“The first time I met Charlie Hoober, he said, ‘I’m Charlie Hoober from Intercourse, Pa. You won’t remember my name, but you’ll remember where I’m from,’” says Leo Johnson of Wisconsin’s Johnson Tractor. But over the years, Hoober made an impact on those he met beyond just the name of his town.
Hoober knew he was going to be in the family business. At the time, his father Charles B. “Bud” Hoober had a boat-building business as well as an International Harvester (IH) dealership. “Dad chose the ag business because of the people, the farmers and the values that were associated with farming,” says son Chuck Hoober, third-generation owner of Hoober Inc.
That decision had a lasting impact on the business, the family and the community. Hoober routinely tells people he never worked a day in his life because he loved going to work every day, says Chuck. “He enjoyed the mechanical side of the business as well as the sales side. He has an engineering mind, plus he loves being around people — a great combination,” he says.
After graduating from Penn State Univ. with a 2-year degree in agricultural equipment, Hoober joined his dad’s dealership and managed the service department, says Tom Yohe, who worked side-by-side with Charlie for 4 decades. “He grew up in the service department; that was his first love. He always thought a good salesman should have a service background, and that’s how he sold. He knew the equipment, what worked and didn’t, and he shared that with customers. What that did over the years was build great trust,” he says.
“Bud would say, ‘Darn boys’ because he knew they were doing things. Things were rolling, and he would sit back and had nothing to say, but, ‘Darn boys.’ And he got that simple grin on his face. He was willing to hand this over to Charlie because he knew Charlie was ready…” –Mel Lapp, Lapp Farms, Chochranvilla, Pa.
“He could see and talk to the roughest farmer or the gentleman farmer. We sold quite a few products to the DuPont family down in Wilmington, Del., and he would listen and just be himself."
“He built the trust with whoever he was dealing with and convinced people very easily that he was going to do what was best for them.”
In all aspects of the business, Hoober took a family approach to the people he worked with, be that staff, customers or the suppliers and OEMs, says Gerry Salzman, retired Case IH senior director of global marketing.
New Partnerships
Yohe says when a farmer would question something Charlie told him, he’d always have the answers. “What he was saying was what he thought was best for them. And as he navigated this eastern market, he looked around and saw there were a lot of big farmers who were underserved by the equipment that was available at the time,” Yohe recalls.
Building a Business Based in Faith
Talk to anyone who knows Charlie Hoober well, and they will tell he is a man of faith.
Tom Yohe says Hoober and his late father, Charles B. “Bud” Hoober, ran a Christian business. “They provided a workplace where people of faith, men and women, can work and raise a family and understand what they are doing is not counter to what they believe,” he says.
“They taught me that you could live a life of faith in a mercantile environment. I didn’t see how you could do that. They, and the people they hired, showed me that it can be done.”
According to Hoober Inc.’s 75th anniversary book, Hoober, Inc. First 75 Years, 3 employees at the Intercourse store have pastored Mennonite churches at one time or another while working at the dealership. The company allowed them time off for funerals, hospital visitations and other emergencies during the work day.
In addition, Hoober allows employees to spend up to a week every year on mission projects.
“It’s a very faith-filled environment,” says Gerry Salzman, retired Case IH senior director of global marketing. He says that has helped to build trust within the organization.
“It's more than dollars and cents. And I think he was smart enough to understand that once you establish that relationship, you've got a relationship where they'll support you as long as you support them,” Salzman says. “And that's all about the family backing that person up no matter what. That spirit was very evident with the people there.”
Yohe says after a few of Hoober’s good customers went up to New York to buy Steiger tractors in the mid-70s, Hoober talked Steiger into giving him a contract for his entire market area — Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Delaware.
“Then he realized we didn’t have the product to pull behind it,” Yohe says.
The dealership needed a product that could hold up in Pennsylvania’s rocky soils. Yohe notes that Hoober’s salesmanship wasn’t limited to the retail customer, it extended to suppliers as well. “In 1975, he called Ron Hamilton, a dealer in Kansas, and asked him what he thought. He said, ‘Well, Krause tillage is the best.’ Krause was putting on a week-long program at its Hutchinson, Kan., headquarters and invited us to come.”
