The Grasshopper Company and its parent company, Moridge Manufacturing, will be celebrating 50 years of exhibiting at the 50th anniversary of the National Farm Machinery Show (NFMS) in Louisville, KY, February 11-14.
Moridge is one of 13 remaining charter members of NFMS since the show’s official inception in 1966; there are now more than 850 exhibitors at NFMS. Moridge still occupies its original 1966 booth space in the West Wing of the Kentucky Exposition Center, although the booth size has increased to accommodate expanding product lines to its current space at Booth 5058.
“Celebrating 50 years of the National Farm Machinery Show is a tremendous accomplishment, not only for Moridge, but for the show as well,” says Stan Guyer, Grasshopper/Moridge president. “It demonstrates a dedication to innovation, to products and processes that help the industry improve the lives and livelihoods of people around the world.”
Numerous products from companies around the world have debuted at NFMS in the past 50 years, and among those are the Moridge portable recirculating grain dryer developed by company founder Elbert Guyer in 1955, and the Grasshopper, the first zero-turn-radius mower on display at NFMS.
Guyer says no “off-the-shelf” components were available for developing the first Grasshopper mower. Company engineers had to design and fabricate components from the ground up, and integration of emerging technologies has been instrumental to the precision manufacturing required to improve product performance, quality and durability. That spirit of innovation and dedication to technological advancement continues today, as Grasshopper was selected 2014 Company of the Year by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, Chapter 52, in Wichita, KS, from among local aerospace, agriculture, commodities and power equipment manufacturers.
