Description:
Welcome to the Reel Turf Techs Podcast, Episode 177.
Today we’re catching up with John Michael Clark, CTEM, Equipment Manager at Frenchman’s Creek Beach and Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. John Michael originally joined us from McLemore in North Georgia, and now he’s managing the equipment operation at a private 36-hole club with two championship courses, the North and South. He has two technicians in the shop and primarily runs Toro equipment.
John Michael talks about what led him to make the move to South Florida and how his role has evolved at Frenchman’s Creek. With ongoing construction and a new maintenance facility taking shape, he’s been involved in planning the shop’s interior, including preparing for a potential transition to electric equipment and the charging infrastructure that would be required.
The conversation also gets into the challenges of operating across two courses with different turf types, coordinating work around a shared maintenance compound, and keeping traffic and safety in mind as the operation grows. John Michael shares how his work has shifted from hands-on wrenching toward more planning, budgeting and coordination, along with some of the equipment setup experiments and tools he uses to manage grain and puffiness.
They also discuss the role of robotics at Frenchman’s Creek, including Husqvarna autonomous mowers used during grow-in and for nighttime mowing, plus the potential for automated range pickers. As equipment technology continues to change, John Michael is thinking about how today’s decisions can set the shop up for what comes next.
Finally, John Michael shares what he’s learned from the strong equipment manager network in South Florida and the value of mentorship and connecting with other techs. It’s a great conversation about adapting to a new operation, planning for the future and finding the balance between keeping equipment running today and building a shop that’s ready for tomorrow.
Transcript:
Trent Manning 0:56
Welcome to the reel turf techs podcast for the technician that wants to get reel follow along. As we talk to industry professionals and address hot topics that we all face along the way we’ll learn tips and tricks. I’m your host, Trent. Manning let’s have some
1:16
Welcome to The Reel Turf Techs podcast, episode 177. Today we’re talking to John Michael Clark, equipment manager at Frenchman’s Creek Country Club in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida Frenchman’s Creek is a private 36-hole club with two championship golf courses John Michael has two guys in the shop. He has mostly Toro equipment. John Michael was originally on episode 127 when he was at McLemore in North Georgia Let’s catch up with John Michael
Trent Manning 1:48
this episode are real turf techs on golf course industries Superintendent radio network is presented by Foley county a strong supporter of equipment technicians and golf course maintenance departments everywhere Foley county offers a proven solution for above and below the turf for turf professionals To learn more about Foley company’s line of real grinders bed knife grinders and the air to G2 family of products or to find a distributor visit www dot Foley C o.com Foley Ready for play
Trent Manning, CTEM 2:29
Welcome John Michael Clark back to the Reel Turf Techs podcast. Thank you for being here, and this is take two because we had some technical difficulties yesterday, so we’ll do it again
John Michael Clark, CTEM 2:44
Had to have him back again.
Trent Manning, CTEM 2:46
Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience. The last time John Michael was on was episode 127, and he was at McLemore in North Georgia, if you wanna catch up on that episode. But I think when the, when we recorded, you were there. When the episode aired, you had already moved to Frenchman’s. you wanna tell us a little bit about about the move, and then we’ll catch up and see what’s going on now?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 3:18
Yeah, I not long after we had recorded that episode got a call out of the blue offering about a job down in South Florida, and it was, At the time, it was the choice was very easy, and made the move down. Been really busy ever since.
Trent Manning, CTEM 3:37
Yeah. Yeah, what was the deciding factor? Did you wanna get to South Florida?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 3:44
Yeah kind of burned out at the last job with dealing with a bunch of different things and South Florida, being the pinnacle of golf. And I had some friends down here already. I just, I needed a change of scenery and job was a job that was gonna give me a chance to build more and get, It gave me all the help I needed to improve my career itself
Trent Manning, CTEM 4:11
Gotcha. What has surprised you most about Frenchman’s and what you’re doing there?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 4:18
Just the level of support that I’ve been able to get between my director and the board, it’s just- it’s opened doors and helped us tremendously, be everybody on the same page. It makes your job actually fun and enjoyable. We show up to work every day and we’re just happy to be there.