Yohe joined Bud and 2 salespeople, but Hoober planned to go later. “We looked at the equipment and were very excited because they were developing what they called a rock flex disc harrow. At the end of that meeting, the owner of Krause pulled Bud Hoober aside and said, ‘We appreciate you coming out here, but you’re too far from us and we really are short on equipment now. We can’t help you.’”
Inaugural Farm Equipment Hall of Fame Class of 2024: Charlie Hoober, Hoober Inc.
When the group returned to Pennsylvania, they shared the news with Charlie. He still went out to Kansas and sat through the same dealer program. The only difference was he came home with a contract, Yohe says.
“What he told them was, ‘OK, you can’t provide us with much equipment, but provide us what you can, we want to sell your product,” he says. “He was able to convince them that we weren’t in a hurry, but we needed their product. That’s one story where he was able to sell himself and the company.”
In 3-4 years, Hoober became Krause’s biggest dealer, and at one point Hoober was shipping over 100 Krause implements a year from Kansas to Pennsylvania and Delaware.
When the IH Axial-Flow combine came out, Hoober saw its value, Yohe says. Up until that point, the dealership hadn’t done much combine business. “We didn’t have a combine that could compete with Massey and Deere,” he says.
Hoober sold the first one east of the Mississippi River to Mel Lapp of Lapp Farms in Cochranville, Pa., in 1977. Charlie, along with a salesperson, mechanic and Lapp decked out in Hoober gear as a “mechanic” went to a demo in Columbus, Ohio, to see it working in the field. As soon as Lapp saw it working in the field, he told Hoober, “I want to buy the first one from you.”
Focus on Preservation
Tom Yohe, who worked alongside Charlie Hoober for 40 years, says one of the things that sets Hoober apart from others is his focus on preservation.
“About 20-25 years ago, Lancaster County, Pa., was the most productive, non-irrigated agricultural county in the country,” Yohe says. “Charlie understands the importance of that to the area and got involved in farmland preservation here when they got started back in the 1980s.”
Hoober served on the Lancaster Farmland Trust board for 2 terms, and while he is no longer on the board, he’s still involved in the farmland preservation business, Yohe says. According to the Lancaster Farmland Trust, 25% of the organization has preserved 25% of the county’s working land.
For the first 8 years of his schooling, Hoober went to school with a number of kids from the Amish community, and the relationships he’s built with them made a big difference in the preservation efforts.
“He knows the local Amish, and he has built a lot of trust with them as well,” Yohe says. “They were very reluctant to get involved in this preservation effort, because they had to sign away the development rights and so forth. Charlie was able to encourage them to get involved and today, the area east and north of Intercourse, the Amish owned land, is well over 50% if not 85-90% preserved through his efforts.”
His ability to build relationships and his commitment to the cause has been instrumental in how the trust has been able to drive preservation in Lancaster County. “If it weren’t for that, Lancaster County would probably look like central New Jersey or west of Chicago,” Yohe says.
“We've been running rotories ever since. We love them. And Charlie’s been great. I tell you, we never wait for service. Whenever we need help, the Hoobers are there right away,” says Lapp. “Because that’s what Charlie thrives on, his service and to make people happy about the equipment and the personnel.”
Fair & Honest
Salzman recalls that for 2 years after the Case and New Holland merger, the whole product line had to be reconciled. “There were some successes and there were some opportunities, and we had one on the combine side,” he says. The larger combine was basically a New Holland machine, but it tended to be more of a small grain machine than a corn machine, Salzman says. “And that was a problem. For about a year it was tough representing the brand, but we stuck together and Charlie said, ‘You guys stand behind it.’”
Salzman says Hoober recently told him, “‘Sometimes people think customers will think more highly of you if you never had a problem.’ Charlie said, ‘No, that’s untrue. Until you’ve had a problem and either the company or the dealer fixed it, the customer really never knows if you will stand behind them.’
Hall of Fame Digital Extras
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“Therefore, customer evaluations tend to be a lot higher after a problem. Then you see how the dealer and the company behaves as a team to make sure it goes. He strongly believes that. And I do too. After 40 some years, you learn a few things, and that’s one of them.”
