About Us

Danny Scofield was a bit surprised when Gravely called him to sit on a panel comprised of other dealers. After all, he was only five months into owning Choo Choo Lawn Equipment, his Plant City, Fla., dealership, and it was his first. "I first thought to myself, ‘Why on earth would they want me to be a part of this?’ since I was so new to the business," he says. In fact, Scofield spent the previous 17 years owning a landscaping business.

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"They wanted my experience as a landscaper to help them," the 50-year-old Scofield says. He says this experience has been invaluable in serving the needs of contractors. "When a landscape contractor comes in, I know what they need. I know what they’ve been through. When a mower goes down, they’re out of business." But had it not been for Scofield’s wife, Teresa, he might not have gotten into the business at all. After all it was Teresa who bought a used push mower in 1986 and began mowing in the neighborhood. "She basically just got bored and was going to mow lawns," says Scofield, a mechanic by training. "I kind of laughed about it at first, but then I grabbed a pencil and did the numbers." And he liked the numbers. Within six months, he sold another business he was part of and concentrated on the landscape business.

Fast-forward to 2002. Now, Choo Choo Lawn Maintenance, as the Scofields' landscaping business was named, had 45 employees. "We grew fairly quickly," he says. But Scofield was looking for something new. "I got kind of burned out in the lawn business," he says. "You have a lot of turnover." He felt he would have more control owning a dealership than the contracting business.

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He thought back to an experience he had as a new landscape contractor. Scofield was eyeing a used Gravely mower, with no more than 50 hours on it, at a local dealership. The dealer told him if he bought that mower, he would take care of Scofield for the life of that mower and beyond. The dealer came through on his promise. Scofield says the experience became the framework for how he would operate his dealership.

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He opened Choo Choo Lawn Equipment in 2000, but continued to maintain his landscaping business. Initially, at least, that made it hard to attract commercial clientele. "When I first got into this business, the landscapers would not come to me because I was competition with them out there in the field," Scofield says. "So, they figured if they bought parts from me, they were giving me money to go out there and take their accounts away from them."

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So, in order to get some cash flow going, he began approaching mass merchants in order to secure their repair business. When clients came into the stores, those stores outsourced the repair work to Scofield. There was about a year of overlap where he owned both the landscaping business and dealership. He decided it was time to sell.

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So, he cashed out by selling the landscape business and concentrated on the dealership. "When I sold my landscaping business, that’s when the landscape contractors started coming in," Scofield says. "I spent a lot of time designing the building and making sure it was customer-friendly," Scofield says. What he got was a 13,000-square-foot dealership, featuring a 4,800-square-foot showroom and a modern repair shop outfitted with gadgets that only a tech would love, like the $20,000 machine that sharpens saw chains in minutes.

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He admits some people scoffed at the machine at first. "At first, people looked at it and said, ‘There’s no way you can justify buying a $20,000 machine," Scofield says. Even though he does sharpen a lot of chains, it would take quite a few sharpenings to pay off the machine. But it wasn’t the allure of owning a high-tech machine or bragging rights that propelled him to buy it.

"The machine will pay for itself by turning that tech loose" on more important tasks and repairs, Scofield says. "That was my reason in getting it." After all, time spent sharpening a chain for $8 is time techs aren’t working on larger equipment or issues. The machine’s close proximity to the tech’s workbench makes the deal even sweeter.

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Scofield prides himself on operating a clean, modern showroom and repair shop. Three techs make up Choo Choo’s repair crew, though Choo Choo’s manager and Scofield are also on-hand for repairs if the shop gets swamped. All the techs have overhead air, grease and oil dispensers for a clean, modern workspace. They also have overhead cranes to lift equipment. The shop area features a tagging system to track equipment brought in for repair. All equipment is tagged and taken to a holding area and as equipment is worked on and pulled from the tables, more equipment replaces it.

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"If it’s a commercial piece, it goes to the front of the line," Scofield says. In less than 30 minutes, a contractor will either know when the equipment will be done or the repairs will be completed, or they’ll get a loaner. "I try to guarantee a 24-hour turnaround for the repair" once the contractor gets a loaner, Scofield says. "We try to do everything we can to get that mower turned around."