Finch Services: From Farming to Golf in Five Generations

The Finch family of Carroll County has moved from farming to golf in five generations.

Not that the John Deere dealers have evolved from tillers of the soil to a family of Arnold Palmers. They are still in the business of selling agricultural machinery. It is just that more of what they sell is put to work maintaining golf courses; some as far away as the island of Bermuda.

Ray Finch, the president of Finch Services, Inc., of Westminster, ranks his markets as first, golf and turf; second, agricultural; and, tied for third, homeowners and light construction. He sees a huge potential growth in golf and turf. The agricultural market is steady “but the big dealers are in the Midwest.” In today’s economy, both homeowners and light construction are depressed markets, but Finch has recently seen signs of recovery in the latter.

The family has been associated with John Deere, the farm, forestry and construction equipment company since the 1920s. Four generations have planted roots deep in Carroll County.

Finch Services dates to the 1920s, when Ray F. Finch, the current president’s great grandfather, worked as a branch manager for the Deere company in Syracuse, N.Y. When the opportunity arose, Alvah Finch, Ray Finch’s grandfather, opened a Deere dealership in 1945 in Carroll County, where the family had roots. The first Finch family dealership mainly sold and serviced farm equipment, such as surge milkers.

Over the years, the company has responded to the local market. “Carroll County has changed considerably,” said Finch. “The local farms are being bought and developed. We’ve gone from a company that specialized in farm equipment to one with a broad range of products.”

In 1955, William O’Brien Finch, Ray Finch’s father, took over the company. Shortly thereafter, when Deere introduced a homeowner-oriented line of lawn and garden tractors, so did Finch Services.

“We still have farm equipment lines,” said Finch, “but now we have different product sets that apply to different markets, not just agricultural.”

Finch Services is not a John Deere franchise, although Deere remains its main product line. The company carries other manufacturers’ products, such as lawn and garden equipment, for homeowners, and industrial equipment for light construction contractors.

In 1981, Finch Services moved its headquarters to its present location, a 56,000 square-foot facility – its largest – at 1127 Littlestown Pike, Westminster. At the time, that and its facility in Hanover, Pa., were its two sites. It employed 40 people.

In 1987, Deere introduced a new product line: golf course maintenance equipment. Finch Services was named the exclusive golf-and-turf dealer for a six-state territory. Since then, the company has grown to an organization with seven locations employing 170 people, and multimillion-dollars’ worth of annual sales, according to the Spoke business directory of San Mateo, CA.

Deere’s golf course line consists of heavy-duty products, such as greens mowers, that are designed to maintain golf courses but have broader applications. Schools, universities, park and recreation departments and government agencies also use the equipment for their turf areas.

Finch Services is one of the top four Deere golf and turf maintenance equipment dealerships in the country, said Finch, who credits the breadth of the product line and the size of his firm’s territory for that achievement.

“Within our territory,” said Finch, “there may be 50 other Deere dealerships. But we are the only one with access to the golf and turf product line.”

The company’s territory covers Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, northern Virginia, New Jersey from south of New York City to Cape May, 20 counties in West Virginia as well as the island of Bermuda. Ray Finch said that the firm services a total of about 1,200 golf courses. Bermuda represents a small percentage of the total, but Finch is involved because it can ship machinery from various ports on the East Coast, including New Jersey.

Although Finch does not have a dealership in Bermuda, the firm has a contract with the island’s government to service three of the eight golf courses there, as well as its parks and recreational areas.

Ray Finch has worked in the family business since he was a child. The family then lived on Westminster’s Main Street and the dealership was on John Street. “I loved to ride my bike to the store,” said Finch, who was paid 25 cents an hour to sweep the floor, take out the trash and do other chores.

Now a Finksburg resident, Finch graduated with a degree in business from Pennsylvania State University in 1981.

“I wanted to get back into the family business,” he said. “I am living my dream. I feel blessed to be in a family business.”

“We are business-to-business, be it farmer, contractor or commercial mower,” he said, crediting the company’s success to sound business practices, the quality of its employees and “divine intervention.”

“The Lord controls what our company does,” said Finch, who employs a corporate chaplain to meet regularly with the management team, counsel employees at the different Finch locations and write a monthly newsletter tied to biblical principles.

The company is deeply involved with the local community. It sponsors 4-H fairs at the Carroll County Agricultural Center; supports fundraisers for the Carroll County Fire Department, Hospice and Hospital Center; participates in several Carroll County civic organizations, and supports a scholarship fund at McDaniel College. In its six-state golf and turf territory, it sponsors events for the dozen golf course superintendent organizations.

Ray Finch’s two brothers and his daughter are executives of the company. Brad is vice president and Dann is secretary-treasurer. Shannan joined the company three years ago after graduating from college. As its marketing coordinator, she plans the promotions, sales and events for all of the firm’s locations.

In recent years, John Deere has been encouraging its dealers to merge or acquire other dealerships. “Deere wants to conduct business with fewer dealer groups and better facilities,” said Ray Finch. In the last five years, he has bought two Deere dealerships and, in 2009, opened a new facility in York, Pa., and relocated another to Hunt Valley, in Baltimore County.

As Finch Services prepares to celebrate its 65th anniversary in 2010, Finch is positioning the company for the economic turnaround he expects in late 2010 or early 2011.

“We look to ourselves as the stewards of a business that has been in the family for several generations,” he said.