AFTER THE FIRE—OVERCOMING TRAGEDY By Suz Trusty
Te offices of TPI supplier member, Grassland Oregon, Inc. (GO), caught fire on Sunday, August 19, 2018. Te company is sharing the steps they have taken to overcome that tragedy and what they have learned through the process to help others successfully face the challenges of a disastrous event.
Te timing of the fire could not have been worse from a business standpoint. GO is a breeder, producer, and provider of a wide range of seed products in the turf, forage and cover crop markets. Duane Klundt, GO’s vice president of turfgrass sales for North America, says, “We were right at the beginning of the busy season, shipping a lot of seed. We do about 70 percent of our business in the fall.”
Jerry Hall, GO’s co-founder, president, and director of research, adds, “Most customers don’t keep a lot of inventory on hand, instead relying on their suppliers to provide the seed they need when they need it. You have to be prepared to do that in our industry. We plan to get seed orders out in 48 hours.” And despite the disruption of the fire, Hall reports, “We didn’t miss a single shipping deadline with anyone.”
The Fire On Wednesday, August 22, 2018, Jerry Hall posted this on GO’s Blog, “As many of you may know, this past weekend, our office caught on fire.
On Sunday my wife, daughter and myself decided to take my nephew Jason, who is headed off to college, out to dinner. Shortly after placing my order I received a text from Colin Scott, our field representative, that our neighbors had called him and said our office was on fire.
Leaving the family behind, I took off for the office.
Our office sits a quarter mile off the road, so I parked in the ditch and started running up the drive. About two- thirds of the way I ran out of gas and paused to take this photo, didn’t look so bad. A five-inch fire hose ran up the length of the driveway.
As I approached, I was stopped by a fireman and directed to the Captain. At this point I thought things still looked pretty good. Te Captain stated that the fire was contained, and they were knocking down the remaining hot spots. At this time, I saw a blast of water coming up through the office roof. Tat's not good I thought. I asked the Captain, ‘So how is it inside?’
‘Not good,’ he replied. ‘When we approached the structure, it was too hot, so we had to cool it down before we entered. We fought it from the front door. We estimate that the temperature inside was greater than 600 degrees Fahrenheit.’
Te temperature was so hot that it blew the skylights off the building. It was at this time I knew we had a problem. After a couple of hours, they had it cooled down enough so that I could approach the building and peek in through the windows. Definitely not good. Te next morning, I was allowed to enter with the Marion County Fire Investigator. It got worse.”
When Hall was allowed inside the office on Monday morning, he saw the devastation was extensive.
The Cloud and IT Support Hall’s August 22 Blog further reported, “I remember a long time ago that I read a book where Andy Grove, the founder of computer giant Intel, stated, ‘Only the paranoid survive.’ From that day forward that concept was ingrained in my business philosophy. We had contracted with a local computer IT support company, Compex, Inc., to provide us support. Tey would back up our server nightly and the critical files more frequently than that. At times I have complained about the cost but let me tell you, in hindsight it was money well spent.
Jerry Hall’s first view of the GO office fire, the five-inch fire hose and fire trucks, didn’t look too bad.
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Monday morning, I broke the news to them, ‘Guys I hate to do this to you, but I want to be back up and running in 24 hours.’ Tis being our busiest time of year we cannot afford down time. By Tuesday they had delivered a computer to Phill Lindgren, our logistics manager, at his home nearly 30
TPI Turf News May/June 2019
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