Trent Manning, CTEM 4:39
Yeah. No, that’s, it’s definitely can be a, a breath of fresh air when if that was not the case before. And it’s so important to have the support of the people you’re working with and know they have your back no matter what
John Michael Clark, CTEM 4:57
Yes. If I have a problem, I can go straight to my director or go to the superintendents, and usually it gets fixed pretty quickly. So
Trent Manning, CTEM 5:08
Yeah. No that’s awesome. Yep, that’s good stuff anything stayed the same since the last time you were on?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 5:19
It’s been a whole, it’s a whole new lifestyle now down here. We we kind of, between all the construction, I guess construction-wise, we’re still about the same. When I left McLemore, we were building a shop, finishing up building a golf course, and this summer we did a full renovation of all of our practice facilities and then one of one of the finishing holes on the south course. And we’re currently re- are building a brand new shop, so we feel like everywhere I go we’re always under construction
Trent Manning, CTEM 5:53
Yeah. And that’s got its own challenges being under construction, for sure. Yeah, let’s talk about the shop and, yeah, how involved were you in the design, the layout?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 6:07
This shop the overall structure of it I wasn’t involved much in. They they made it to fit the space that we have. But the interior of the, the mechanics area specifically, I’ve, I played a very large role in that. We we toured many facilities. I don’t know how many it ended up being, but there’s not many left in Greater West Palm area that we didn’t go visit. And we took pieces of all the shops that I had already worked in and my director had worked in and some of the ones in our area and took all the better pieces of them and put it all together to come up with what we’ve got
Trent Manning, CTEM 6:50
That’s awesome. And I mean, honestly, that’s the important part is how everything’s laid out on the inside. I mean, you need a certain square foot print, I guess, to have enough room and all that, but I think that’s where the bread and butter is on the inside of the facility
John Michael Clark, CTEM 7:10
And, planning for the future we’ve been our membership wants us to go pretty much fully electric in the next several years. So planning for that was a big hurdle to go through
Trent Manning, CTEM 7:25
Yeah, for sure. And I mean, anybody listening, if you’re getting ready to build a new shop, get ready ’cause everything’s going electric. It’s just more and more electric stuff in the golf industry, and you’re gonna need to be able to charge, and you need the power, to the building. I know at my last place
John Michael Clark, CTEM 7:49
whatever electric you think you need, go ahead and double it
Trent Manning, CTEM 7:53
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, the place I was at, we had two 200 amp panels and they were completely maxed out, and all we had was electric utility vehicles, small utility vehicles. Not really any extra stuff. We hadn’t got into all the robots and autonomous mowers and all that stuff that are electric
John Michael Clark, CTEM 8:20
That’s our current building. It’s outdated built in the late ’80s, early ’90s, and we were joking about the other day when we fire up the welder, we’ll make the lights dim. So
Trent Manning, CTEM 8:33
Ah, right, right, right. Yeah
John Michael Clark, CTEM 8:36
We they we talked to Toro and several other different vendors and found out all the charging needs, and if I’m not mistaken, we have one panel that’s an 800 amp, and then we have a 600 amp stubbed off of it. So
Trent Manning, CTEM 8:51
Yeah,
John Michael Clark, CTEM 8:52
power won’t be an issue.
Trent Manning, CTEM 8:55
Right, right, right. Well, and that’s, I mean, something else. Corey Phillips, he’s at Atlanta Country Club, and they put in a hydronic system under all their greens, and there’s a pretty big power requirement for one of those stations. And I don’t remember, one station runs whatever, four or five greens. But the power company did not supply them with the correct transformer. The transformer didn’t have enough power to power the power station, and it ended up burning up a bunch of motors and pumps inside the power station. So, I mean, you would think you tell the power station your requirement, they would set the right transformer, but that was not the case. So, you gotta do your due diligence and check up on some of this stuff if you’re going through that process.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 9:47
Absolutely. As we’ve got just in our area with the operations we have, I wanna say we have three transformers alone just for our area. So the power coming in is pretty significant
Trent Manning, CTEM 10:04
Yep, for sure. And for the listeners kinda explain your compound there. It’s not just golf maintenance. You got a lotta other stuff going on in that same area
John Michael Clark, CTEM 10:17
So our at our club, all of our back-of-house operations our security area laundry, housekeeping, our landscape contractor, and our engineering team, we’re all in one general location at the back of the club. So in the last year, we have torn down the landscape building, built them a brand-new building, which allowed us the room to build our new shop. We completely gutted and renovated our laundry and engineering facilities. And now that we have opened up the space, our shop is getting installed, which we are All this, the interior metal is done. They are gonna start skinning it, we hope Monday, pending weather.
Trent Manning, CTEM 11:11
Oh, nice.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 11:13
And then, Once that is complete, we’ll be able to tear down our current shop to make room for a parking lot for all the other facilities
Trent Manning, CTEM 11:24
Yeah, so it’s a landscape contractor that maintains all the houses. How many houses and how many people are on their
John Michael Clark, CTEM 11:32
and, 605 homes. If I’m not mistaken, they run about 105 people on their crews.
