s happened in the past, what history tells us and then make a calculated decision. So far, we’ve had luck with those although not all of them have been right.” 

More Farm Stores sells primarily Kubota, Toro, Land Pride, Stihl and Bad Boy mowers. More says close to 70% of the business is commercial contractors, with the other 30-40% homeowners (or Home Owners with Acreage, HOWAs), along with commercial and municipal business customers. It opened the 5th location earlier this year and presently has a total of 50 employees.

Maximizing Operations While Adding Locations

With the main store located in Columbia City, Ind., other locations include Warsaw (20 miles to the west), Fort Wayne (30 miles to the east) and the fourth store is in Kokomo, Ind. (85 miles from the main store). More says this creates enough separation that they are not overlapping. The store More most recently acquired to the east is in Ridgeville Corners-Napoleon, Ohio, in January 2025. More says they are in a bit of a transition because of the 5 locations.

“At one location or even 2, it’s easy to have your hands in everything and be involved in every transaction. At 5, it’s more difficult, he says “You spend all your time on the road and on the phone. “I just hired an operations manager for the first time ever. For me to let go of the reins a little bit, it’s scary. But the gentleman we hired is a school superintendent with a doctorate in education, very highly educated. He’s exactly my polar opposite — detailed, scheduled, diligent, he follows through, follows up, which I don’t. I’m relational. It’s been really healthy there.” 

This More Farm Stores dealership in Columbia City, Ind., serves as the main location, with 4 others added in the past 12 years, the newest having opened in Ridgeville Corners-Napoleon, Ohio in January 2025. Source: More Farm Store, Inc.

More has all of the managers in the Columbia City location, each with a salesman, sales assistant, parts person, service desk person and 2 technicians. He also has 3 people in the administrative office, a controller with 2 assistants, 8 sales team members, 3 in rental with the remainder of the staff focusing on service. 

When asked what his top pride points were, he says the 5th generation, with his son now working with him, is a top one. 

“The other thing we focus on, and I think we do right, is that our goal is to be the most honest, most trusted dealer that Kubota, Toro, Bad Boy and Stihl have. I think our guys do a really nice job of that.”

Training Techs

When it comes to recruiting new technicians, working to retain them and paying them well, More focuses on quality and resourcefulness. Combining top level training, being purposeful in providing high-quality working conditions and ensuring the techs are paid well are critical components to More Farm Stores’ ability to find, support and retain their service teams.

“We try to utilize Kubota University for our tech training which has been really good for us, and we also utilize a lot of NAEDA training paths as well as NCM Associates, which is the Spader group. Those three places have been phenomenal for our training,” More explains. “I think just offering an attractive place to work is key. We have air-conditioned shops now and that makes a big difference on keeping guys. Paying appropriately, which also means charging appropriately is a big, big part of that. We’ve had really good luck on retaining the guys we want to retain.” 

He adds that some of the technicians have been with the dealership 15-20+ years, and several are A level technicians who’ve come from different ag shops. More also acknowledged that the ag economy being down has opened up those resources quite a bit.

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