On Air: The Art of Industrial Real Estate — Episode 30
Host: All right, listeners, we are back — welcome to episode 30 of On Air with Team Jensen. Today we’re lucky to have a good client of ours on, Randy Henson of Bad Boy Mowers, VP of Logistics and Purchasing. Randy, thanks for coming on.
Randy: Thanks for having me.
Host: Good client and friend, I’d add. We just finished an expansion project with Bad Boy Mowers, so we’ll talk about that, but first — how’s your daughter’s competitive tennis going?
Randy: It’s great — we finally got transferred to Alabama, and she’s ranked around 49th in the state at nine years old, playing 12U. She’s doing great, big tournament this weekend — should be top 20 by the end of the season.
Host: How long have you been with Bad Boy, and how’d you get into the business?
Randy: About three and a half years now, closer to four. They actually found me in Alabama, oddly enough — I was working for a Tier 1 supplier to Mercedes in the Tuscaloosa area. The former HR lead at Bad Boy had an automotive background too and understood the value of bringing someone from automotive supply chain onto the team to really lead and take over their supply chain. I got my master’s from Arkansas, so I’m a house divided — half Alabama, half Arkansas, and I love the outdoors, which both states support. When they called, I jumped on it — I loved that they were less bureaucratic than where I’d been. A large-but-small company moves fast, has agility, makes decisions quickly, and that really excited me.
Host: Would you say a lot of manufacturers view supply chain and warehousing almost as an embarrassment or evidence of poor production forecasting, rather than realizing — once they get a good supply chain person in house — that it’s actually a real value center?
Randy: I think that’s the big difference when you have a solid leader in place. Our CEO, Peter Ballentine, had the foresight and experience to know a good supply chain person could change that perception in the organization — that’s really why he sought someone out. From day one he had confidence in me, and I wasn’t handcuffed with red tape. There’s still decision-making that happens within the organization, of course, but there was a lot of trust from day one.
Host: Was there some hesitance at the board level initially, given the money involved — questioning whether it should go toward manufacturing instead of supply chain and distribution? You’ve clearly proven the case since.
Randy: We’re private-equity owned, so it’s vital to have a good relationship between the private equity side and the C-suite. Peter had that trust and relationship, so there wasn’t much kickback once he brought me in and stood behind the decision — I essentially provided an ROI on the investment, so it made sense for the equity company. Location strategy is one of the ten classic operations-management decisions, and once you can convey why it’s an advantage, it becomes a bit of a no-brainer for site selection.
Host: People will recognize the Bad Boy Mowers name from sponsorships — signs at Royals Stadium, Arrowhead, the Pinstripe Bowl at Yankee Stadium. Talk about your marketplace and who you see as your core client.
Randy: I’m biased — I think everybody’s become our client now. We’ve really thrived in the heart of the SEC footprint, roughly Missouri to Michigan. We’re working to expand further into the deep Midwest — west into the Dakotas and Montana — where we think there’s a lot of white space, but if you think SEC football territory, that’s largely where we’re strongest today.
Host: You’ve had strong brand awareness for a while through sports sponsorships, but you’ve also expanded into more commercial applications beyond the classic residential-tractor image.
Randy: Absolutely — that’s been a bit of a shift for our sales team, moving from residential into commercial, since a lot of the big incumbents went commercial but can’t really go residential. What makes us unique is bridging that gap into what we call “pro-consumer” — commercial-grade tools and equipment at a consumer price point, which is really helping us gain market share.
Host: The new Monroeville facility — that’s tractor manufacturing, right?
Randy: Correct. The Port of Mobile is actually one of the only privately operated ports in the U.S., and it’s the second-fastest-growing port as a result. What that means practically is we don’t deal with the longshoreman strikes and labor disputes that hit the East and West Coast ports — plus, being privately owned, they’re able to offer incentives to bring business through, which the big public ports can’t do. That was part of our earlier conversation about whether to locate here versus Savannah. Relocating tractor operations closer to a port like this has let us meaningfully cut logistics costs.
Host: The building you all purchased was around 330,000 square feet — you’d originally been looking in the low 200,000s.
Randy: That’s right, we were looking in the Savannah area at maybe 200,000 max, and ended up with 330,000 here. Now I’m wondering why we didn’t go half a million.
Host: We can help with that too, you know.
Host: The Bad Boy brand is strong — what’s your vision for the next five to ten years at a macro level?
Randy: Continuing to add new product lines. We just launched our first stand-on mini skid steer, moving into landscape/construction territory, and we recently acquired a company that makes a state-of-the-art, niche articulated swing-steer product — very unique, helps us reach a totally different market. As we grow horizontally into new offerings, it brings new clientele into our core mower and tractor business, since a lot of commercial users want their whole equipment fleet from one manufacturer to simplify things.
Host: Is service after the sale one of your biggest differentiators?
Randy: Absolutely — if we can just get equipment into someone’s hands and show them our level of service, it’s unparalleled compared to the big incumbents. We’re more agile and able to provide a more custom customer experience. Talking to the founders of Bad Boy, that’s really how the company grew from the start — going above and beyond on service and taking care of the customer long-term.