Trent Manning, CTEM 11:40
Yeah, that’s crazy. Yeah, that’s a lot of people, moving through your maintenance facility
John Michael Clark, CTEM 11:47
Yeah, and right now we’re
Trent Manning, CTEM 11:49
Or your maintenance compound, right
John Michael Clark, CTEM 11:51
we’re down to a one road in and out of the back area that’s not much wider than, it might be a two-lane road, good old country road, so it’s not very wide. So the amount of traffic and f- just constant noise is insane. I think we counted the other day, they had 47 their, John Deere XUVs with every one of them has a trailer, so they’re constantly just wearing the road out. Hopefully when our new building gets done and we can actually build a road between their shop and where they have to go, it’s gonna be a big game changer for us, mainly for safety. You give a bunch of
Trent Manning, CTEM 12:35
cause
John Michael Clark, CTEM 12:37
you give a bunch of guys that have never driven a vehicle before a, $20,000 XUV with a trailer behind it pulling three mowers and that, it gets exciting
Trent Manning, CTEM 12:49
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of blind corners and you gotta watch, yeah, walking out of a building if somebody’s coming through too fast and yeah, all those things.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 12:59
That’s even for me. I’m, I sometimes forget to look both ways, and so we had to put up safety chains across our bays ’cause I’m, I was bad about just walking out and looking at something, and you’re liable to get ran over
Trent Manning, CTEM 13:14
Yeah. Yep, yep. Yeah, that’s yeah, crazy. And the laundry, sh- I mean, they have quite a few employees too, right?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 13:25
Their laundry itself is probably pushing around 20 to 30 employees, and then Gets ran out of the same thing, and they probably have another 20. So our our back-of-house area, we’re we’re at capacity. Our… The golf course maintenance crew is, we’re sitting right at about 42, 43 employees. And then between laundry and engineering, there’s probably a total of 90 to 100 employees back there just from Frenchman’s Creek, and then you probably add another 80 for the golf or the landscape contractors. So a lot of people in a small area
Trent Manning, CTEM 14:06
Yeah. Yeah, ’cause it’s, yeah, it’s not that big of an area, yeah, for 200 people to be in and out all the time.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 14:15
Well, and you’ve gotten to witness how it is getting a truck in and out, so you can say firsthand how small and tight it is
Trent Manning, CTEM 14:22
Right. Yeah, I remember pulling in there in a F-250 and a 30-foot gooseneck saying, “How am I gonna turn this around?” Luckily we got it, but yeah, fun times. How has your priorities changed since the last time we talked to you?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 14:40
With everything going on, my, my job has changed some to where I’m not as much hands-on anymore. I believe I don’t get to play with all my pretty wrenches all the time. But definitely, planning being involved with the construction, being involved with a lot of stuff on the golf course. I I’m fortunate to have a background in the turf side, so I went to school and got a sports turf degree and then did the assistant super spot for a while and then moved over to the equipment side. I guess that was about 2021 or ’22. And I’m thankful my boss lets me, use both sides of my brain. So I get to spend a lot of time with him doing, looking at different things. How’s our turf responding to this type of setup on our mowers? And, I’m very fortunate I have two great assistants that don’t need their hands held or they don’t need babysitting. They they have bought into our expectations and they pretty much use me as a parts order and if they have a major question, then I get to play and, help them do some stuff. But they pretty much, they do the show. I I just kinda lay out a schedule for them
Trent Manning, CTEM 16:05
Right. No, that’s awesome. Yeah, to have the, the staff you need that can get the job done and allow you to focus on other things.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 16:14
Yes
Trent Manning, CTEM 16:16
how much fun is that getting to still dig into the grass side of things from time to time?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 16:24
It that was my first true love was on the gr- growing grass side. And, the other day I actually got to hop on a mower for a little bit. That was the most exciting thing I’ve gotten to do in so long. Put my headphones in and forget everything else existed for a while. I may have even hit a couple golf balls just for fun with the mower
Trent Manning, CTEM 16:45
That’s funny. Yep, that’s good stuff
John Michael Clark, CTEM 16:49
But it’s a lot of fun getting to, understanding both sides of it. I’m trying to figure out, all right, this turf is doing this, what is our mower set up like? And being able to mix between the two, I think it’s a, a very beneficial for me and for, what– how we’re setting everything up It also helps with me being able to explain like, “Hey maybe we should change this just a little bit. I’m starting to see it doing this.” Or, “Hey, let’s send a Verticutter out for a little bit. We’re having these issues.” And, it’s not me trying to tell him that it’s not the mower, but I do every once in a while have to tell him it’s not my machine doing this. It’s more of a turf thing.
Trent Manning, CTEM 17:37
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I talked about this the other day with someone that I do think there’s a bunch of… Maybe not a bunch, but there’s some mechanics, technicians, equipment managers that, wanna wave the white flag and say, “Oh, it’s a turf problem. Not my problem. Not my problem.” But I do think as an equipment manager, at the end of the day, it’s still our problem. Even though it might be a turf condition, we need to do anything we can to the equipment to help the turf condition. Because you can’t always just run out and verticut something or, dethatch or whatever needs to be done because you got member guest in two weeks, or whatever. So y- you gotta make some compromises sometimes
John Michael Clark, CTEM 18:27
We’re in the middle of planning for the I think they’re calling it the Super El Nino and we’re expecting a pretty rough winter. So we’ve been running our fairway mowers at the more aggressive bed knife angles here lately. And, we were talking the other day about let’s go ahead and we’ll set them up to their, the normal setup so we’re not too aggressive, so we can save a little bit of the canopy for when we do get the cold weather coming in or the bad weather coming in. So it’s nice that my director’s very proactive with with his plans. So us planning this out, we’re still in October, so the worst of it I don’t think’s here till December, but we’re already making steps to go ahead and get in front of the ball.
