HESSTON, Kansas, July 9, 2008 – The spring rain means more grass to mow and a Hesston company says it’s got just the machine to cut your work in half.

370 employees in Hesston work hard to supply 50 states and 20 different countries with machines that keep lawns perfectly manicured.

Paul Mullet is the second generation company president of Hustler Turf Equipment.

“I started in 1972, I became president in 1991, so I worked a lot of different positions in between there,” Mullet said.

Paul’s brother and both of their sons work in the company that Paul’s father, Roy Mullet, bought in 1960. Back then, 10 employees built tractor cabs. Four years later, that all changed with the first zero turn radius mower.

There are more than 40 companies that manufacture the zero turn mowers. But it all started right here. They were first invented and manufactured right here back in 1964. Now they are much more fuel and time efficient because you're always on the mowing surface. And you don't have to swing wide to be able to turn around and finish cutting the lawn.

“We'll have Hustler owners tell us it'll cut their time in half from what they've been doing with a lawn tractor or riding mower,” Mullet said. “We start with sheet metal, and we form the sheet metal, we weld it, we paint it and assemble it.”

Hustler mowers cost from about $3,500 for a small consumer unit to more than $25,000 for a commercial machine.

Efforts to sell in overseas markets are paying off. They build from 80 to nearly 200 mowers per day to keep up with demand. But no matter how much they grow, production will stay in Kansas.

“We still have land here in Hesston so we can expand here,” Mullet said.

The current challenge is dealing with the rising cost of materials like steel. But as long as lawns grow, Hustler intends to build machines that mow.