Toro (company)

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The Toro Company

Type	Public (NYSE: TTC)
Founded	1919
Headquarters	Bloomington, Minnesota
Key people	Michael J. Hoffman, President and CEO Kendrick Melrose. Chairman of the Board
Industry	Lawn maintenance
Products	Consumer and Commercial Lawn equipment
Revenue	US$1.779 Billion (2005)
Employees	5,200 (full-time)^[1]
Slogan	Count on it.
Website	www.toro.com

The Toro Company (NYSE: TTC) is an American manufacturer of lawnmowers and other lawn care tools based in Bloomington, Minnesota. Founded as the Toro Motor Company in 1914^[2], it serves professionals and businesses such as landscapers, golf course managers, and grounds and sports field managers, as well as individual homeowners. Although the company manufactures a wide variety of lawn maintenance equipment, in recent years it has come to dominate the golf course irrigation market ^[3].

In the 1990s, then CEO Kendrick Melrose (currently Chairman of the Board), figured out that supplying professional maintenance markets (such as golf courses, municipal parks, cemeteries and gated communities) yielded higher margins and offered more protection from the uncertainty of the weather than selling to retail customers. Today, roughly two-thirds of Toro's $1.6 billion in sales come from the professional market, versus one-third back in 1990.

The company's products are marketed under several brands:

Toro – consumer lawnmowers, snowblowers, trimmers, leaf blowers, and irrigation systems
Exmark – professional lawnmowers
Lawn-Boy – consumer lawnmowers
Irritrol Systems – professional light-duty irrigation
Lawn Genie – consumer irrigation
Pope (Australia) – consumer irrigation