Trent Manning, CTEM 19:19
Yeah. No, that is awesome. Yeah, so walk us through that. What are you doing there?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 19:24
So we’re Toro 5010, so we’re running the the two spacers right now under the roller, so it’s a steeper angle. Had really good results during summer with the cut. We just, we stuck with it. We’re running the transformer brushes and then that set up, and it’s gotten our effective down a lot, but we’re not having to change heights, But we’ve really– we were having a problem with puffy fairways and we we played with different settings, we played with different bed knives, and we just tried it out one day and we liked it, and we’ve stuck in- we’ve stuck with it now
Trent Manning, CTEM 20:11
Okay. No, that’s awesome. And I mean, I think, there is a lot there. So say your fairways are really thatchy and puffy, was your behind center distance, too close to the center line for the last three years? And maybe you don’t think of that too much because, you’re mowing, it looks good, no harm, no foul type thing. But if you do that for a long period of time, you’re probably getting pretty puffy
John Michael Clark, CTEM 20:41
Well, and we’re we’re 36 holes and we have two turf types. North course is Paspalum and the south course is Bermuda. And the previous guy, we tried his setups when I first got there just to try to see what was going on, and we found out that both courses cut way differently. So it was back to the drawing board on that. And then throw in having very old equipment that you our reels were at their service life. So we were– we rebuilt every reel that we had I guess that’d be almost two years ago, and pretty much took every bed knife we had and was like, “Well, none of these work anymore. We’ve gotta start over.” And we started ordering just a set at a time and trying them, and we finally found a set that worked for the north, but it didn’t work for the south. Then we started changing setups and it was about six months of every two or three cuts, “All right, let’s change something else.” And we finally, after enough headache and calling around to local guys, seeing how they’re doing things, we finally found the the right setup, the recipe. Ever since we’ve been pretty locked in, so
Trent Manning, CTEM 22:06
No that’s awesome. What about the transformer brushes? I’ve seen those at some places. They look cool, but I don’t really know that much about them
John Michael Clark, CTEM 22:17
They have been a game changer for us. We’re a lot of rolling hills and just, it helps us tame some of the grain. We get– each course gets a 10-week closure during the summer and at first we were doing a late closure on our Bermuda course, so we didn’t get to get as, as aggressive with verticutters and aerifying and stuff. So this was just another tool, in the tool chest. But we’ve now got them for greens mowers, our tee and approach mowers, and then we also have a full set for our fairways. But just helping clear up a lot of grain issues. They’re also… we play around with them enough that we have seen some significant changes in the effective height of cut with them. Just getting the really true stand up with the turf blade and then a good cut. So we’ll run them for a few weeks and then take them off for a week, getting ready for an event. I think we’re actually putting them on greens mowers next week to do a little bit of just taming with them. But we this is the third property I’ve– well, second property I brought them in. I had them a lot for every mower pretty much at TPC Sawgrass, and that was a major part of our recipe there, and I liked it so much. Everywhere I go, I try to get them a set and let them see what they can do for us
Trent Manning, CTEM 23:56
Yeah. No, that’s super cool. Yeah, and I do think– I mean, this is my personal opinion, but I think doing stuff like that where, you’re kinda tickling the grass every day is maybe better than going out and just doing a wall-to-wall verticut and, really destroying the place. It’s just a little bit at a time
John Michael Clark, CTEM 24:22
And we’ve also played around with it’s the GKB combi tool with the spring tines. We’ll During summer we’ll run that through fairways and the rough really aggressively just to help, get some of the runners out of the Bermuda. It also will put that on and do, like, a very aggressive tuft after the verticut and then take the fairway mower right behind it with the brushes just to do a lot more removal with less work
Trent Manning, CTEM 24:55
Yeah. Yeah, no, it makes sense. Yeah, and I mean, for y’all in South Florida, a lot of the courses in your area does close down, and you can do a lot of those cultural practices with the course closed. But, there’s a lot of courses that never close, right? And they’re just open twenty-four seven, three sixty-five. And for those people, I think it is better just to do a lot of tickling instead of destroying the course and then it having, a couple weeks to recover and, your rounds are down or, all those things, or your membership’s unhappy. Just different ways to get around that
John Michael Clark, CTEM 25:38
We’re very fortunate being where we’re at. Most of our members don’t wanna deal with the heat during the summer, so they– it gives us a chance to go in and do a lot of work. Yeah, we… 10 weeks, it seems like forever until you start doing it, and it’s like, “God, I wish we could have one more week,” and, we’re– Then I have to remember we’re fortunate enough and to get 10 weeks. I should count my blessings.
