Within two years of Benchoff joining Grove, the company’s sales had increased by 30%, passing $1m as the company celebrated its tenth anniversary. Grove had already built its first hydraulic yard crane, but had only sold a couple of dozen units. When Martin Benchoff joined Grove in 1954 as the company’s first professional salesman, the seven-year old company was a small producer of wooden farm wagons with annual sales of about $700,000, competing with industrial giants like New Holland, John Deere and Case. He had recently celebrated his 80th birthday with a lavish party of some 200 invited guests at the ex-Grove Lodge at Blue Ridge Summit. J Martin Benchoff died peacefully at his home outside of Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, USA in the early hours of Thursday July 12th from complications resulting from Parkinson’s disease. He was an iconoclastic storyteller, and a bold and visionary leader, recollects his friend and colleague Stuart Anderson. J Martin Benchoff will be widely remembered as a larger-than-life figure who devoted his life to his twin passions of Grove Manufacturing Company and big game hunting.
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