Modern Distributing begins new year with new owners

by Karen E. Culp

SBJ Staff

Modern Distributing Company, a Springfield firm that is more than 30 years old, is entering the new year with a new set of owners.

A distributor of Toro equipment and irrigation systems, Modern Distributing sold to a group of managers within the company in September, and it is moving into a new era with its new owners, said Joe Frazier, president and chief executive officer of the company and majority stockholder along with his wife, Joy.

The company's previous majority stockholder, Barry Cox, had owned the company for about eight years, having purchased it from his father, Cox said.

Though the company was owned by members of the Cox family, it had distinct ownership from the other Cox family companies, such as Modern Tractor, which had an office in the same building as Modern Distributing and owns other real estate, such as that in Chesterfield Village, Cox said.

Cox said he made the decision to sell the company because he thought it needed the kind of direct oversight that Frazier could provide. Frazier had been with the company for more than 12 years and was its general manager since 1989.

"It was a situation where I thought the company was getting too big for a long-distance owner and needed an owner who was there all the time. That's why Joe (Frazier) was the logical choice for a new owner; he knows the business, and he's been there all day every day, for a number of years now," Cox said.

Modern Distributing got its start in the mid-1960s, Frazier said, and was involved in distributing a variety of products before making the Toro products its mainstay. Toro is a manufacturer of golf course and commercial lawn mowing equipment.

Modern distributes those products and also distributes irrigation equipment and other equipment for golf courses. The company supplies its products for irrigation systems primarily to contractors who are building irrigation systems for golf courses, Frazier said.

The company does not do a lot of business with homeowners, but mostly works with contract installers in the golf course construction business. Toro also owns Lawn Boy, a company which is primarily in the 21-inch lawn mower business, Frazier said.

In addition to Frazier, there are four other minority partners in the business: Rick Arthur, Mike Wood, Dave Armentrout and Terry Plemons. Arthur and Wood are in Springfield; Armentrout is in Kansas City and Plemons is in St. Louis.

The company has a total of seven offices: two in Kansas City, two in St. Louis, one in Wichita, Kan., and one in Springfield, Ill., plus its headquarters here. Frazier estimated annual sales at $32 million.

Modern Distributing is the fourth or fifth largest Toro distributor in the country, Frazier said. The company has added its seven offices through a series of acquisitions and has opened other offices where it needed coverage.

"One location in St. Louis and one in Kansas City are major turf, irrigation and warehouse operations. The other four locations, besides our headquarters here, have more of a wholesale supply store look. They are primarily irrigation retail," Frazier said.

As the management team was buying Modern Distributing, it chose to streamline the operation and focus on Toro, and therefore dropped a few of its product lines. Three lawn mower lines and one air conditioner line were removed from the company, and there was some downsizing as that happened, Frazier said.

The company now employs about 100 people, and it may be adding a few employees to its Springfield operation. Frazier said he is not sure whether those employees will be new employees or if they will be moved here from other locations. Of all the employees on its payroll, about 38 live in Springfield, Frazier said.

Modern Distributing plans to centralize its assembly operation for the three-state area it serves, Frazier said, and will bring that consolidated concern to Springfield and expand the shop here as a result, adding technicians to the local operation.