money to grow turf was like buying blue sky.” Tey were turned away with no loan. “Had it been corn, sugar beets or hay on the same land we’d have had no problem.” Betsy says. “Randy’s Dad took us to his bank and cosigned a $10,000.00 note for us. Within a year we were operating in the black.” Randy adds, “Te banker that turned us down came around that next year and wanted us to consider doing business with them but that didn’t happen. Funny– we retired and built a home in a housing development named Blue Sky!”

For so many TPI families it’s such a partnership between the spouses. “To start a business, grow a business, raise your family—you need to give 100% each and have a super strong marriage to hold it all together. Tere’s a lot of business and family pressures and a lot of rewards; you take the highs and lows together,” says Randy.

Joining the ASPA Family

Graff’s first harvest was in the spring of 1979. Tey joined ASPA in 1980. Tey attended the ASPA Midwinter Conference in Maui, Hawaii—their first. “Survival of the Fittest” was the theme. “Te people we migrated to–Al Gardner (TPI President 1986-1987, A-G Sod Farms, Inc. Broomfield, CO; deceased in 1999); and Ike Tomas (TPI President in 1985-1986) were the first people to put out their hands and welcome us, embracing and encouraging us. Tose meetings were our family vacations where we’d go to learn and grow and have fun. Especially during the Mid-Winter Conferences, those were the folks who picked you up by the scruff of the neck, brushed you off and shoved you back in the game; where you got restored and energized to keep going. Networking with people in the same boat as we were; married partners like us; ASPA/ TPI is the best organization ever for that.”

Randy adds, “Back home, when we were starting the farm, we leaned on Glenn Markham who was our everything; he was our consultant and Brouwer dealer. Glenn and his wife Pat encouraged and helped us, ultimately becoming our mentors. Glenn even loaned us a 6-foot Brillion seeder to plant our first crop. To this day, Glenn and Pat’s friendship means the world to us. We will never forget everything that they did for us all of the years we were in business.

“We could go on all day with the list of names of ASPA/ TPI members that have become our ‘family.’”

Tat first conference made such an impression on Betsy that, a few years later, when the TPI Board was trying to decide where to hold the 1998 Mid-Winter Conference, she bombarded them with brochures nearly begging them to go back to Hawaii. Even when they told her that they would consider it she didn’t back down.

She was absolutely ecstatic when she found out that, after

Randy and Betsy Graff on Christmas Eve. Photo courtesy of the Graff family

much debate in the boardroom, they decided to go back to Hawaii. Her biggest hope was for members to come, bring their families and their staff, and experience how she felt at that first conference.

TPI went to Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, February 11-13, when David Doguet was 1997-1998 President. Randy and Betsy recall sitting in a meeting and David Doguet announced that the conference had drawn record attendance, exclaiming, “Betsy Graff, I hope you’re happy!”

During that same meeting, Randy and Betsy were in an educational session with other members, filling their brains with all kinds of knowledge, when they looked out the window and watched Glenn Markham and Gerry Brouwer trying to learn to wind surf. “It doesn’t get any better than that,” says Betsy. “Oh, but it did get better,” laughs Randy. “Doug Fender opened the bar up at the luau that night because of the conference record attendance. Good Times!”

The Pricing Issue

Betsy says, “Randy is a very passionate guy about getting what you deserve in pricing. He’s adamant about knowing your costs and knowing what you need to charge to make a profit. He started talking about that within our networking groups and the Turfgrass Producers of Texas invited him to present a session on it at their conference. It sparked such interest he ended up speaking about it at turfgrass sod grower conferences across the US and all over the world—in Australia and England and in Canada two or three times—over about five years.”

It was a subject that everyone was nervous about—a taboo—as no one wanted to be accused of price fixing. But, as Randy says, “If you brought in a group and said you all need to be selling your turfgrass at a specific price per

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