If you're a turfgrass student eying a potential career as a superintendent or an assistant just getting started in the business, there is little doubt that some of this industry's biggest companies are fully invested in getting you started on the right foot.
Exhibit A is Jacobsen's Future Turf Managers event, which starts in earnest this morning. This is the fourth year the equipment giant has backed this event (following many years of hosting a similar event when it was a much smaller company based in Racine, Wis.) that brings students and recent graduates of turfgrass programs from around the country to its corporate home in Charlotte, N.C., for an inside look at its products and some of its most high-profile clients.
Of course, Jacobsen isn't alone in this arena. The Toro Co. has put its full might behind the Future Leaders Forum, in which it partners with The First Tee and Walt Disney World to give First Tee participants an in-depth look at careers in golf. John Deere and Bayer Environmental Science have partnered on the Green Start Academy, an event catering to assistant superintendents.
There are plenty of solid business reasons for these companies to be investing so solidly in these kinds of events, most notably the fact that they are courting the men and women who will become their primary customers in the future. But there is also a real sense of "giving back" at these events, a sense that it really is more about helping solidify the future of this industry that it is about selling product.
I'll get a first-hand look at Jacobsen's brand of giving back during day one of the 2010 Future Turf Mangers event today. We're heading to the company's Wilmar production facility in the morning, followed by a visit to Quail Hollow GC, where we'll hear from superintendent Jeff Kent fresh off another successful Quail Hollow Championship and get the opportunity to put some of Jake's equipment to the test. I'll have a full update, complete with photos, later today.
Comments