Wellington Implement: Powered Through Four Generations

By Heather Wilson, contributing writer

Ohio is known for its strong agricultural roots, and Wellington Implement is a piece of that heritage. The company has been serving farming and residential customers in the state since 1929. Now operated by the fourth generation of the Young/Stannard family, the dealership features Case IH, Cub Cadet, Ferris, Kawasaki side-by-sides, Kioti, Scag and Yanmar Construction brands.

Tom Stannard, president and general manager of Wellington Implement, grew up in the Wellington, Ohio, dealership.

“Since I was old enough to sweep the floor in grade school, I would come in on Saturdays and help out,” Stannard said. “When I was in high school, I started working in our shop as technician on outdoor power equipment and then worked summers during college.”

After earning his bachelor’s in Ag System Management from Ohio State, Stannard joined the business full time in 2001. When asked if he felt like his degree was beneficial for the role he currently serves in, he joked that he “probably should have majored in business and minored in psychology.”

With approximately 70% of the dealership’s revenue based on farm equipment – sales, service and parts, Stannard said the degree was helpful.

“We don’t farm as a family,” Stannard said. “So, there’s a lot of things that degree taught me that I would have learned working on a farm: machinery efficiency, building construction, welding – things like that.”

After decades in the business, Stannard has learned some valuable lessons, one of which is to understand there’s always two sides to every story.

“Whether it’s a customer or employee, you’ve got to see both sides of that coin before you really understand what’s going on,” Stannard said.

He also noted that one of the dealership’s differentiators is that it’s so clean.

“You can eat off any of our shop floors,” he said.

Rapid expansion

In 2018, Wellington Implement acquired Ashland Implement. Then, in 2019, the dealership acquired Medina Tractor. [Now, both are under the Wellington Implement name.] Around that time, his dad and cousin who were working in the dealership started working part-time. Then, when the pandemic hit, they retired.

“Making that jump from one store to two [then three] was a huge task,” Stannard said. “You have to rely more on your team, systems and processes.”

He is appreciative of what he learned from his family in the business before they retired.

“We never once argued or fought about anything,” Stannard said. “I give my dad a lot of credit. He would let me do stuff. He would let me fail. I respected that flexibility and that freedom. We always just talked about stuff. I learned a lot of things from him about treating customers and employees right.”

Stannard’s support system remains strong, even after purchasing the two dealerships, as two of the former owners are still on the team today and Wellington Implement retained most of the original staff at the acquired locations.

However, staffing still presents a challenge at times.

“We have a lot of long-term employees that have been with us 15-plus years,” Stannard said. “But with the growth starting in 2018, over half of our staff has been with us for five years or less.”

He says that retail hours are sometimes a turn-off for younger employees, as they want more time-flexibility, and technician positions are the most difficult spot to fill.

“We are just going to have to keep pushing those labor rates,” Stannard said.

As a way to recruit potential talent and give back to the local area, the dealership loans out a Case IH tractor to the vocational school in the fall and winter.

“We have someone we are going to support through trade school, and he’s going to work here on breaks,” Stannard said. “Our goal is to retain him as a full-time employee after graduating.”

The dealership also has been testing non-traditional methods of recruitment. Wellington Implement had an info table at the Medina County Fair during the tractor pull in hopes of attracting qualified technicians to join the team.

He said the dealership has one air-conditioned service shop and Stannard is working on more to attract and retain talent.

Evaluating and improving

Stannard said he grew up in the service side of the business, but over the past several years, he’s spent most of his time focused on the wholegoods side. He said the dealership performed a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis last year and found some items to improve on with parts and service.

The dealership brought on a sales manager for aftermarket parts and accessories this past March and is also trying to build a rental equipment division.

“We always dabbled in it – quite honestly, not profitably,” Stannard said. “We want to try it in one location, figure out best procedures and replicate it. We’ve struggled to get our name out there, as there are other players in the market. Aggressive pricing has had our machines out all summer. We’re not making money yet, but hopefully it becomes a larger part of business.”

Gross dollars are tremendously larger in sales, especially with combines and tractors. Stannard said approximately 70% of their gross revenue comes from wholegood sales and about 15-20 percent from parts and service makes up the balance.

“The margins go the opposite direction,” Stannard said. “That’s why it’s so important for dealers to focus on growing the aftermarket business. Sharpening mower blades is less sexy than selling, but there’s more money to be made on the parts and service side of things.”

Stannard said as terrible as the pandemic was, it gave the business a couple of really good years.

“Unfortunately, we’re dealing with the ramifications of free money handed out,” Stannard said. “The cost of doing business, cost of wages – that’s what keeps me up at night. Are we going to get enough product to make the money to cover these costs? Demand is certainly weaker than it has been. That’s why it’s so much more important to have parts and service profitable. That’s the only way to overcome these high expense times.”

He said he feels like they are sitting okay with product for the demand they have currently.

“I’ve never seen a May where we had less floor traffic than we did this year,” Stannard said. “It was an abrupt change from April.”

He noted that in the outdoor power equipment space, it looks like they are going to continue to get shipments sprinkling in. He added that in order to have inventory for the spring, they are going to have to continue to take product all winter to be prepared, which presents storage and handling challenges.