Trent Manning, CTEM 26:07
Right, right, right. Yeah. That’s– Yeah, ’cause I mean, a lot of us, I mean, I know in Georgia we did, we might have closed for two days, three days for air vacation, and that was it. And I mean
John Michael Clark, CTEM 26:20
and Tuesday morning, and then you better be open for,
Trent Manning, CTEM 26:22
Right. yep.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 26:24
afternoon group
Trent Manning, CTEM 26:25
Yep, everybody’s wanting to get back out there, and why’d you destroy the greens? They were so perfect. I mean, all those comments Has your idea of what makes a good equipment manager changed since the last time you were on?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 26:42
Yes. Being where I’m at now, we– I’m fortunate enough I’m still learning the business side and, my job is more planning out now. I’m still a part of day-to-day, but the conversations I’m having are planning for next week and, next month out. We’re planning right now, how are we gonna spend capital money and, what, what equipment do we wanna bring in? Where I was originally more of I was just a wrench turner. I– all I did was, make sure reels were sharp, make sure, rotaries were getting new blades every so often. I’m getting to, “Hey, check this out. I saw this in a magazine,” or, “I saw this video,” “What do you think about this?” And contacting different vendors for demos and I think I’m more involved with more of the operation than just you making sure that oil’s getting changed. We try to do, In my budget, I’ve got three months that’s my big money budgets where, that’s aerification time. But being able to plan out like, we’re gonna buy this, this– these reels for this month. We’ll buy bed knives on this month, and trying to plan everything out for the next six months versus, “All right, we gotta have this tomorrow or this next week.” It– planning has become a big part and communication between our department and… last weekend we had a family fun barbecue day or something like that for our members, and I get a text message during the middle of it, “Hey your robot’s up here mowing.” I said, “Well, nobody told me that we were having a barbecue.” So
Trent Manning, CTEM 28:30
Right?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 28:31
scuffling around trying to figure out, to get to work or get close to, send the robot back to its home. I finally was like, “Just hit the stop button on him and go push him in the corner.”
Trent Manning, CTEM 28:42
Yeah. Yep, right. Like a little kid or something. Give him a
John Michael Clark, CTEM 28:45
put him in timeout
Trent Manning, CTEM 28:47
for, yep, even timeout for coming out and disturbing the barbecue. Well, that leads us into, yeah, robotics. Yeah, y’all are doing some robotic stuff. Tell us about what you’re
John Michael Clark, CTEM 29:00
Yeah, we, We– so during our construction, we we redid our number nine on the south course, a new practices short game facility, and then a new driving range. And we had been talking about bringing in autonomous mowers. So we had a couple demos and different companies came out and we actually did the full grow in mowing and layout with the autonomous mowers. We ended up going with the Husqvarna 580Ls. And we’ve got two right now on property, one that takes care of number nine itself, one that’s taking care of our short game practice area, and then we’re– we’ve got two more that’ll be here I think next week or the week after to take care of our driving range. It was one of the things of one of the number nine, it backs up to our breakfast area for our members, and we wanna make sure that’s quiet, but it stays mowed. So instead of bringing in guys earlier, we’re all– we can set it up on a schedule that it takes care of everything that’s gonna be in the way before the members arrive. One of the biggest benefits is he runs– most of his work is done between ten o’clock at night and seven, seven o’clock in the morning
Trent Manning, CTEM 30:28
Yeah, I just spent I just spent some time with John Patterson at the Athletic Club talking about his robots that they’re using there. And so the Athletic Club is a 36-hole facility with a short course too. But they’re using robots exclusively on one of the 18s to mow the rough. But they decided as the club that they didn’t want members to see the robots. So they got enough robots, so they mow all night long and they’re done before play comes through. But just super cool operation and set up how they got everything
John Michael Clark, CTEM 31:11
Oh, and it,
Trent Manning, CTEM 31:12
there.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 31:13
it was kind of funny for us. We when we first got our one robot going we were kinda skeptical about how members are gonna react. Well, day two or day three of it I drive up to go check on him and I’ve got four or five members sitting in their golf carts parked on the road with cameras out videoing it, and they’re all joking about it and stuff. And I was like, “All right we might be onto something here.” They… our membership is an older group, but they they’ve taken to it and they think it’s awesome. They’ll sit out there drinking their morning coffee, eating breakfast, watching him mow. So they liked it so much we got more of them.
Trent Manning, CTEM 31:57
Yeah. No it’s cool. Definitely cool technology and amazing, yeah, what they, what all they can do. And yeah, areas they can get and it’s like some of the four-wheel drive machines, how steep of a terrain you can get those on.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 32:13
we’re we’ve been, Talking with a few different companies. We’re looking to get a range picker, one of the automated range pickers. So we’ve talked to a few companies. We’ve had a few companies come out. We’re still trying to decide what’s the best route for us. But, one of our biggest things that we’re pushing now is safety and where we have these mowers, there’s a lot of steep lake banks and, being the driving range that’s either get there at 5 AM and start mowing or, it’s never fun having golf balls hit at you. So that’s one of the biggest reasons we’re pushing for the autonomous on the range. And it’s gonna be a more quiet feeling with all electric out there. They’re not gonna have to hear the loud, golf cart that’s been rebuilt seven times that picks the range, that doesn’t have a muffler anymore. It’s gonna be a lot more peaceful
Trent Manning, CTEM 33:14
Yeah, for sure. And it is amazing how quiet they are. I mean, even when the blades kick on, you can barely tell the blades are on when it’s mowing. Yeah it’s pretty, pretty impressive the way all that stuff works. What’s something you’re excited about in your new shop design and layout?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 33:37
Ooh, air conditioner’s gotta be number one. Of
Trent Manning, CTEM 33:42
Yeah. Yeah
John Michael Clark, CTEM 33:43
being in a uninsulated tuna can in South Florida for two years has taken a toll on me. But another big one, we we’re doing a fully, separated grinding room. So, when we’re grinding, we can shut the doors. We’re gonna have a dust collection system in there and air conditioning in there as well, so we won’t be bothered by everything else going on. So, getting maybe an ADD or ADHD, whichever letters they gave me If I lose focus, I can lose focus for an hour or so. If I’m sort of separated and can be in my own little world in there, one, we’re gonna be more accurate, but two, we’ll get stuff done quicker.
