BELLE FOURCHE—The building was overflowing with locals checking out the newly completed 32,000 square foot, state-of-the-art building located at 10882 US Highway 212. Grossenburg Implement hosted an open house on August 23 and invited the public to celebrate the the opening of their new location.
There was something for everyone; the PooterQ food truck served BBQ sandwiches and mac and cheese, Crazee Cow handed out ice cream, people put their names in a bucket to win John Deere merchandise, and the parking lot was blocked off to offer games for kids. Kids got to play in a sandbox full of corn, draw with chalk, compete in tractor races and take home coloring books and hats. The Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting ceremony for the new location.
Grossenberg Implement has been in business for 87 years. Company founders Charlie and Blanche Grossenburg set a high standard of service that is carried on today, now under the direction of the fourth generation. Barry Grossenburg, President, and Charlie Grossenburg, CEO, in addition to being family, have worked together for many years. Barry represents the third generation of leadership and Charlie is from the fourth generation. Both came to Belle Fourche to celebrate the launch of the new location. “It’s unbelievable! The crowd is great, and it speaks volumes. The people are so kind and friendly, and that’s one of our favorite parts of our job, to meet new people. It’s just a great, great area,” Charlie said.
Grossenburg Implement was originally a single store located in Winner, SD. In 2006 when Charlie returned home from college, they decided to look for ways to expand. “Barry and I have worked together forever, and when I came back it (reaffirmed) that we’re in this for the long haul, and we found new opportunities,” Charlie said.
Grossenburg Implement has expanded from a single dealership in 1937 to nine locations across Nebraska, Wyoming and South Dakota. Beginning in 2007, Grossenburg Implement added Philip, SD and Pierre, SD locations. In 2012 they purchased three stores in Nebraska— Bloomfield, NE, Hartington, NE, Wayne, NE—then in 2019, Belle Fourche and Sundance, WY were added to the company. Finally, in 2022, Beresford, SD was added.
The growth has afforded them new opportunities. “What it’s done is allowed us to bring in really good people and use things that we’ve learned from other stores to better our business and then allow us to support our customers with more parts, selection of inventory and expand our service fleet on road and train the best technicians we can,” Charlie explained. They currently have 23 service trucks.
One of the new additions to the Belle Fourche store is the addition of a bulk oil delivery service. “We can supply them with the tanks, and we’ll go out with the trailers, we can monitor it, or they can call us to come out there,” said Charlie. This service saves customers money. The cost per gallon for bulk oil is significantly lower than retail. This benefits both the company and the customer. In explaining the customer savings Charlie said, “So on the bulk oil, a gallon off the shelf is $28.56 and a gallon on bulk is $17.13 so it’s an $11 savings.” Barry added, “It saves the customer a lot of money and it makes us money, so it’s a win-win.” Now all nine stores offer bulk oil delivery. “It’s wonderful and each store has it now. We didn’t have a good one in Belle, now there’s 12,000 gallons back there,” Barry said.
One of the problems facing an expanding company is the difficulty in finding good technicians. Charlie said, “It’s hard right now, finding good technicians.” Grossenburg pays for young individuals to attend diesel programs to get trained to work for them. All of the stores offer air-conditioned, state-of-the-art shops to entice new workers. “We try to get our name out there, to get young individuals to go to the diesel programs and to start off, and we pay for their school,” said Charlie. “So if we can get them here, they’re going to enjoy where they’re working, they’re going to have the right tools, the right environment.” The new larger location has already attracted a few new technicians and there is room for growth. The company plans to expand its technician team by about five in the future.
Grossenburg has an employee profit sharing program. The program started in 1972 after a profitable year. “1972, we had a tremendous year in Winner, the store had a huge profit. My granddad and dad were going to have to pay a whole bunch of taxes, and so they came up with this profit sharing,” explained Barry. In 1972 Grossenburg decided to give 10% of their profit from that point forward to their employees. “I think it brings ownership to the employees,” said Barry.
It incentivizes employees to work harder, because they are working in part for themselves.
“Right now we got $45 million in that fund, and our 200 and some employees, that’s their fund,” said Barry. “Ten percent of our profit, and we don’t fiddle with it, we don’t lie about it, we ain’t going to cheat about it.” The profit sharing has been a big factor in retaining employees at the company. Grossenburg has employees that have been dedicated to the company for many years, allowing them to retire with over a million dollars. “We got guys that have been working here almost 40 years and retiring with a million dollars,” Barry said.
Currently using 13 of the 27 acres available at the new location, there is room for additional growth. All of the new buildings are designed to be easily expandable, allowing for future growth without significant additional costs. The extra 13 acres are still available for future expansions as needed. “All of these buildings are built to be expanded on, if you can build it where you can add on to the shop and just grow it out, then you don’t have to do so much to it. When you build a building, it’s never big enough. You know, things get bigger and businesses grow,” Charlie said.
