Riders on the Blue

Few people spend as much time on New Holland tractors and skid steer loaders as the Olberding family from Dyersville, Iowa.

Brothers John and Pat Olberding operate J&J Lawn Care and Olberding Construction with a fleet of seven New Holland tractors and three skid steer loaders. 

J&J Lawn Care does commercial and residential lawn mowing, seeding, fertilization, weed control and snow removal while Olberding Construction handles the concrete work of walls, floors, framing of cattle confinements, machine storage, and builds houses and house additions.

J&J Lawn Care
The Olberding brothers, their family and employees spend summers on the tractors mowing grass every week for 60 customers and 200 acres of city property. They also seed, fertilize, spray and provide landscaping services. 

The business keeps busy in the winter, too, with a fleet of equipment ready to work at a moment’s notice when the snow flies. They clear snow for 100 customers, ranging from businesses and city lots to residential properties.

And during all this work, their New Holland equipment keeps the business humming. 

“When you run as many hours as we do in different types of weather, the New Holland equipment holds up,” reports Tammy Olberding, who is married to John and helps with the business. 

“The equipment is good,” John adds. “We don’t have any problems with it and the service is always good.”

Farm-toy company set mowing path
John and Pat’s father Jim started the farm construction business in 1963. He bought his first skid steer loader from the local Ford/New Holland dealer and never changed brands. 

The brothers joined their dad’s construction business after high school and did a little mowing at that time. But the business pivoted to more mowing when ERTL, the famous farm toy company, hired them to mow its sizeable property. 

The lawncare business continued to grow by taking on additional lawncare and snow removal customers, which required bigger equipment and more employees.

In 2021, John and Pat officially took over the business and, like their father, continued to depend on New Holland equipment and a strong local dealership. 

While their dad relied heavily on used equipment, the brothers invest in new equipment. 
 
“We’ve taken on more, bigger jobs that need to get done faster,” Tammy explains. “The city job that we mow is over 200 acres, and when you do that every week, you need big equipment.” 

They also still take care of the former ERTL property, now owned by TOMY. 

High demand work
The company has a workforce of four full-time (including John and Pat) and nine part-time employees. Often the work requires long hours in the heat of summer or the biting cold of winter.

But their work is in high demand. The town’s population is aging, and many people no longer want to cut grass or shovel snow, John explains. 

“Plus, there are very few landscapers who cut grass and only two businesses in town seed lawns,” he adds. 

The Olberdings only take mowing jobs in Dyersville because the demand is high enough to keep them busy. But they do go to towns in the area in addition to Dyersville to spray, seed and fertilize yards. This part of the business has also grown. They buy 12 pallets of fertilizer in the spring for lawns and 90 to 120 gallons of spray to mix with water for application in the fall. 

Snow removal is another high-demand job that’s hard to fill with employees. 

“Nobody wants to work out in those elements,” Tammy says. “They have to get up at 1 a.m. to go out for snow removal and we have part-time people who still have other jobs to go to.”

One thing that makes it a little easier is the skid steers offer comfort from the elements with heated and air-conditioned cabs. When operating in cold environments, the heated cabs offer a refuge from biting winds, freezing temperatures and snow. 

In hot weather, the air-conditioned cabs offer relief from sweltering conditions so operators can stay cool and comfortable. With all the work they are tasked to do, John says the climate-controlled cabs not only improve operator comfort but also help maintain productivity. “The cab also provides shelter from pop-up showers. Our crew can keep mowing through them,” John adds. 

The Olberdings also just added a new Boomer™ 55 compact tractor with a cab to their fleet. Tammy, who is a librarian during the school year, mowed all summer with this new tractor. She found out first-hand the benefits of the Boomer’s roomy, climate-controlled cab. 

“They have me spoiled now with the cab, air conditioning and music,” she says. “I’ll never go back to mowing with a tractor without a cab!”

Also helping out part-time with the business are two of Tammy and John’s four daughters. But this is coming to an end as their daughters and Pat’s daughter move on to their own careers.

Equipment in action 
Sometimes the Olberding’s business is called on to handle emergencies. In 2008, Dyersville experienced severe flooding as part of the widespread Midwest floods that year. Heavy rainfall and saturated ground led to rivers and streams overflowing. The Maquoketa River, which flows near Dyersville, was particularly affected. Floodwater inundated homes, businesses and farmland. When the floodwaters subsided, the Olberding family went to work helping with the recovery efforts. 

“That’s when we bought the New Holland 2310 compact utility tractor and used it for the city clean up,” John says. “All the ball diamonds flooded. We cleaned the mud and tree limbs off the fields and mud and cornstalks off the fences. It seems all we did that year was flood cleanup.”

Looking to the future
The brothers’ equipment fleet now includes three skid steer loaders used for snow removal and landscaping as well as construction. Their newest skid steer is an L320 model. 

Pat says, “We started with smaller skid loaders but found out that the L220 and L320 were the perfect fit for construction, lawn service and snow removal. We can get into smaller areas, but they’re still big enough to load our dump truck with ease. There is plenty of room in them and they have great visibility.”

Their 55-hp Boomer 55 tractor handles big mowing jobs with a 17-foot mower as well as snow removal with a front-mounted blade. They also have a 50-hp Boomer 8N tractor for cutting grass.

A 24.4 hp WORKMASTER™ 25S tractor handles seeding and other landscaping jobs. Their 40-hp T2310 tractor is used to seed lawns. Three other New Holland tractors are used for mowing grass and brush and handling a sickle mower. 

Thankfully for the business, the owners and employees of J&J Landscape and Olberding Construction work with New Holland equipment that offers operator comfort with the power and efficiency to get the jobs done right.