Why Contractor George Jueneman has Stayed with Berry Tractor for Over 30 Years
Over the past 48 years of owning his own business, George Jueneman has owned not one, not two, but 19 Komatsu dozers.
A native of Hanover, Kansas, George does any job that has to do with farming. “I’ve had a lot of customers over the years,” George said. “They would put me in a pickup and drive around, saying, ‘George, I want to farm everything I can farm.’ And then they’d leave, and maybe a month later, they’d show up again. A lot of those jobs were one, two, three-month jobs. I was to clean the whole farm: terrace it, waterway it, whatever it needed.”
George isn’t your average operator. He can get exceptionally accurate results without using a GPS. “I can get it within a few tenths by just looking at it. Anybody can run a dozer, but to know what you’re doing with it, that takes some time. You’ve got to have an eye for it.”
Known to his customers as DOZRMAN, George has operated just about every brand of dozer on the market. He and his wife, Kate, got into the cab of their first Komatsu in 1991 after frustrations with another machine.
“I worked hard all year, and the back end of that dozer went out. The dead axles, the sprockets…everything was shot. I spent all this money, and I don’t think I ran it two days before the bearing went out again. That dozer took all the money I made that year. I went home, and I told Kate, ‘I’m going to do one of two things. I’m either going to quit, or I’m going to buy a better dozer.’ That’s when we headed to Wichita and got a Komatsu.”
On that first trip, George and Kate bought a Komatsu D68E-1 dozer directly from Fred Berry, co-founder of Berry Tractor.
“If it wasn’t for Fred, I probably wouldn’t be in Komatsu,” George said. “He’s a good guy. He entertained me and Kate the whole day, and he made us feel like he’d known us for years. On the way home, I told Kate, ‘I think that Fred is an honest man. We’re going to get a Komatsu dozer.’ We’ve been with Berry Tractor ever since.”
Left to Right: Fred Berry, George Jueneman, Kate Jueneman
Over the years, Berry Tractor’s Parts, Service, and Sales teams have stayed with the couple. Kate shared that working with Berry Tractor has made their lives much easier.
“When we had trouble with other dozers, George would call me three or four times a day, every time something happened,” she said. “You know, ‘This didn’t work’ or ‘That didn’t work.’ Life can be pretty tense when you have that going on. It’s been much better with Komatsu, and Berry has always treated us good when we go down there.”
George shared that buying new from Berry Tractor has also saved him a lot of money and downtime.
“By keeping them brand new and under warranty, I’ve made more money, we saved more money, and Kate was happier because I didn’t come home in a bad mood,” George said. “it’s not the parts that will cost you; it’s the downtime. If I’m going to run it 2200 hours a year, it can’t be sitting there for a couple weeks waiting for someone to get the parts to fix it.”
Salesman Jake Zeka said that this approach has given George a reputation with other Berry Tractor customers. “George’s dozers have become so well-known that we’ve started getting calls that go like ‘Hey, when is George trading?’ Everybody wants George’s trade-ins.”
Left to right: Clint Golay, Fred Berry, George Jueneman, Jake Zeka
If he could go back, George would choose Berry Tractor and Komatsu equipment every time.
“Let’s say you come to me, and you say, ‘Which dozer do you think I ought to get?’. I’d say to try Komatsu. They stand up—I’ve proved that over the years! And I’d go with Berry Tractor. Whatever Berry said they would do, they did. I look back, and I don’t have any complaints.”
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