The Ransomes Commander is a stalwart of the turf care industry and is used extensively by contractors and local authorities. The groundscare division of Wedeka, a diverse multi-disciplined company based in the North of Holland purchased a Ransomes Commander five-cylinder mower from Ransomes Jacobsen’s Dutch distributor, Van der Pols, back in 2002. To date it has over 9,700 hours on the clock! RANSOMES JACOBSEN is a Textron Inc. (NYSE: TXT) company.

Wedeka employs over 2,000 people, of which around 1,800 are partially disabled. In the grounds care division they have some 660 employees, one of which is Harry Schepers, the operator of the Commander. Harry is highly skilled and with ten years of experience of Ransomes equipment he is able to get the maximum performance out of his machine.

Marcel van der Meer, Grounds Care Manager at Wedeka says,
“Harry goes on where others have to stop. Even severe wet conditions do not stop him. His secret is to adapt the air pressure of his turf tires to suit the conditions. He starts around six o’clock in the morning and finishes late into the evening. In 2007 he managed to put a further 1,700 hours on his Commander.”

He is currently on his second set of cutting cylinders and these have had more than 5,100 hours of use. According to Technical Manager Geert Gommers his people are always stunned with the low maintenance cost of the Commander. In the six seasons the machine has been operating maintenance costs have never averaged more than 5% of the purchase price.

In the spring Harry is scheduled to get a new Commander. This will be basically the same machine, but with a four-wheel drive reverse system which is now standard on the Commander. With this Harry thinks he can raise the bar even further!

More information is available at www.textron.com.