Artificial Turf Makes Dreams Come True in Georgia

Published on April 3, 2023

Nationwide Turf in Georgia uses Bobcat^® mini track loaders to complete jobs faster and with less manpower, all while preserving yards and protecting their hard-earned reputation. See how these versatile machines have even been used to install football fields for children in need.

Football fields play a large part in the artificial turf business. But if you get to talking with a turf installer, you might be surprised to hear that the smallest jobs actually make for the most rewarding work.

“It is always the mother who’s at home with her children and the yard is a muddy mess. I enjoy coming into those jobs, spending a day, and when you leave the moms are nearly crying because now their kids aren’t playing in the mud,” says Jeremy May, CEO of Nationwide Turf in Gordon County, Georgia.

Of course, it can be tricky to find machines capable of tackling jobs as large as stadiums and as small as somebody’s backyard. Luckily for Jeremy and Nationwide Turf, he found Bobcat^® equipment.

“You ought to try one of these.”

That’s all Jeremy needed to hear from his old friend, Derek Forester, the general manager at Rhinehart Equipment Company, before he took the Bobcat^® MT85 mini track loader for a spin.

“Derek gave me one to try, and I took it for the first week and didn’t want to give it back. It cut down on our labor cost and made us so much faster. So much more efficient.” Since then, Jeremy has also acquired a Bobcat MT100 mini track loader.

With the mini track loaders, Jeremy could bring three crew members out for a job that would’ve taken eight crew members without it. Not to mention, the unmatched maneuverability of the MT85 and MT100 have proven invaluable as more and more of the artificial turf market moves from large-scale commercial projects to smaller residential ones.

“You can come in with the mini track loaders and not tear up a yard,” says Jeremy. “It is the difference between three guys doing a job or getting a whole bunch of guys with wheelbarrows and telling them to go at it with some shovels. They don’t like that very much.”

To maximize the versatility of the Bobcat mini track loaders, Jeremy and his crew arm them with a variety of attachments, including a general purpose bucket, a grapple and a landplane.

According to Jeremy, the original machine recommendation from Derek continues to pay dividends for Rhinehart Equipment Company all these years down the road.

“There are probably 30 Bobcat mini track loaders out there that were sold just because people saw us operating them and thought how neat they were. I’ve definitely got nothing but praise for it.”