Salzman says when he would call on Hoober, he would often fill Salzman in on a deal or concession he made for a customer when there was a problem. “He would say, ‘Here’s what I’ve done. I hope you would do this for me.’ It wasn’t all about what we as the OEM were going to do. He clearly volunteered and just said, ‘Hey, here’s what I’ve done so far, what are you going to do?’ That was a very fair way to do it.”
He was honest and fair in his dealings, including selling equipment to other dealers. Johnson says, “I bought some equipment from him long ago. One tractor I bought from him was a 130 horsepower tractor. We put it on the dyno, and it was putting out 55 horse. The engine was in terrible shape and needed an overhaul.
“I called Charlie back to say the tractor wasn’t very good. He said, ‘Well, we can handle it two ways. I’m going to ask you to pay the freight if you send it back to me, but if you agree to have your technicians overhaul it, I’ll pay for all the parts.’
“And he shipped me all the parts within 2 or 3 days. And for a used transaction dealer to dealer, he could have easily said, ‘Hey, I’m in Pennsylvania, you’re in Wisconsin; you figure it out.’ But he was good about it. I didn’t know him personally at all at that point, but we got to know each other better after that and I continued to buy from him.”
Charlie’s Air Freight
Charlie Hoober was a service-focused dealer. His son Chuck Hoober, third-generation owner of Hoober Inc., says Charlie spent a lot of time out in the shop with the service technicians and would readily go out into the field to help fix problems. “He is a ‘whatever it took’ type person,” Chuck says.
He adds, “My dad is 100% customer focused, driven to take care of the customer. He was always preaching customer service over the years. In management meetings, whenever we had a decision to make, he would always make sure that it was a good decision for the customer in some form. The customers had to be part of the decision.”
That focus on customer service led Hoober to become a small plane pilot in the early 1970s, Chuck says. “The reason for doing that is so he could deal with farmers, give farmers good service at a distance,” he says.
The program was called Charlie’s Air Freight, and he would drop parts to customers who were broken down in the field. “He’d fly low and drop it right out into the field next to the combine,” Chuck says.
Hoober has the ability to command any room he’s in. “When he’s in the room, he’s the guy who can take charge. When Charlie spoke, people listened,” says Johnson.
Salzman agrees, saying Hoober has an easy way about him, but has a unique way of getting his point across. “He didn’t demand anything, but he gave you some strong direction. When you got done with the conversation, you knew what he needed and he knew what he was talking about. He wasn’t emotional or got carried away,” he says.
Chuck adds, “He is very good-natured, but he was always intense too. In other words, when it came time to make things happen whether on the service side or putting a sales deal together, he’s always been intense. He’ll do whatever he can to make something work.”
Hoober’s wife Sally was also an integral part of his success. As soon as their third child entered school, Sally began working in the business parttime. When the youngest entered college, Sally worked fulltime as the executive secretary for Hoober and Yohe, as well as secretary for the Board of Directors.
“We would never have been able to achieve a significant level of success without Sally,” Yohe says. “Whatever events or strategies management came up with Sally was the engine behind their execution.”
As part of the business planning, she worked by Hoober’s side helping the company grow and prosper, Chuck says.
At 82, Hoober still has a passion for the business and works part-time as a construction sales specialist, Chuck says. “He personally sells 8-10 new Steigers a year and between 12-15 new K-Tech and Ashland scraper pans a year.”
Check out more from the Dealer Hall of Fame Class of 2024:
- Ronald D. Offutt, RDO Equipment, Fargo, N.D.
- Cleve Buttars, Agri-Service, Kimberly, Idaho
- Charlie Hoober, Hoober Inc., Intercourse, Pa.
- Paul Wallem, Wallem International, Belvidere, Ill, & Central Sands International, Plainfield, Wis.
- David Meyer and Peter Christianson, Titan Machinery, Fargo, N.D.
- Ferenc (1932-2017) & Tom Rosztoczy, Avondale, Ariz.
- Earl Livingston, Livingston Machinery (Parallel Ag), Chickasha, Okla.
- Orhan Yirmibesh, Badger Farm Store, Clinton & Avalon, Wis.
- Derek Stimson, Rocky Mountain Equipment, Calgary, Alta.
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