The Game Changers
Vermeer started with a simple solution. Today, yellow iron takes its place on jobsites in 10 different markets around the world. But that didn’t happen overnight. Listening to customer challenges has been core to our success since our founding. As a result of those ongoing conversations, Vermeer has developed hundreds of products, carefully calculated and crafted, tried and tested, all to serve customers in a progressing world.
1940s
It was 1943 when innovator, farmer and Vermeer founder Gary Vermeer invented the wagon hoist. Fellow area farmers requested their own and on Nov. 22, 1948, Gary opened Vermeer Manufacturing Company to meet the need.
1950s
Innovation, inspired by life on the farm, drove design and testing of various products. During a test in 1953, an operator hit the wrong lever on a prototype stump cutter, causing the wheel to cut in an unintended direction. Since it cut five times faster, a new design was developed. It’s this spirit of learning from failure that has continued to drive design for decades.
1960s
Vermeer trenchers grew beyond the farm. To support suburban growth in the US, Vermeer introduced a full line of trenchers to efficiently place utilities like electricity, water and sewer underground.
1970s
After hearing a friend was having trouble finding enough people to help put up his hay, Gary pursued the idea of the one-man-hay system. “I had no idea what it looked like, but we began designing and building,” he said. Hundreds of farmers came out to see the demo looking for a better way to bale. And just like that, the round, one-ton (.9 metric ton) bale changed the hay industry.
1980s
Bigger, tougher and more powerful trenchers took on jobs in places and ground conditions no one thought was possible to trench. Builders could now efficiently build an underground pipeline network connecting energy sources to markets around the world. The pipeline market takes off.
1990s
Before Google or the iPhone, Vermeer introduced its horizontal directional drill. This technology helped quickly install the network of fiber needed to support the dot-com boom.
2000s
A customer in Italy needed a way to transform rocky ground into a vineyard. Since then, the Vermeer Terrain Leveler® surface excavation machine has helped responsibly mine materials from the earth. These materials can be found in our buildings, cars, electronic devices and medicines.