FredBerry_BartonArticle

Barton School of Business 2023-2024 Annual Report
Fred Berry: Cultivating a Legacy of Values
FRED BERRY
Cultivating a Legacy of Values
I started my business career with four
advantages: I made a wise choice of
parents, I grew up on a farm, I got a
great education, and I married the most
interesting woman you’re likely to meet!
Paul and Fred Berry arriving
in Wichita, June, 1957.
Plane is a Ryan Navion.
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Barton School of Business 2023-2024 Annual Report
Fred Berry: Cultivating a Legacy of Values
Fordson Tractor
Fred and Lovisa Berry,
Fred’s parents
Dad’s family had lived on a farm
near Wood River, Illinois for
many generations. Mother came
to town as a teacher in 1925. They
met soon after her arrival and
were married in 1927. Dad was a
true gentleman and a gentle man.
He was quiet and unassuming,
but he had a presence that people
sensed. He was known as Mr. Fred.
Even though he only had a ninthgrade
education, having dropped
out to help on the farm, he was
elected president of the local
school board twice. My brother,
Paul, and I received our high
school diplomas from Dad, even
though he didn't have one. He
has always been my role model.
Mother was the daughter of a
Methodist minister and a Sunday
School teacher. She was very
active in church affairs, serving in
a national women’s role in a time
when women were not usually
doing that. Needless to say, I came
by my interest in community
activities honestly! Dad was
well-read and a good public
speaker, but his English-teacher
wife worked on his ninth-grade
grammar for the rest of his life.
Our farm had been in the family
since the early 1800s. Dad was
born on it, and my brother and I
grew up on it. It was a wonderful
way to grow up. After receiving
my MBA and serving two years
in the Air Force during the
Korean War, I joined Dad’s farm
equipment business in 1954.
Although I went through a
period of claiming to maintain
my independence, it was always
obvious that Dad hoped his two
sons would join him. Although
our small farm was located near
Wood River, the Berry Tractor and
Equipment Co. was 25 miles away
across the Mississippi in St. Louis.
Dad and his much younger
brother, Art, had started the
business in 1928, representing
the Fordson tractor. Berry Tractor
was the wholesale distributor
for most of Illinois and Missouri.
It appointed and serviced retail
dealers, supporting them with
equipment and parts inventory,
sales and service training,
and marketing support.
The main product that Berry
Tractor sold was the Fordson
tractor, but it was a WWI design
that was quickly becoming
obsolete. By 1939, Henry Ford
and Englishman Harry Ferguson
worked together to create the
new Ford-Ferguson tractor.
Dad pivoted successfully. From
1939 to 1957, Berry Tractor sold
22,000 Ford-Ferguson and
Ferguson tractors (including
the war years when few were
manufactured). When Massey-
Harris merged with Ferguson in 1953, they no longer
needed independently owned distributors like
Berry Tractor. After persuading the new Massey-
Ferguson company to purchase his location and
retain his employees, Dad retired to the farm.
My brother Paul and I found ourselves newly
married, both with our first child, and unemployed.
We wanted to be in business for ourselves, as
was our family history. Looking back now, I’ve
realized that we inherited Dad’s culture without
even being conscious that it was a culture. It was
just the way we lived and the way Dad ran his
business. To us, that was just the way to do it.
We also wanted to create an enterprise, not just a
business. A business suggests an employer and an
employee, one working for the other. An enterprise
suggests a venture that all are in together. Everybody
has a role and shares a goal. Everybody prospers
when the enterprise prospers. Our culture includes
a somewhat unique set of values: humility, grace,
trust, empathy, and, of course, honesty. We promise
that no employee shall ever be criticized or penalized
for trying to do the right thing. As a reflection of
Dad’s culture, we stated from the beginning that our
intention was to “make a Christian statement in the
marketplace.” I hope we have succeeded in that.
Dad was willing to support Paul and me if we could
find the right opportunity. We felt like we knew
something about selling equipment, but we had a
desire for more personal customer relationships. As
a wholesaler, it was always frustrating not knowing
the farmer, who was the end customer. We decided
construction equipment (bulldozers, loaders, etc.)
would be a good place to be. In that industry, the
dealer bought from the manufacturer and sold
directly to the user. There was no middleman.
Searching for dealership opportunities, we wrote to
all the major manufacturers, including Caterpillar,
International Harvester, Allis Chalmers, and others.
We failed to find the right opportunity in the St.
Louis area, but International Harvester asked us
to look at one in Wichita. The Sam Denney Road
Machinery Co. was for sale by the First National
Bank Trust Department. Sam Denney had died the
year before, leaving no heirs and no plans, but he left
the bank as trustee of his estate. The business had
been struggling before his death, and more so now
that the bank was trying to manage it by committee.
The bank’s obligation was to sell the company and
leave Mrs. Denney with a comfortable retirement
and no company liabilities, but it had been unable to
find a qualified buyer. International Harvester was
also frustrated, needing a good dealer to support its
customers, so they were willing to give the franchise
to these two young brothers from St. Louis.
