WEIBULL-DR

In the early 70's, Toro's Chairman, David Lilly, and President, Al Conover, determined Toro's need to become a full-line lawn and garden manuifacturer. To accomplish this, they recognized the need to offer a serious two-stage snow thrower line. However, a number of people, including the head of Toro's R&D, said, "We are a mower company and don't belong in snow". Lilly and Conover knew better. Consequently (over strenuous objection from the head of R&D), they assigned couple relatively new engineers, independently of the formal R&D group, to research, develop a new line of two-stage snow throwers. In its second year out, the resulting 3-unit line received top ranking with Consumer Reports. Thus, Toro began its long term domination of the consumer snow industry. An unusual snow thrower concept, utilyzing a curved rubber blades, was prototyped as part of this same research program, and was developed further to become Toro's "Power Curve". These same two individuals, Mittelstadt and..

Primary location: Golden Valley United States