Dixie Chopper President Gary Morgan (R) salutes retiring TM Burt Cox and wife Lainie

Dixie Chopper said a fond goodbye to its longest-serving territory manager Feb. 12 when Burt Cox retired after 20 years with the company and more than 50 years in the outdoor power industry.

“Burt Cox has been in the lawn mower business about as long as I’ve been alive,” Dixie Chopper President and CEO Gary A. Morgan said during a Feb. 16 recognition luncheon at the company’s Coatesville, Ind., headquarters.

Early in his career Cox sold a variety of equipment products. In January 1960 he peddled small-engine pleated- paper air filters for Purolator. By 1970, he had climbed the ladder to become vice president of Phillips Machinery, a distributor for Jacobsen and Yazoo mowers, Pioneer chainsaws and Oregon saw chain.

During the 1980s, Cox first sold Ariens power equipment and Husqvarna chainsaws, and later Shindaiwa trimmers, blowers and saws.

But it was in 1990 while Cox was national sales manager for BCS Tillers (an Italian rototiller company) that his life changed forever at the annual Lawn & Garden Expo at Louisville. The personable Oklahoman was selling Simplicity lawn tractors and Encore front-cut commercial mowers when he spotted his first Dixie Chopper.

It was like love at first sight, zero-turn style.

Burt Cox ready to cut his retirement cake

“I saw (a sign that said) Dixie Chopper, and there was Art and Warren (Evans) in the corner with one mower,” Cox recalled. “I asked Art about it, and after listening to him, I said, ‘I’ve got to sell these Dixie Choppers!’ Art said, ‘Well, talk to Warren.’”

Cox did, and the rest is history.

“I went exclusive with Dixie Chopper in 1992,” he added, “and didn’t sell anything else right through last Friday (Feb. 12).”

While that was officially his last day as a territory manager, Cox will stay on as a consultant for Dixie Chopper until August.

“You’re remarkable, Burt,” President Morgan praised.

More than remarkable, Cox is almost legendary at Dixie Chopper, where he once managed 60 dealers in five states (all of Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas and 60 percent of Tennessee). At retirement he still had 32 dealers in Oklahoma, Kansas, southwest Missouri and northwest Arkansas.

Over his 20 years with Dixie Chopper, Cox signed up nearly 200 dealers.

But he is most proud of the mower sales his territories have generated.

“I have always been at 10 percent or more of Dixie Chopper’s annual sales,” Cox said. “When Art made 200 mowers, I sold 25. When he made 300, I sold 35. When he made 6,000, I sold 650. For 20 years I never missed. I am proud of that.”

He says working with the dealers is key to such sales.

“It’s taking care of their needs – that has to be the No. 1 thing,” Cox stressed. “You have to help them do what they need to do (to sell lawn mowers).”

Dozens of Dixie Chopper employees shook hands with Cox at the luncheon, congratulating him on his retirement. Nearly every one of them took time to comment on how warmly and sincerely he always treated people, whether they were dealers, customers or co-workers.

“I’m really going to miss the people, especially the dealers,” Cox conceded. “To tell you the truth, it’s almost like a great, big chunk of me got torn out,” he added, tapping his chest. “If I was 66 instead of 76, I’d still be working, I’ll tell you that. But the last two years it just got harder, so it was time.”

Burt Cox listens intently as owner/founder Art Evans (R) tells a story at lunch

So now retirement is his new territory.

Cox and his new wife Lainie (whom he married July 3) will continue to live in Grove, Okla., in the northeast part of the Sooner State. Fishing, playing golf and “going places with Lainie” are at the top of his retirement agenda.

“I’ll take care of him, I promise,” Lainie assured his Dixie Chopper friends.

President Morgan perhaps best summed up the company’s feelings in announcing Cox’s retirement during a sales conference call earlier in month.

“We wish Burt the very best,” Morgan said. “I won’t say we’re going to have to replace him because I don’t think you replace Burt Cox.”