Trent Manning, CTEM 34:31
Oh yeah, for sure.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 34:33
But
Trent Manning, CTEM 34:34
Yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s so hard. I, I wish you could put a number on it, but I don’t know how many times I’ve been, busy doing one thing and somebody asked a question, and then the next thing I know is two hours later before I get back there and I’m like, “Okay, what was I doing?” Like, “Where was I at in the process?” And I know, everybody experiences that working at a golf course ’cause th- I mean, things happen and gotta be resolved, whatever it is. But definitely a, a time suck
John Michael Clark, CTEM 35:04
Yes. And that’s where,
Trent Manning, CTEM 35:06
stuff
John Michael Clark, CTEM 35:08
right now we only have one lift, and the new shop we’re gonna be do two post lifts plus a big floor lift, so having more space to work and g- be spread out. We can dedicate one of the lifts to strictly preventative maintenance while the other guys are still being able to check mowers all the time.
Trent Manning, CTEM 35:33
Yeah, I think that’s, yeah, super important. And it wasn’t that long ago where it was, getting one lift in a shop was, like next level. But one lift isn’t enough anymore, not with the expectations and the amount of equipment we got
John Michael Clark, CTEM 35:51
Not with 40 carts and then two courses full of mowers. We mow a lot and trying to keep up with one lift it’s been a struggle some days
Trent Manning, CTEM 36:03
Oh yeah, for sure. And I remember doing a lot of stuff on the ground in the floor because I didn’t wanna tie the lift up, on a repair or whatever, because we needed to check mowers, and I remember, yeah, having guys in the shop checking mowers, and they’re like, “W- what do you do without a lift?” I’m like, “You lay on the ground and check the mower.”
John Michael Clark, CTEM 36:28
Yeah.
Trent Manning, CTEM 36:30
Yeah that’s the way we used to do it in the old days. Yeah. Go back yeah
John Michael Clark, CTEM 36:35
I’ve got pictures of us when we were building McLemore. I brought my oil change ramps from home and would back the mower up onto the oil change ramps just to try to get under it to check those back two reels or, check that middle reel that doesn’t get very high. Laying in the mud gets tired
Trent Manning, CTEM 36:54
Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, I was actually telling a guy he was at a, a baseball field, and I was telling him about the, the oil change ramps because he didn’t have a lift, and he had a 2653. And I’m like… And he was taking the reel off to check it. I’m like, “Man,” yeah.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 37:14
You do that or twice and you’re like, “Yeah, let’s get rid of this piece of equipment.”
Trent Manning, CTEM 37:19
Right, exactly. Yeah. No, it’s such a pain What’s some of the challenges that you’re working through now?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 37:28
Main challenges right now with construction is just access around the shop. So our fueling and wash station’s on one side of the construction area and the shop’s on the other. So having to coordinate with our construction superintendent, like, you we’re gonna shut this part of the road down. We’ve got this road, or, having to set up a wash station out on the course and we fill up gas jugs to get ’em fuel. And then having two courses with very s- different, Different agronomic plans, that’s… It’s been a challenge. We’ve actually worked through a lot of that challenge trying to schedule around stuff Because they, it’s magic, they both need the same equipment on the same days, and we’ve had to do some soul searching to figure out, right you can do it on Tuesday, you can do it on Thursday or something, but like, let’s schedule this out a little bit. And then trying
Trent Manning, CTEM 38:31
Yeah, I don’t, I guess it’s Murphy’s Law how that works out, but I mean, I had the same deal with the two courses. We had, one stump grinder, one chipper, and both courses would need it the same day. And it was so frustrating because the chipper and the stump grinder would sit there for eight months not being used, and then they both need it the same day. It’s like, what is the chances? And I mean, I get it with the chipper if we had a storm come through or whatever, okay. But this was not the case. It was just like, “Let’s cut a tree down on May 15th.” Both courses would say that. I don’t know. And I remember Austin Wright when he was at Sand Valley he went through a lot of the same issues where they shared equipment and they had whatever, four or five courses up there, and he came up with a calendar system, and it was basically like a rental type deal. So if the superintendent needed the piece of equipment, they had to schedule, “I need the piece of equipment for this amount of time.” And then they put it on the calendar, and then everybody knew where it was or when it would be available again. So it helped save on some of that stuff
John Michael Clark, CTEM 39:49
Well, that’s one of the things that we do. So we only have three tractors now, but of course we have a ton of tractor implements. And after several times of me getting text messages early in the morning, “We’ve gotta have this now,” we told my boss, I said, “We’re implementing a 24-hour rule. If you don’t give me 24 hours heads up,” I said we’re not gonna do it.” And it took one or two of them getting in trouble for not being able to do something ’cause they didn’t plan it. They… Now we’re getting 48-hour text messages. I said, “This is what I like.” Like, give me a chance,
Trent Manning, CTEM 40:25
awesome
John Michael Clark, CTEM 40:27