The timing was right. Dad could loan some of his
Massey-Ferguson proceeds to us to strengthen
the new balance sheet, and his excellent credit
record allowed him to assume the mortgage from
Mrs. Denny on the new building on West Street.
Sam H. Denney, 1949
Fred Sr. with a
Massey-Ferguson 35
Berry Tractor and Equipment,
Wichita, KS, 1959
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Barton School of Business 2023-2024 Annual Report
Fred Berry: Cultivating a Legacy of Values
Berry Board Meeting, 1972
The deal closed with the bank on June 1, 1957, and
I started my entrepreneurial career. We flew to
Wichita, as you can see. We always flew, and we
promised the grandparents we would return to visit
often (see sidebar about our aviation history).
The company had 50 employees, but our business
plan could only afford 40, so that announcement
was the subject of the very first employee meeting.
Some sensed they might not make the cut and
found their own new employment. As far as
we could tell, all ten landed on their feet.
I was always sensitive to the need to recognize one's
own strengths and weaknesses. Although not a
student of poetry by a long shot, I was impressed by a
quote from Scotsman Robert Burns: “Oh, the gift that
God could give us, to see ourselves as others see us.” I
knew I was a lover, not a fighter, so we brought a
strong office/credit manager with us from Dad’s crew
in St. Louis. Herb Weismiller was just what I needed,
and he played a key role in the company until his
retirement 25 years later. He was also our credit
manager, and the salesmen called him the
“Wedgeheaded Dutchman” because they could not sell
him a bad deal.
Strengths and weaknesses were harder to evaluate
with Paul. He had a dual major in business and music,
with a minor in French. He was an accomplished
pianist, and in his few years in Wichita, he became the
Fred Sr., Fred Jr.,
Paul Berry, 1957
chairman of the Wichita Symphony Orchestra board.
He tried to be our sales manager (and could not have
tried harder!), but he was just not cut out for it. After
a few years, he decided to move on to other things.
Through all the changes, my wife, Sue, was always my
sounding board. Although a full-time mother, she
followed the business closely from the very beginning.
She had a keen sense of people, and she saw the
shortcomings of the International Harvester
executives early on. As we became involved in the
equipment industry and interacted with other
ownership couples, the wives could not believe Sue
did not actually work in the company.
It did not take long to learn that Sue was right:
International Harvester, although very strong in farm
equipment at the time, was not strong in construction
equipment. When the owner of White Star Machinery
in Wichita decided to sell in 1962, I saw an
opportunity to diversify but still sell to contractor
customers.
White Star specialized in smaller equipment and
construction supplies, which was a good fit. I got to
know the owner, Russ Clark, through our church and
through our local trade association, and I let him
know my interest in the company. He was willing to
sell with installment payments, which made it
possible for us to buy. I had no idea that the new
acquisition would lead us to become a dealer for a
new compact loader called Bobcat.
The Bobcat® loader had come on the market in North
Dakota in 1962. One of our salesmen, Paul Drees, saw
one for the first time at a show in St. Louis. He came
back telling us that it was a machine we ought to
investigate. We were impressed enough to contact
Bobcat. I received a wonderful letter from them that
said, “Mr. Berry, you’re the furthest-away dealer we
have so far.” We became the dealer for Kansas in 1965,
largely through Paul’s influence. Once again, someone
with skills I did not have made a great contribution to
our growth.
I always wanted to focus on one thing and do it well,
so we hired a dedicated Bobcat salesman at White
Star Machinery, and Bobcat sales flourished. When
the Bobcat Company was soon ready to expand into
Oklahoma, they gave White Star the opportunity to
become the dealer for the eastern half of the state.
This gave me a chance to do what has been my
greatest satisfaction in business: watching other
people grow. I thought the young man on the rental
desk had the potential to open the store in Tulsa, and
he accepted the challenge. To this day, our Tulsa
location is still very successful.
The White Star acquisition brought us another key
figure in our history. Clair Crandall was their top
salesman. We saw his potential and made him the
sales manager in Wichita. Later, when my brother,
Paul, left, Clair became president of Berry Tractor,
which was a great contribution to our growth.
Still open to diversification opportunities, we turned
to the industrial lift truck market. The customers
were different (a good thing), but the product support
required to service them was the same (also a good
thing). We love the product support part of the
business.
The Yale® line was available, and they were willing to
let us sell their equipment out of the Berry Tractor
facility on West Street. We had to have three
dedicated people—a salesperson, a service person,
and a parts person—and that was fair and reasonable.
I agreed with them on the focus aspect, so that’s what
we did. Becoming a Yale dealer led us to John Engels,
a Wichita State University graduate that had a lasting
impact on our company. He started as a lift truck
salesman and worked his way up to managing Berry
Material Handling. Later, during a difficult time in the
eighties, he became president of White Star, and as
the Bobcat connection grew, he became vice president
over all those divisions. He was with us 43 years.
About the time of the Yale agreement, another
growth opportunity presented itself. The crane
company we represented asked us to take over the
Colorado territory. The company’s sales
representative, Max Graham, joined us as a partner,
and that became another successful expansion. We
called it Empire Cranes, and though we no longer sell
those cranes, we still have a presence in Colorado with
our Bobcat of the Rockies division.
