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Wintersville-based Bully Tools line has section in new Steubenville store

Mark Gracy, owner of Bully Tools, the Wintersville-based long-handled tool manufacturer, stands amid the lineup of company tools available for sale in the new Steubenville Rural King store. Bully has a presence in Rural King stores and is being offered additional space in the local store. — Contributed

WINTERSVILLE — When Rural King opened its Mall Drive store in August, customers may have noticed a 20-foot wall section dedicated to the products of local manufacturer Bully Tools.

Bully was the first occupant of the Jefferson County Industrial Park when it opened its factory in 2006, consolidating its multiple Western Pennsylvania operations. The factory today looks the same on the outside, but inside, it’s been changing year by year.

Rural King is a regional chain of stores that features some Bully products in all of its stores, according to Bully Tools owner Mark Gracy. The expanded display in the Steubenville store is “an opportunity to prove ourselves,” Gracy said.

“They support our program,” he said. Gracy said he first met with Rural King through contact at a trade show for farm and agricultural retailers.

Bully produces long-handled tools ranging from a variety of snow and other shovels to thatch rakes to floor scrapers. Its product line ranges from tools for the average homeowner to tools for the contractor, all produced in the plant off county Road 43.

The product lines are growing and changing as technology is added to the factory.

The company’s ability to compete with imports and other manufacturers is based in its ability to change quickly and gain efficiencies, from the addition of two robots to the latest addition, a massive plastic injection-molding machine that can produce two shovel heads per minute.

The machine allows Bully to bring the injection molding in-house, which saves on transportation costs from the Pennsylvania factory where the work was being done, Gracy explained.

Gracy said a 1,400-pound container of the raw feedstock for the machine, black plastic pellets, actually is the equivalent of 700 finished snow shovel heads. The feedstock is easier to ship than the actual tool parts, thus gaining cost efficiency for Bully, he said. The equivalent shipping container would have contained only 60 molded shovel heads, he said. The company invested its own money in tooling and the molder to produce small, strong and light products that didn’t exist 18 months ago, he said.

The efficiencies have allowed Bully to sell floor scrapers to Home Depot for the same amount it charged the company 23 years ago, he said.

“We try to become more efficient every year in how we do things, even though our costs have gone way up,” he said.

New, taller shelving racks have allowed a more efficient warehousing of parts in the plant, with an electric picker forklift added to put items on or take them down from the racks that stretch from the floor to near the ceiling.

The 1000-ton injection molding machine is the latest representation of the growth and change to stay competitive that drive Gracy and his team at Bully.

The firm also has a 105-ton press ready to forge traditional metal shovels, which actually will undercut import pricing from China for a similar product, he said. The equipment includes a small furnace to heat steel to 1,800 degrees from blank sheets that are then cut, producing a part for the shovel every 15 seconds. The work is done with one operator.

“It’s being done right here in our Ohio factory, and the profit margins for the retailers are the same,” he said.

Bully employs about 40 workers now on two shifts, he said, and Gracy is proud of the achievements of his staff. Dave Carroll, who has been the plant superintendent for 11 years, started as a minimum-wage worker straight out of the Army.

“He showed up every day and was eager to learn. What he brought to the table from the military meant in three years time he was ready to be superintendent, and all the employees report to him,” he said of the veteran of the second Gulf War.

Gracy’s salary hasn’t increased since 2001, and he and his wife drive older pickup trucks. He said he prefers to reinvest the money back into the company to stay competitive. He also prefers to see his employees learn new skills as equipment is added rather than replacing them with the robots.

Among the goals he discussed when the company first opened was the hope that many small business owners have, to establish something lasting for their family.

His daughter, Katelyn Weber, now is in charge of Internet sales. She is responsible, too, for a series of You Tube Bully Tools videos showing how the products hold up to incredible forms of abuse, including using a shovel as a lever to jack up a pallet with five men on it, or a shovel that doesn’t deform when it is run over by a big pickup truck after the shovel was left out in extreme cold temperatures for days.

The videos are called the “Tough on Tools” series.

“You’re tough on tools and so are we,” Gracy said.

Katelyn’s husband, Rod, also works in the factory. Gracy’s son, Adam, works in accounting for Bully.

“They went to work elsewhere and came to me and now they are here and contributing,” he said of having family members at the plant.

Bully originally used a government loan to outfit what was a shell building in the industrial park to become its factory. The 15-year loan was paid off eight years early and Bully has no further government debt, Gracy noted.

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