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From the November 2, 2001 print edition |
The president of a local turfgrass business confirms that his company has joined two similar operations in other parts of the United States. The coalition, which includes Poteet, Texas-based Bladerunner Farms, is being called the Super-Sod Alliance.
Bladerunner Farms President David Doguet says the alliance will bring together his company with Westminster, Co.-based Gardner Turfgrass Inc. and Patten Seed Co., which is based in Lakeland, Ga.
Doguet says the alliance immediately puts all three high-end turf producers on the national map, without any of the companies having to forego their independence as family-oriented operators.
"This takes all three of us from competitors to teammates," says Doguet.
He adds, "The Alliance will give our customers the selection and competitive pricing of a national company with the service and quality of a family-owned business. This arrangement allows each of us to expand our common focus on innovation and the continuous development of better grass varieties."
Doguet is a turfgrass industry veteran, with more than 30 years experience. Today, he is recognized for developing exclusive, patented varieties of specialty, low-maintenance zoysia grasses, bermuda grasses and buffalo grasses.
All three producers have a history for developing new turf technologies and have been involved in a number of university research programs. Their work is also highly visible in a number of major sports and entertainment facilities around the nation. Combined, their turfs have covered Disney World's EPCOT Center, as well as a number of professional baseball and football stadiums and numerous premier golf courses.
Doguet says Bladerunner has worked with the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals Major League Baseball franchises, as well as the National Football League's St. Louis Rams.
Here at home, Doguet's company is entrenched in the Briggs Ranch development, a few miles west of San Antonio. That project includes a golf course designed by Tom Fazio, widely regarded as one of the world's most preeminent golf-course architects.
Developers of the course apparently had no intentions of sitting around and watching the grass grow.
"Most courses are sprigged (or seeded)," says Doguet. "You spend all that money to develop the course and then wait a year. These (developers) decided to solid sod the Briggs Ranch course. It's a new (turf) variety, and we're laying it out like carpet."
Ben Copeland is president of Patten Seed, which brings a half-century of turf grass history to the alliance. He says the alliance's diversity will stand out most.
"We're three different companies in a lot of ways," says Copeland. "We've mostly been involved in golf."
Gardner Turfgrass Vice President Stan Gardner says his company has worked on its share of top-flight golf courses, including the Cowboys Golf Club in Grapevine, Texas -- owned by Dallas Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones. But his company has also worked on a number of baseball projects, including facilities for the Colorado Rockies and Texas League El Paso Diablos.
"We saw some really great synergies with the three companies," says Gardner. "Each of us has strengths that we bring to the group, and we all share a track record of providing new varieties, developing new skills and staying on the edge of what's happening in turfgrass."
Doguet, Copeland and Gardner will oversee the Alliance network, which will consist of growers who, according to the three, have a reputation for producing the finest quality of locally adapted turfgrasses.
Doguet could not divulge what the alliance could mean for the three companies in a financial sense. But he does say that it will have a significant impact on the ability of all three companies to grow their businesses on a national scale.
"We're going to pool our dollars and market nationally," says Doguet about the alliance, which he says will be the first of its kind in the turfgrass industry. "In the past, we couldn't do that."
He says that means growth will no longer be hampered by geographical constraints. "I do think this will increase the exposure and use of our product four or five times over what we could do before," Doguet adds.