By 1970, we had four separate corporations: Berry
Tractor, White Star Machinery, Berry Material
Handling, and Empire Cranes. It was time to
consolidate and create Berry Companies, Inc. Now
called divisions, each had its own president or general
manager with great autonomy over the business. I
love delegation, although I’ve learned that authority
must always go with responsibility. In 1970, we also
formed the Berry Foundation. We had always given a
minimum of 5% of our profit to charities, but this
gave us a more organized way to do it. To this day, the
first gift usually goes to the United Way in each city
where we have employees.
Unbelievably, International Harvester went out of
business in 1982, falling victim to the 1980s recession.
Fortunately for us, that led to the acquisition of
International’s construction equipment line by a
Japanese company called Komatsu®. Komatsu was
trying to enter the U.S. market, and it is a far better
product.
In 1982, another valuable leader joined our company
when Judy Worrell became my secretary. She had
been at Wichita State University for one year, and she
Fred Berry, 1971
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Barton School of Business 2023-2024 Annual Report
Fred Berry: Cultivating a Legacy of Values
continued taking courses one at a time. She kept
growing in her responsibilities at the company and
received her finance degree at age 39. We made her an
officer with broad responsibilities—finance, human
resources, real estate, legal…you name it. She retired
as Vice-President Administration/Treasurer after 38
years with the company.
to watch from a distance as Chairman Emeritus.
Walter, recently turned 65, is Executive Chaiman and
corporate pilot, a title I enjoyed for 40 years. His son,
Jon, is president, and his other sons, Adam and David,
also serve as corporate executives. Walter is now
Executive Chairman, and Steve Meadows, another key
player, is CEO until his planned retirement in 2025.
By the late eighties, Berry Companies had become an
equipment dealer for Bobcat, Komatsu, and Yale (now
Hyster-Yale), when Yale acquired Hyster® later in the
“dirty eighties”). During that time, our son, Walter,
and son-in-law, Dan Scheer, also joined the company.
The third generation was now in place. Walter started
in Denver and Dan in Tulsa. Both had experienced
other employment before joining us, which is a
tradition we still find important. I passed the title of
president to Walter on my 65th birthday in 1993.
Dan became the president of the Berry Tractor
division, and he found the opportunity to
manufacture a construction broom. Berry Tractor
was a strong dealer for the competitive broom,
but a former employee came to Dan and said that,
with capital, he could build a better broom. Dan
agreed, and they called it Superior Broom. Later,
it was decided that Dan and our daughter, Kate,
would take the manufacturing business on their
own. That let Walter and his family keep the rest of
Berry Companies. Berry Tractor saw some expansion
opportunities with Komatsu, but the greater
opportunities have come from Bobcat. In 1999, Bobcat
asked us to take over the Houston market. That is
when the transition of leadership to Walter really took
place. Four more opportunities followed in Kansas
City, Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Indianapolis.
As of this year, the company has 66 locations in nine
states, with nearly 1,300 employees. I have continued
Along the way, WSU has been an important partner.
As a member of the Young Presidents Organization
in the 1960s, I came to know Dean Fran Jabara and
his Center for Entrepreneurship. Later, we started
using Dean Gerald Graham for executive training
and Professor Don Hackett for sales training. Don
was an Oklahoma rancher and a natural for our
salesmen. I was a member of the WSU Foundation’s
National Advisory Council for 30 years. Although
Sue and I were transplants to Wichita, ten members
of our family have degrees from WSU. Our
company has even more. Our grandson, David, was
even the Barton Scholar for the class of 2015.
As the fourth generation assumes leadership, I
am proud to see Berry Companies hold fast to the
values that have been foundational to our success.
The primary purpose of business is to serve society
by serving the customer. I think that focus is one of
the reasons why we have been successful. We have
always strived to offer a product or service that people
need and are willing to pay for, and in a manner that
makes them want to do business with us. But with
that said, there is something more important than a
product or a service. Berry Companies has succeeded
because we try to do what’s right every time, even
sometimes at the cost of profit. That’s our goal: to
be known for our humility, grace, and honesty.
Dad would be proud to see his culture
continuing into the fourth generation. ▪
Fred and
Sue (2017
and 2018).
Fred, son,
Walter,
grandson,
Jon, and
greatgrandson,
Jackson—four
generations
of Berrys.
As Berry Companies grew geographically, flying
became essential to keep close personal contact
with our people. Thankfully, my family has
always loved aviation. My interest in flying was
sparked by my Uncle Art Berry, who soloed in a
Beechcraft Travel Air in 1929. My parents gave
me flying lessons for high school graduation in
1945. By the summer of 1946, I visited Wichita
for the first time to pick up a new airplane for
our dealer with a 3-day old license! My brother,
Paul, also became a pilot, as well as my wife,
Sue, and both of our sons, Walter and Frank.
Today, Walter flies a small Cessna Citation.
TBM 700 turboprop, Fred’s
last personal airplane.
Walter Berry family with Fred and
Sue: Katherine Berry Lewis, Jonathan
Berry, Polly Berry, Walter Berry, Fred
and Sue, Adam Berry, David Berry.
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