BATESVILLE — Robert Foster wasn’t happy with the lawn mowers on the market. Either they didn’t hold up or they were too expensive.
“I had a pretty-good-size yard to mow, and I was having a lot of trouble [with lawn mowers],” said Foster, co-owner of Bad Boy Inc.
In his shopping for a good mower, he said he found the price tags on the zero-turn mowers too high, so he figured he could just make his own. Without any manufacturing experience, Foster set out to design a better lawn mower.
The 750,000-square-foot facility that now produces Bad Boy Mowers in Batesville has come a long way from Foster’s garage, where the first Bad Boy was made in 1998.
The company recently announced a $7.4 million, 150,000-square-foot expansion to its facilities that will create at least 150 new jobs. Ground will be broken Wednesday for the facility.
When a friend hopped upon Foster’s creation, he called it a “bad boy,” and the name stuck.
“People would refer to anything that was cool as a ‘bad boy,’” Foster said.
As far as the bulldog mascot and the orange and blue company colors, Foster said those came about because his children went to school in the Tuckerman School District, although the shade of the colors were inspired by the Florida Gators.
One thing that seems to have catapulted Bad Boy Mowers into the global market was its first visit to the International Lawn, Garden and Power Equipment Exposition in Louisville, Ky., where Bad Boywas well received. After that expo, the mower was given the New Product of the Year for 2002 award by Outdoor Power Equipment magazine.
Scott Lancaster, the company’s general legal counsel, said it was the mower’s swing-away design and the fact that it has one-third less parts than most mowers on the market that won the mower accolades.
But that first year in business outside of Foster’s garage was a bit challenging when the company produced 250 mowers in 2002. Trying to figure things out, the company contracted out the painting of the orange mowers.
Within just a few months, marketing director Linnie Foree said, the company had 250 customers complainingabout their mowers turning pink because the UV protective coating had been left out of the paint.
“They were Barbie Doll pink!” Foree said with a laugh. “We thought about changing our name to Bad Girl.”
Foree said the company replaced all the pink mowers. But with all the publicity, the pink mowers actually became a requested product. Bad Boy Mowers manufactured a pink one for Jessica Simpson. It is appropriately named the Jessica Simpson model, and pink mowers are produced upon request.
When the company first moved to its current location in 2002, Foree said it was a struggle to fill up 35,000 square feet.
“We parked our trucks back here to keep them out of the rain,” Foree said as he walked through the plant. “Within two years, the whole building was filled up [with production].”
Bad Boy manufactures its product through the entire process, from fabricating the metal to loading it onto the double-decker trucks.
“When they say ‘Made here in Batesville,’ it means made here in Batesville,” Lancaster said.
Each year the company continues to produce more mowers than the year before.
“A mower was coming off the line every three minutes in spring of last year,” Foree said about the 35 different modelsthe company manufactures. Bad Boy also manufactures multi-terrain vehicles in its Melbourne facility. The expansion will allow the company to manufacture more MTVs as well.
To show its support for the company, the Independence County Economic Development Commission decided to invest in the company’s expansion. Bob Stroud, chairman of the commission, presented Foster a check for $500,000 on Friday.
“This is a long way from Robert Foster’s garage,” Lancaster said as he looked over several orange Bad Boys that were lined up for a display.
Staff writer Jeanni Brosius can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or jbrosius@arkansasonline.com.
Three Rivers, Pages 45 on 03/22/2012