Marvin's Farm Repair - 'We Do Top Quality'

Marvin’s Farm Equipment Repair has been in business for just shy of 50 years - it was 48 years in February. Some things have changed over the years, but one thing that has remained steady, according to owner Marvin Meile, is, “we try to do top quality work all the time.”  That philosophy has bade the company well since its beginning in 1975. Marvin and his wife, Pam, have been a power couple from the start.

“We started out with nothing,” said Marvin, who has been doing mechanic work since he was a young boy. “We had a trailer house sitting on a lot and a box of tools. But, everything we had was paid for.” According to Marvin, they started building a new structure in 1975.

“(And) it’s been straight forward ever since,” he added. “When we first started it was just Pam and I and it worked that way for a couple of years. We finally hired our first secretary, then I hired a helper. Now we’ve got nine employees  - some are part time and some are full time. Most of them are full time.”

Pam and Marvin say they "are so blessed" to have the employees they have.

In the beginning, they worked to fix “everything” on the farm.

“Then as time went on,” Marvin said, “tractors and combines and everything got more technical. I wasn’t able to go to the schools and everything like I did when I worked for a dealership so we kind of had to let that pass and focus on irrigation engine motors - now that’s all we do.”  

Although their focus changed, the name of the business stayed the same.

“We didn’t change the name because it’s kind of stuck in everybody’s mind,” Marvin said. “Most of the time when people even call the shop we just say, ‘this is Marvin’s’, but everybody knows what we do. Occasionally we will take on a little project for one of our customers that might be related to farm equipment, but not too often because we have so much to do in the irrigation engine line. We also do some gas compressor engines for the gas companies- we’ve done that for a long time. In the last two or three years we have picked up quite a bit in that area.” 

Marvin first came to the  Ulysses area in 1965 and went to work for HG Webber at Webber Supply Company.

“It was a Minneapolis Molin and Massey Ferguson dealer,” Marvin said. “I worked on combines and tractors, delivered and pickup up machinery, drove semi - pretty much everything.”

The military caused a detour.

“In December of 1965, I got drafted in to the Army,” Marvin said. “My term was for two years, but I took one more year so I could get a school I wanted. I was thinking I might not have to go to Vietnam if I took that school. Well, that didn’t work. I spent a little over a year in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968.”

After the service, he returned to Ulysses.

“I came back and went to work for Mr. Webber again,” he said. “After seven more years there I worked my way up from the bottom to running their shop for them. Pretty soon, I got to doing all the paperwork and getting all of the equipment. A time or two they would ask me to see if I could get someone to pay a bill. I thought, if I have to do all of this, I may as well be doing it for myself. (Pam and I) had everything at the time paid for.”

The couple decided to take a chance and checked in to getting a Small Business Loan through the Grant County Bank.

“Sam Forrer was good about working with us on that,” Marvin said.”

The couple’s son, David, was an important part of their business.  

“It will be two years since he passed away - January 27,” Marvin said. “He was going to pretty well take over the business. He was running most of the machines in the machine shop. He was managing this, building engines, and doing service calls. He was doing everything. That was a big loss for us, not just as our son, but in what he was doing in our business. He died at 50 years old of a sudden heart attack.”

The couple hired Colby Leonard after losing their son.

“He had been working for Caterpillar,” Marvin said. “Some day, Colby will be taking it over to keep it going, because we don’t want to quit and we don’t want to sell out. We’ve got too many good customers.”

Marvin’s has customers all over the United States and beyond. 

“We shipped out a big Cat engine last year to a guy in Houston, Texas,” Marvin said. “We do lots of engines in the Oklahoma and Texas Panhandles. For a time we sent engine parts to Chile - that went on for several years. We have shipped stuff to South America. We’ve got engines in North Dakota, Kansas, Utah, California, Colorado.... We do a lot of work in the Holcomb, Hugoton and Johnson areas. We have customers who have been with us for years. Some we have worked with for 50 years. We’ve got customers all over.”

Marvin said Kemp’s Ice Cream out of Rochester, Minn., is one of their customers.

“If you go to the grocery store, you want to buy Kemp’s ice cream, because we do all of their engine work,” he said. “We have been doing their engine rebuilds for their compressors for their refrigerant to make all of their ice cream for 30-40 years. So buy Kemp’s ice cream, because that money is coming back to Southwest Kansas.”

Although their customers are all over, Ulysses is the only location you will find Marvin’s business.

“We don’t need any more - we do it all right here,” he said.  “All of our stuff is first class material and the people we do business with know that. We never cut corners and my customers don’t have as many breakdowns.”

According to Marvin, they built a 342 turbo Cat for a customer that ran for 31 years and another that lasted 29 years.

“That’s what we strive for is longevity, because it’s not cheap,” Marvin said. 

From a modest start to today - things have changed.

“We started with zero,” he said. “Today we have about 1,000 acres, a machine shop, other buildings, and a cow herd. We always try to help and take care of people no matter what the situation is.”

He enjoys what he does.

"I tell people I get to work at my hobby," Marvin said. "I hope to keep working at it until I'm 80."

The couple have three sons: David (Shan), Chris, and Nate (Megan); and six grandchildren: Reile, Britton, Amori, Addy, Asher and Aubrenn.