Partner Spotlight: Cal Turf Chooses Equipment That Makes Work Easy
Today Cal Turf is a second-generation family business and a Redexim dealer in California, focused on helping customers find easier ways to do their jobs.
From Tulare Shop to Second-Generation Dealer
California Turf Equipment started in Tulare, California in 1984 when the Brown family bought a small landscaping and equipment shop after another buyer backed out at the last minute. Fred Brown had run his own landscaping company for years and struggled to find good service for his equipment, so buying the shop was his way of fixing that problem himself.
Jonmarc and Seth Brown run Cal Turf today, the second generation of the family in the business. Both grew up around the company and worked on the landscaping side before joining Cal Turf full time.
“We know what it is to have to work and do these jobs that our customers are performing,” Jonmarc Brown says. “We’re interested in finding equipment that takes the struggle out of work, because we know how hard the job is that these guys do every day.”
Cal Turf is careful about which suppliers it adds, preferring to go deep with a short list rather than spread across many brands. Redexim earned its place for a specific reason: customers wanted aerification and seeding attachments that could do more than what was already on the market. The first container arrived in 2024.
From All-Night Hand Work to One Machine
One example shows what that partnership has meant for a customer. Clovis Unified, a large school district near Fresno with some of the best sports facilities in the region, plays on Bermuda grass fields that need transitioning to rye grass each fall. The work has to fit around a full football season, so there is only a short window to get it done.
Before working with Cal Turf, district staff dethatched and verticut the fields by hand, then cleared the debris with backpack blowers.
“They’d start Friday night after the football game and work all night,” Seth Brown says, “then through the next day, to get the fields ready.”
Cal Turf sold the district a Redexim Turf-Tidy, a single machine that clears thatch and collects the debris in one pass.
“Now they can do that whole job with one machine, across six stadiums,” Seth says.
Around the same time, the district was partway through an order for several seeders from another manufacturer. After a demonstration of the Multi-Seeder 2100, they cancelled that order and bought five Redexim units instead.
For Cal Turf, the strength of a partnership isn’t measured in years, but in the difference it makes for customers. Redexim’s North America Sales Manager, Jason Jones, sees it the same way.
“Cal Turf’s customers are seeing what Redexim equipment can do, and they trust Cal Turf to stand behind it,” Jason says. “Their willingness to invest in new product lines speaks to the service Cal Turf delivers. Cal Turf’s focus on a few suppliers also allows us to work closely together. Two years in, the results are clear, and we look forward to a long partnership.”
Why Cal Turf Still Thinks Like the Customer
This approach also keeps Cal Turf close to what got the family into the business in the first place.
“What I don’t want to lose sight of is experiencing the customer’s pain, like we did growing up and working, and understanding what their real problems are,” Jonmarc says. “Helping them find easier ways to do the tasks they have to do, that’s what we want in the culture of our company.”
Two years into working with Redexim, Cal Turf is already pointing to results like Clovis Unified as proof the partnership is paying off, for the district and for the Cal Turf team stocking the equipment shed.
Learn more about California Turf Equipment and its customer-focused approach at calturf.com