Host: You were based at the corporate plant in Batesville, and now you’ve moved your family to Monroeville. How’s the family adjusting?
Randy: They love it — that’s part of the beauty of supply chain, you never know where you’ll end up, and you get to see parts of the country you might not otherwise. We genuinely fell in love with Monroeville, which I honestly didn’t expect. They’re already embedded in the local community — my wife’s joined a gardening club, plays pickleball, picking up new hobbies constantly. Every time I get home from traveling she’s got something new going on.
Host: Do you mow your own lawn, and do you use a Bad Boy mower for it?
Randy: Absolutely — I feel a lot of pressure to have an immaculate lawn, so I try hard, though there’s real science to it. I’m good at cutting the grass; growing it thick and green is a different skill. And I wouldn’t use anything but a Bad Boy — we won’t even let anyone mow the lot here without one. I’ve already outfitted my mom and dad with Bad Boys too, and I think I’ve bought a new one every year since I started.
Host: What’s next on the agenda for you?
Randy: No resting on laurels — continued expansion. We just hired a new COO, and I believe Pete and he are still working through whether more operations, like a portion of our implement manufacturing, might move to Monroeville. Just continuing to grow, launch, and support, and seeing where that takes us.
Host: How has the tariff volatility over the last 12-18 months affected your global supply chain and vendor relationships?
Randy: It definitely tightens the market, but we’ve offset a lot of it through strong location-strategy decisions — relocating tractor production near the Port of Mobile as a cross-dock point cut so much out of our logistics costs that we’ve been able to absorb and mitigate the tariffs rather than pass them to customers. I actually borrowed a page from Pete’s COVID playbook — he made the call to hold pricing when everyone else raised prices, and we went from around 60,000 mowers to 80,000 to 100,000 sold. I asked myself how to run that same play from a supply chain angle, knowing tariff increases were coming well before anyone even took office, so we started positioning for it early. Now we’re able to hold pricing again rather than increase it this go-around — COVID was an obstacle we turned into a benefit, and now tariffs are becoming the same story.
Host: What about your East Coast facility — still doing distribution through there?
Randy: Yes, still distributing out of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania — roughly Michigan to North Carolina for mower distribution. We did a five-year lease there with the local economic development group; once you commit to a region like that, you’re generally committed for a while, so we’re thinking now about how to position ourselves there long-term. We didn’t take quite the same ownership approach in the Southeast that we did with the Monroeville purchase. Also — not sure if I’m speaking out of turn — but we are looking at Bad Boy Canada, and that northeast facility would be pivotal in supporting that expansion.
Host: Is your residential business mostly direct-to-consumer e-commerce, and have you had discussions with big-box retailers like Home Depot or Lowe’s?
Randy: Out of respect for our dealer network, that’s not really our play. Kevin and Jonathan, who run our sales team, have held onto the vision that the dealer network is what got us here and what we’ll continue to support. We have a strong online presence, and people do shop on our website, but when they’re ready to order, it routes them through their local dealer — which gives that dealer a long-term customer relationship, including ongoing service and troubleshooting support that we can’t provide directly nationwide short of opening our own dealerships. We’re definitely approached by big-box retailers, but we love our dealer network — about 1,400 dealers today, covering pretty much the whole country, maybe a bit thin in Alaska.
Host: We joined you at your supplier summit in Denver last year — is there another one coming up?
Randy: Yes, we’re meeting in Washington, D.C. this year — that’s kind of breaking news for anyone listening.
Host: [light banter about the small podcast audience]
Host: With the move to Monroeville and the family settling in well, that’s got to be a relief.
Randy: Absolutely — now we’re torn between embracing beach life or still flying out to ski. We actually went to Vermont this year instead of Colorado, and it turned out East Coast snow was better than West Coast for once, based on comparing notes with friends who went out west at the same time.
Host: [reflects on a recent personal ski trip with his brother for a bachelor party]
Host: You mentioned your master’s was at Arkansas — where was undergrad?
Randy: Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas — one of the oldest Methodist schools in the country. That’s part of why I ended up bouncing between Arkansas and Kansas.
Host: Did you get out to the Rockies to ski much while in school there?
Randy: Not really.
Host: College football allegiance, given Tuscaloosa?
Randy: Razorbacks, through and through — nobody’s mad at me for it, they mostly just pity me. Lucky for me, being a Woo Pig fan doesn’t draw the same hate a Bama fan would.
Host: We understand that pity as Mizzou fans — at least the basketball program’s coming back around.
Host: Appreciate your time, Randy. If anyone wants to reach out to Bad Boy Mowers about opportunities in Monroeville or elsewhere, how would they do that?
Randy: Just go to our website — there’s a contact section with applications, and you can select the Monroeville site specifically. Anyone looking for their own Bad Boy mower can also go to the website and get directed to one of our dealers in the network.
Host: What’s an average lead time if someone customizes one online?
Randy: About 14 to 21 days, sometimes faster.
Host: Awesome — appreciate your time, have a great weekend.
Randy: I appreciate it, guys — thanks, Team Jensen.