’cause some of our, some of our implements are not fun to be swapping out and, it usually takes, just for safety reasons we’ll usually have two people unhook or hook up something, and we can’t just what we’re doing to do it
Trent Manning, CTEM 40:44
Right. No, it is, I mean, it’s safer, it’s easier to have two people and out there and just, yeah, get an implement hooked up and get it done. Yeah JR, when he was telling me a story, the, he got a new superintendent and every morning at, 5:55, 6 o’clock start time, he would tell JR he wanted to change the height on whatever, five minutes before start time. So the way JR solved that is he started going to him the night before saying, or the evening, you know, before he left, “What height do you want in the morning?” I mean, yeah, get it get ahead of it. So, I mean, there is things we can do to make our life easier. Sometimes you just gotta speak up
John Michael Clark, CTEM 41:35
is the key
Trent Manning, CTEM 41:36
It is. And I mean, I know that’s– we talk about it, everybody talks about communication, but it is so important. And yeah, without it, it makes life tough and frustrating
John Michael Clark, CTEM 41:49
As I told one of our assistants the other day, I said, “Look,” I said, “There’s things to keep a secret,” but I said your idea and your schedule’s not the thing to keep a secret from
Trent Manning, CTEM 42:00
Right. Yep. Yep, don’t keep that a secret. Well, what’s something you’re looking forward to?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 42:10
Cooler weather. Barbecue season, is about to really pick up. And then the new shop I’m over the moon ecstatic for it. And then after that, we’re hoping to start renovating one of the golf courses hopefully next year or the year after. So, it- construction’s always It’s a headache, but it’s always fun getting to
Trent Manning, CTEM 42:34
Yeah.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 42:34
new things. So
Trent Manning, CTEM 42:37
Yep, get to do some different Yeah, that’s exciting for sure. Yeah, let’s talk about barbecue for a minute. It’s my favorite subject. What what all competitions are you planning on doing?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 42:50
So we’ve got the Florida Barbecue State Championship in two weeks in Animal City. That’ll be that’s gonna be a really fun one. And then Big Pig Jig, of course, is always a fun one in Georgia. So we’ll be doing that one in November. And then I think I have one state contest in December, which we’re still on the fence if we’re gonna make it or not. That’s quite a haul for that one. I think it’s in so if anything, I’ll be flying to that one and having somebody bring me a grill But we’re, Next year’s gonna be a lot of fun. We we’ve been working with some different companies to get us back on the road more often with the barbecue stuff, and yeah, we just got back from Indiana late September, and that we got to unveil our new barbecue trailer. So
Trent Manning, CTEM 43:43
Oh, nice. That’s
John Michael Clark, CTEM 43:44
been a very fun year for us
Trent Manning, CTEM 43:47
Yeah. No, that’s super cool. Yeah, I mean, how did you get into that?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 43:52
I went to high school with, his dad was doing barbecue contests and, go hang out at the house and watch him do it, and I finally asked him one day, I said, “Man, can you take me to one of these?” And he told me then, I think I was like 16 or 17, he goes, “Ah, you can’t till you’re 18.” So I was like, “All right.” So he took me one- the day I turned 18 and I’m like, “Why’d I have to wait till I was 18?” He goes, “Well, now you’re an adult and I don’t have to be responsible for you.”
Trent Manning, CTEM 44:19
Oh yeah.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 44:21
We started cooking a lot. I cooked with a few different teams in the very beginning and then guy named Hank Vaden, we- he talked to me at one of the big contests we were at, and he looked over and he’s like, “Man, if you want to come cook but you don’t want to have to do all this work,” he’s like, “Give me a call.” So we had that was at Memphis in May, I think 2017 or 2018. And been doing all the catering, cooking and then trying to– We cooked three hogs that year for the contest itself, and I was just, I was beat. So I called him the next week and he’s like, “Come by the restaurant.” I was in school still, and his restaurant was not far from where I’d grown up, but right down the road from Mississippi State. So I drove over there and he goes, “We got a contest in two weeks.” He goes, “The fun part is you ain’t got to do all this stuff.” He goes, “You just show up and you cook.” “All right.”
Trent Manning, CTEM 45:24
All right
John Michael Clark, CTEM 45:25
And since then, I’ve been with him and we’ve traveled all over the country doing it. Just, it’s the people it’s my relaxation. There’s nothing more relaxing than fire, smoke, having a nice cocktail. And sadly, I don’t even eat barbecue that much anymore. I’m kind of burned out. But just, it’s fun getting to play in the test kitchens, so.
Trent Manning, CTEM 45:51
Oh yeah. No, that’s super cool. Yeah, I mean, it’s a good hobby. It’s relaxing and therapeutic, I’m sure. It’s
John Michael Clark, CTEM 45:58
a very expensive hobby,
Trent Manning, CTEM 46:00
Yes. Yeah. It’s not, yeah. Yeah how much is Wagyu brisket?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 46:07
Oof. The one I bought the other day is $230 for a 14 pounder
Trent Manning, CTEM 46:14
That’s crazy, 230. Yeah, I was think- I was thinking 150. I was way
John Michael Clark, CTEM 46:21
That’s, it’s sad. You can’t even go to, you can’t even go to Sam’s Club and get a packer brisket for $150 anymore.
