KC Bobcat 50th Anniversary

Precision Mazes Has Relied on Bobcat for More Than 20 Years

“I rarely use a tool for its intended purpose. I mean, I’m sure that when they were dreaming up the original Bobcat, they weren’t thinking about some yahoo riding around whacking down perfectly good corn to create images out in a field.” 

Rob Stouffer, owner and operator of Precision Mazes, had no intention of being involved with agriculture. Born and raised on a family farm in west central Missouri, he went off to college and continued his education by getting an MBA with an emphasis in entrepreneurship.  

It was his father who motivated him to start a consulting business in 1995 to help farmers integrate GPS technology into their operations. 

“My father, who is a very innovative, very bright, very intelligent farmer, was trying to adopt this technology, and I was watching him struggle with it,” Rob said. “It wasn’t something that could be fixed with a hammer or a wrench. I was just watching him struggle, and I thought I recognized a market opportunity to help farmers integrate this new technology into their operations.” 

At that time, Rob was helping put GPS on combines to capture yield data as the machine went across the field. But, just a few years later, Rob received an out-of-the-box request that changed the trajectory of his career. 

“In 2001, one of those farmer clients in Corder, Missouri just off the cuff said, ‘Hey Rob, I’ve got a client who wants to create a corn maze. Do you think you could use your GPS stuff to do that?’ I flippantly said yes and didn’t think anything about it. He called me back two weeks later and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got a design from the landowner, and you said you could do this. We’ve got to figure this out.’ I’m a believer in Scripture, so I want my yes to be yes and my no to be no. I felt an obligation that I needed to figure this out.” 

He borrowed the farmer’s mower and successfully created his first corn maze, which was designed with an outline of Missouri and a coyote howling at the moon. After doing two more projects like it, Rob quickly realized that they had created something unique, so he put together a business plan in the winter of 2002. However, it didn’t take him long to realize that he needed an equipment upgrade. 

“We built a contraption that allowed me to have a laptop on a commercial mower for the first couple years,” he said. “That was okay, but boy, it was a miserable summer. It was really hard on me and a terrible environment for the equipment. I knew that I needed to get this into some sort of cab environment.” 

Rob bought a low-hour Bobcat 753 sight unseen in Minnesota. When he picked it up, he realized that it had no air conditioning. That Bobcat 753 eventually led him to Tim O’Bryan, who is now the division president at KC Bobcat. “That silly 753 that I bought really started my relationship with Tim. I would work with him for service, and one day I said, ‘Tim, I’ve got to figure out a way to get air conditioning in here.’ He and the guys at the shop worked with me to retrofit it with a Bobcat air conditioner unit even though everyone told us we couldn’t do it. I ended up having the only 753 with a Bobcat air conditioning sticker on it.” 

Today, Rob is on his third Bobcat T450 compact track loader, which he recently used to complete his 25th maze season. He finds that the T450 is uniquely set up for creating corn mazes. “A lot of people in Bobcat’s industry want to go bigger and buy bigger machines, but that’s not my goal. We need to create a 5-foot-wide path. The T450 is the best machine that does that and provides air conditioning,” he said. 

Rob travels all over North America, creating corn mazes from as far north as Alberta, Canada to as far south as Guadalajara, Mexico. “If you were to draw a box from Minot, North Dakota to Denver, Colorado to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to Charleston, South Carolina to Warren, Maine, we’ve been all over that area in the last three and a half months.” 

With the help of his wife, who helps lead the corn maze design team, Rob has worked with a huge variety of customers. He’s cut corn mazes for local farmers who have invited Precision Mazes back year after year for more than 20 years, and he has completed larger-than-life crop art projects for big brands like Netflix, Sun Chips, and Nike. “We know what works in a field and what doesn’t. That’s where we add our greatest value to clients. There’s just a level of ‘it’s hard,’ so we bring some expertise to the table and help people make good decisions. My goal is to make my client the hero.” 

Even as his business continues to grow, Rob Stouffer remains the sole operator, creating every corn maze on site. That’s because, armed with 25 years in the cab of a Bobcat T450, Rob can confidently look at a client and say, “Hey, we can get this pulled off for you.” Part of that confidence is founded in the reliability of his Bobcat equipment and service. But, that confidence is also founded in the long-standing relationships he’s built at KC Bobcat. 

“Really, the reason I keep buying from KC Bobcat is because of Tim. We have a mutual respect for how each other does business. I consider him a friend.” 

We’ve been backing businesses like Precision Mazes for 50 years, and we’re just getting started. Here’s to the next 50 and the stories still to come!