KC Bobcat 50th Anniversary
– Tim O’Bryan, President
“We can’t talk about our 50th anniversary without remembering where we started. The first KC Bobcat store opened in December of 1974. At that time, we had just six employees, but we grew quickly. By the time Berry Companies acquired us in 2000, we had three locations in Blue Springs, Olathe, and Grandview. It’s hard to believe that we now have seven locations in Kansas and Missouri!
I’m proud of where this company began, but I’m also looking forward to a bright future for KC Bobcat. This year, we’re focused on providing excellent customer service. We want to make sure that every customer who walks through our doors knows that they made the right choice. We want to help our customers as much as we can, and we want to continue to be an active part of this community. Together, we will keep working hard to operate our business with humility, grace, and honesty.”
How KC Bobcat Helped Backyard Creations with Decorative Concrete
The two owners of Backyard Creations, Nathan Hisey and Seth Wolf, are the epitome of a family-owned, family-operated business, so it’s no surprise that they see their KC Bobcat concrete sales rep, Ken Morgan, as part of the family.
Nathan married Seth’s cousin. One day, Seth’s mother-in-law asked if he could pour a patio for her, so he called Nathan.
“I hadn’t done concrete, but Nathan had seven or eight years of experience in it,” Seth said. “We loaded it up in a pick-up truck and busted it out with sledgehammers in the truck bed because we didn’t have any of our own equipment back then. I was doing inside remodels on the side at the time, and I asked him, ‘Would you like to do these on the weekend if I advertised it on my business page on Facebook? We’ll just split it 50/50.’ As soon as we advertised it, we had three people call that week wanting a patio. Six to eight months later, we were quitting our day jobs and starting full time on our own.”
Today, they work together to manage the day-to-day operations of Backyard Creations. “Seth runs the business side of stuff. He’s looking at jobs, dealing with insurance, dealing with bids, dealing with customers, and grabbing materials. I’m more of the on-site guy,” Nathan said. “We’re both very hands-on; he’s just more business and I’m more on site. We’ve got a couple guys who work with us full-time, and we have a couple of guys that we’ll hire for a day to help on bigger pours.”
They initially got started with Ken as a favor. “We were going to another company at first, and we bought some stamps from Ken to spread the love a little because he was just starting out,” Seth said. “He told us he knew the Deco-Crete guys and that they were coming to town. We didn’t have much experience with their products at the time, and Nathan and I were very eager to get into that because we’d followed them on Facebook. We started doing that with them, and at that point, we switched all our business over to Ken.”
As far as product goes, Ken Morgan has taken our company to a different level, and we appreciate it. He’s more than just a salesman to us.
Nathan Hisey
Co-Owner, Backyard Creations
Backyard Creations’ decorative concrete work grew fast, and Seth believes that Ken was a huge part of that. “Ken’s got good customer service,” Seth said. “He’s just a really good guy to have on your side. Where we used to buy our stuff, they would just sell it to you. Ken’s a lot different. He’s going to go out on the job with you and teach you how to use the stuff. If he doesn’t know, he’ll reach out to people that do.”
“He delivers, too,” Nathan added. “There’s a lot of times that we’re in a pinch, and we need a bucket of bubblegum or slab saver (all Deco-Crete products that KC Bobcat carries). It seems like, if we need him, he’s there.”
Seth and Nathan remembered a particular time when Ken went above and beyond to help them on a job.
“When we’re doing jobs for friends, we run as tight as we can on the budget that way they’re not paying as much,” Seth said. “We were pouring a patio for my buddy, and we were a little short-handed on guys. Ken was bringing us product. We put it down, and we started stamping it. He looked around, and he was like, ‘You boys had better get going.’ He could tell we were getting our butts kicked. It was getting dark, it was a 4:00pm or 5:00pm pour in the winter. We had enough lights to do it, but it was just late at night. Ken was supposed to be off work. He was already putting his best foot forward coming out late to bring us what we needed, especially since he had a dinner that night with his wife. He saw that we were getting beat up like we were, and he called his wife and said, ‘I can’t make it to dinner tonight.’ He stayed with us for another 3.5 hours stamping concrete late at night.”
“It was not something he had to do,” Nathan said. “He could’ve definitely left, but he wouldn’t leave his fellows hanging like that. He stayed and stamped late with us because he didn’t have to. He’s very valuable to us in our company. He’s just as valuable as the guys who work with us. We all work together, and he’s definitely part of our team. We don’t look at him as a sales rep by any means.”
For Backyard Creations, working with KC Bobcat is all about that personal, one-on-one connection. It’s about the salesman who stayed late to help pour concrete and who made time to be at Seth’s birthday party.
“When we think KC Bobcat, we think Ken,” Seth said. “And I’m not saying anything against KC Bobcat or anything like that. When we think of KC Bobcat, we think of Ken because he’s so valuable to our company.”
We’ve been backing businesses like Backyard Creations for 50 years, and we’re just getting started. Here’s to the next 50 and the stories still to come!
