Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 4, 1995 TAG: 9506050001
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHRISTIANSBURG LENGTH: Long
It's big. It's green. It's got air conditioning inside a closed-in cab.
Price: a mere $50,000.
Excuuuuuuuse me? you ask.
Maybe a Cadillac, but a tractor?
"It's fancy, it's nice, but $50,000 would more than have bought the best farm in this county some years ago." That, from Nelson Wimmer, the original "son" in "S.G. Wimmer & Son," and now the owner.
Ah, yes, "some years ago." Like 64 years ago, when Nelson Wimmer's father bought a little seed-and-fertilizer business on Franklin Street and turned it into what would become the S.G. Wimmer & Son of today.
Or, about four years later, when the company first became a John Deere dealership. This year, Nelson Wimmer hung a plaque on the wall inside the showroom - which is filled with lawn equipment, parts, oils and the doodads of regular yard maintenance that make up more of Wimmer's business these days than does farm equipment.
The plaque marks the six decades of S.G. Wimmer & Son's dealing John Deere products. The company, which employs about 20 people, is the oldest John Deere dealership in the state and one of the oldest in John Deere's Atlanta branch of eight Southeastern states.
Nelson Wimmer was 9 years old when his father, Stanley Garner Wimmer, purchased the old feed-and-fertilizer store. It was the early years of the Great Depression and the store's owner let his dad buy it on credit, telling him to pay when he could.
"It was just a trust thing," Nelson Wimmer said. "And it worked." He doesn't remember how much his dad paid - certainly less than $50,000 - but it took about five years.
Last year, the company did about $4.5 million in sales.
There are signs of the history that this place has been through, like the 50-year-old typewriter that sits in Nelson Wimmer's office - or the 1946 Ford tractor that he has for sale alongside other used models out on the lot.
But there are more obvious signs, all around, of where it is now.
Take the building itself. It's been added onto three times - this, after his father said, "God, I don't know what you want with so much room," when his son moved the store to its present location in 1968.
The parts department itself is a good example.
"Man, we've got money tied up in these parts," Wimmer says with a bit of a sigh. With about $1 million in inventory, the shop installed a computer system about six years ago to keep track of everything.
There's also the line of products. In years past, the company's fortunes were tied almost exclusively to those of the farmers it served; these days it is the lower priced, but needed, year-round items that fuel the company's cash flow. In the showroom stand various versions of John Deere lawn mowers, riding mowers and garden equipment, the parts and supplies needed to make them run, handbooks, toys and what-not.
But if you want to know a little about how things have changed, go no further than Nelson Wimmer.
"Seen a lot of changes, a lot of changes," Wimmer mused. "That's better known as progress."
He's watched John Deere - based in Moline, Ill.; founded in 1837; and now the world's leading producer of agricultural equipment - expand its business into industrial equipment, finance, insurance and health care. In 1985 it launched its own health maintenance organization.
"The John Deere company has really grown over the years," Wimmer said. "Evidently they've had some pretty good management."
At 73 and a native of Floyd County, he has some insights into the people he sells to.
"Farmers are a bit different than other people," Wimmer said. "I don't know that anybody gambles more than a farmer does."
Every year, he explains, they'll gamble on the right amount of sun and rain. They'll gamble on not having to weather a mistimed frost or a devastating hailstorm. They'll wager that the money they invest in fertilizer, seed, labor and equipment costs will be made up by selling prices.
In farming - and in his farming supply business as it used to be - "peaks and valleys can really hurt you." The farmer "doesn't have any bargaining power" when he goes to sell his product, Wimmer said. Tomatoes or potatoes have to be sold when they're ready, regardless of whether prices are up or down. Steers have to be let go for the best price available at auction - unless the farmer wants to hold onto his cattle and pay to feed them for another year.
Over the years, the price of farming equipment has risen, and "what the farmers got to sell hasn't followed suit," Wimmer said.
Indeed.
Even today, "tractors are the big-ticket item," Wimmer said. He said he sells about 10 a year of the $50,000 models, although he used to sell about 25, mostly to dairy farmers. Wimmer worries about farming land being taken over for subdivisions and roads. "So much of the farmland is going out of production."
There's a maxim he's lived by over the years.
"If you're gonna be in business, you better take care of your customer," Wimmer said. "If you don't, they won't be back."
His son works with him now, although Charles Wimmer wavers from day to day on whether he'll take over the family business when his father decides to retire. "If he elects to, that's up to him," Nelson Wimmer said.
Personally, though, "I like to buy, sell and trade and talk to people," he said. "I like what I do. My dad started it and I've spent a lifetime at it."
by CNB