Beacon Tested, Groundskeeper Approved

One of the main contributors to Beacon’s product development success over the past couple decades has been our association with West Madison Little League in Madison, Wisconsin. The complex near our office has three fields — two 60′ diamonds and one 90′ diamond — on 7 acres of a park-like setting. Beacon has embraced the facility as its “Research Site for Field Maintenance Studies”.

Shortly after I arrived at Beacon Athletics after serving as the head groundskeeper of the Baltimore Orioles, I also joined the West Madison Little League to help rehabilitate their facility. The joint relationship has greatly benefited both organizations.

Beacon utilizes the facility to help develop and evaluate new and existing proprietary products. Many of the groundskeeping products Beacon sells are tested and used daily by the grounds crew. This provides real-world feedback on the effectiveness of a product and it also tells us how well it will stand up to everyday use and abuse. A few of the products that were born out of our testing facility include:

The West Madison Little League fields have also been our main photo-video location over the years. In fact, this is where all of our Groundskeeper University videos were filmed, as well as a large number of the photographs used in our catalogs.

The bottom line is that Beacon is constantly working with our products on the field. This greatly helps our efforts maintain our high standards of quality control, product evaluation and product development. Our customers have benefitted by having access to innovative products that are field-tested and evaluated in meaningful ways that reflect how our tools are commonly used. These efforts also educate our customer service department with actual situational data on the tools we sell, providing invaluable insight we can pass along to you.

In addition, we continue to give back to the local baseball community by providing the tools and experience to help maintain the fields at the WMLL. The result is their young players and their families experience safe, enjoyable, well-maintained fields. Beacon’s participation with West Madison Little League also helps to recruit and motivate young grounds crew members to join the field maintenance industry professionally through the mentoring and guidance provided by me and my staff. This has proven to be a win-win program for everyone involved.