Trent Manning, CTEM 46:29
Yeah, that’s crazy
John Michael Clark, CTEM 46:31
My parents lived in Texas for a while before I was born, and they’re like, “Oh yeah, they used to give briskets away. If you bought three hams, you got a free brisket.” Just ’cause it it a good cut of meat
Trent Manning, CTEM 46:42
Right, right, right. That’s crazy. Yeah, crazy Anything else you wanna talk about?
John Michael Clark, CTEM 46:53
And we’re just– It’s season for us now, so it’s, a lot of people are getting ready for tree trimming, and this is actually gonna be a, hopefully a relaxing winter for us. We we’ve done all the hard work now, so I’m kinda looking forward to hopefully cooler weather. 70s down here is cooler weather. I was talking to one of the guys in the WhatsApp group. I think he’s in Oregon, and he was like, “Oh yeah, we’re already pulling out winter gear.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I just had to swap from shorts to pants, but that’s only because members came back.”
Trent Manning, CTEM 47:30
Oh, right, right. That’s funny. Yeah, crazy. One thing we need to talk about is the EM group in your area in South Florida there. Pretty impressive how big a group y’all have
John Michael Clark, CTEM 47:45
That is, uh
Trent Manning, CTEM 47:46
y’all get together
John Michael Clark, CTEM 47:48
That is definitely one of the biggest pros of working down here is we have a lot of veterans in the group, guys that have been in this industry for a long time and many of them have become mentors to me and, friends. But yeah, we we have monthly or quarterly meetings. We’ll have a lunch and, it’s not always talking equipment. Talk fishing and hunting or, mud riding, barbecue, whatever. But having the relationship with the guys to if I have a question on something, instead of having to call Toro, usually I can call anybody in our group and we’ll have an answer within five or 10 minutes
Trent Manning, CTEM 48:30
Yeah, it’s, yeah, pretty impressive
John Michael Clark, CTEM 48:33
Or just on the road I’m at, we have 10 golf courses within five miles of each other. So we have a question, they– Some of them will drive their golf carts over and, they’ll help me out with a problem or I, vice versa. so
Trent Manning, CTEM 48:49
so cool. Yeah
John Michael Clark, CTEM 48:50
it’s very nice having the the support and the village around us. There are a few younger guys in the South Florida area that are stepping into the equipment manager roles, and I think the the veterans around has definitely been tremendous, especially, the WhatsApp group as well. That’s been a major help. Just being able to see all the things that, people else are dealing with it’ll make you feel better that, you’re not the only one dealing with problems. But two, some of the ideas seen, going back now, it’s like, “Oh, I saw this the other day that this guy was talking about he changed out this,” or, there– it’s it’s been a tremendous help
Trent Manning, CTEM 49:34
Yeah, because if you have, this problem with this mower today, somebody else is gonna have that same problem with that same mower, next week or next month or next year.
John Michael Clark, CTEM 49:46
Yes
Trent Manning, CTEM 49:49
just a part of it. And yeah, it doesn’t matter what color the equipment is, I mean, they
John Michael Clark, CTEM 49:53
You’re gonna have
Trent Manning, CTEM 49:54
their issues. Yeah. So yeah,
John Michael Clark, CTEM 49:56
found one yet that doesn’t have an issue. It’s just finding what the issue is
Trent Manning, CTEM 50:02
Right, right, right. Yeah it’s gonna have one sooner or later. Not that some of them are not easier to work on and more user-friendly and that kind of stuff, but it’s all gonna have its problems
John Michael Clark, CTEM 50:14
Absolutely. And that’s, we’re, we have a great support team with our vendors, but our biggest support is our neighbors and, they Just going to some of their shops and seeing how they laid stuff out has helped out a lot as well with how we’re gonna be doing our new shop. So it’s
Trent Manning, CTEM 50:36
Yeah, nice to meet you
John Michael Clark, CTEM 50:38
Having as many golf courses in one area, I’ve When I was in Georgia, the closest golf course was I think 30 minutes away and, it was a little mom-and-pop course. I don’t even think they had a mechanic.
Trent Manning, CTEM 50:51
Right. Yeah
John Michael Clark, CTEM 50:52
didn’t, I didn’t have many people to call on and, I was having to reach out to people halfway across the country for questions on this, and now if I have a question, hop in my golf cart, take a two-minute drive and I’m at the next shop,
Trent Manning, CTEM 51:06
That’s crazy that it’s, yeah, it’s all that close. That’s super cool. Yeah. No, y’all definitely have a good group. I was fortunate enough to experience it a year or two ago, and even go to a Friday lunch. Yeah, no, that was cool. Very cool. Well, thank you, John Michael, for being on again. Appreciate you coming back. It’s always good catching up
John Michael Clark, CTEM 51:30
Absolutely.
Trent Manning 51:36
Thank you so much for listening to the Reel Turf Techs podcast. I hope you learned something today. Don’t forget to subscribe. If you have any topics you’d like to discuss, or you’d like to be a guest, find us on Twitter at Reel Turf Techs.