Stan Guyer, president of Grasshopper Mowers, recently sat down for an interview on his life, career and company.
Based in Moundridge, Kan., the company is famous for its zero-turn mowers, which were some of the first commercially viable of their kind.
Grasshopper’s parent company, Moridge Manufacturing, Inc. was founded in 1958 by Stan’s parents, Elbert and Marvel Guyer, and focused on producing portable grain dryers, spring-toothed harrows and other farm accessories. In 1969, after acquiring the original 1964 designs for the Grasshopper zero-turn mower, the Grasshopper Company was established as a division of Moridge. Zero-turn mowers were being developed by several different companies back then, Guyer says, but Grasshopper was the first that consistently worked to become a market-ready product.
When describing his role in the company, Guyer illustrated he was no stranger to the business from an early age.
“I was born in Osborne County [Kansas], and I had a factory and a farm as a playground,” he says. “I was helping with silkscreens at about eight or nine, which fascinated me.”
Guyer says he was operating heavy machinery like Cincinnati planers from the age of 8 and even helped build a 12-stage progressive die at the same age.
“My brother and I would have contests and see how many clips we could make for the milo guards on an OBI press that had absolutely no safeties. I was involved as a child early on, and I worked in the company all through school,” he says.
Guyer’s official start at Moridge was in 1965, and he soon became plant manager.
A Moridge Portable Grain Dryer, the product that put Moridge Manufacturing Inc. on the map in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Grasshopper
He served in the National Guard and was sent to Fort Carson, Colo., in 1968. Once he was released from service, he returned to Moridge to oversee all facets of manufacturing.
When asked what lessons Stan learned from his father after years of working alongside him, Stan recalled a phrase his father often used.
“His favorite saying was ‘you can’t sell from an empty wagon.’ In other words, you better have the product ready to go.
“You’ve got to have the product, but sometimes you can’t even give it away — and then all of a sudden everybody wants it. That happened especially with the grain dryers.”
