“Let’s blow up a giant bale of hay!” That comment might not be what one would expect to hear in a typical corporate brainstorming session, but it was the type of tongue-in-cheek idea which surfaced among the creative marketers at one rural Kansas company. The people in this company are not only having fun, they represent one of the nation’s leading producers of agricultural, turf, and hydraulic power equipment.
Tim Penner is president and CEO of Harper Industries in Harper, Kansas. Tim explained that the company began with a man named Dewey Hostetler. “He had a knack for seeing how a farmer could use equipment,” Tim said. In his farm shop near Harper, Dewey started designing equipment for handling hay. It worked so well that it spawned a company to make these products. The business was incorporated in 1974.
As a play on his first name, the products came to be called DewEze. The DewEze product line has grown and expanded over time.
Continue reading “Kansas Profile – Now That’s Rural: Tim Penner, Harper Industries”
