Matt Land recalls Perry, his energy in mower stunt

Sunday, February 5, 2017
In an 1,800-mile trip, Matt Land, then of Dixie Chopper, had a unique encounter to new Dept. of Energy secretary designee Rick Perry, then governor of Texas.

With former Texas Gov. Rick Perry poised to become secretary of the Department of Energy in President Donald Trump’s cabinet, there’s at least one Putnam County man who probably knows more about Perry’s energy views than most people even at Fox News.

It was 10 years ago this spring that Matt Land of Greencastle, then sales and marketing director of an innovative Dixie Chopper operation, made an adventuresome 1,800-mile journey in the name of alternative energy by driving a propane-powered Dixie Chopper LP3000 lawnmower from company headquarters at Fillmore to Sacramento, Calif.

Traveling essentially via Route 66, the Mother Road, Lane scored one of the highlights of the journey in an encounter with Perry, then governor of Texas, in a park in the capital city of Austin.

Rick Perry

Accompanied by an entourage and a gaggle of local TV news crews, Perry had come to Zilker Park that morning to do his run. Land and his Dixie Chopper crew had come to the park in hopes of getting a little publicity about the nation’s first production propane-powered mower and its energy and cost savings.

”I remember him asking a lot of really good questions,” Land told the Banner Graphic Sunday afternoon. “Like, ‘Why propane? Why not compressed natural gas?’ And for us back then, the baby step was going to propane (Dixie Chopper would later introduce a compressed natural gas mower as well). People were set up to do propane already. It was like getting our nose in the tent on propane, then natural gas was the next act.”

With Perry and Land hitting it off, it wasn’t long before Land issued a challenge, offering to race the governor, man vs. mower, over an open area about three football fields long.

Land has always said he “played enough client golf” over the years to know who needed to win that April 2007 race.

“I knew I had to be close enough to him to be in the photo shoot,” he said. “To me, it was all about marketing my lawnmower. And I knew I just when to pull back on the joystick so he could beat me by half a step.”

That is exactly what happened. A video made the 2007 version of the Internet (it’s still there, too) and photos made the local papers.

“Perry was on board with it (the propane mower),” Land recalled. “His PIOs (public information officers) were on top of it. They were very supportive and Rick Perry was very committed. I mean, my BS meter’s pretty good, and I was convinced.”

Land is not surprised that Perry, from petroleum-rich Texas, emerged as Trump’s choice for energy secretary despite once advocating the department’s dissolution.

“From where he was taking his state, it doesn’t surprise me at all,” offered Land, who since March 2009 has been deputy director of utilities for public policy and strategic planning in Fort Wayne.

“I applaud Rick Perry,” he added. “I think he’s pretty insightful. He gets it. I think he’s a good choice.”

Meanwhile, the real mission for Land that spring was confronting California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger who had berated American industry for failing to come up with alternative energy options. Land wanted to take the propane mower out to the California capital and show Schwarzenegger what was being done in the name of energy in Indiana.

Of course, getting an audience with Arnold was virtually impossible so the final leg of the mower mission didn’t accomplish all it set out to do.

“In the world of marketing,” Land laughed, “I learned that the next time I got a really stupid idea, I should keep it to myself. Life is too short.

”It took three weeks of my life I’ll never get back,” he added. “Would I do it again? Sure because it was the only thing I could do that might make a difference.”

The economic climate at the time was fueled by $4-a-gallon gasoline and those costs were keeping commercial mowing crews from buying new equipment, putting jobs at risk at places like Dixie Chopper. That pushed Land into action.

“Right now I’m hopeful,” he said. “I like where the price of fuel is at. It’s where it needs to be. People don’t change their driving habits; they change their spending habits.”

Regardless, Land will have the memory of the 1,800-mile mower trip and the commitment that went with it.

Then again, he almost didn’t make it through the first day.

As the rest of the Dixie Chopper team waited alongside Route 66 in a gravel lot south of St. Louis with the sun was beginning to set, Land and the LP 3000 rounded a curve heading downhill, right toward a busy drive-time intersection. Police radar had him at 56 mph.

“I thought I was dead,” said Land, never one to back away from a challenge, regardless of the odds. Heck, he once paced a automobile race in Virginia on a Dixie Chopper mower.

There were no brakes on the mower, just braking ability through its hydraulics. It wasn’t going to be pretty.

Ten years later you still can hear the anxiety in his voice as Land recalled rolling through that busy intersection, coming to a stop on a flat area and calling it a night.

“There is a God,” Land said, “because just when I needed it to that light turned green. That’s all that saved me.”

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