Vernon is a small town in upstate New York, placed right in the geographical center of New York. As the AEM Manufacturing Express drove west into town along New York State Route 5, dairy farms scattered the horizon for miles. Those who are familiar with Vernon know of its deep roots in the dairy industry, including many local family farms and major regional processing facilities.
That also includes Kuhn North America, a major agricultural equipment manufacturer who supports both the dairy and wider agricultural industry overall. This was the AEM Manufacturing Express’s second visit to Kuhn. Back in 2024, we visited their large manufacturing facility in Brodhead, Wisconsin. The Vernon facility serves the company’s Northeast regional distribution center. While the team may be smaller, the importance of their work here in upstate New York cannot be overstated.
The team here in Vernon is five people strong, and they were all happy to welcome us for lunch to close out our kickoff week and talk to us about the important role distributors play in the greater equipment manufacturing industry. “Keeping things flowing through the distribution center on a reliable and efficient basis is something we take a lot of pride in here and at Kuhn in general,” said Jerry Smith, Operations Manager at the Vernon Distribution Center. “We make sure that we are close to our customers, and that we provide a good product in a timely manner and that it’s well supporter locally.”
A wide variety of Kuhn products come through this facility, such as hay tools, balers, plows, and much more. Agriculture is such a vast industry, and Kuhn is able to serve so much of it. Farmers rely on Kuhn equipment to both plant their seeds and harvest them. Ranchers rely on their equipment to feed their livestock. The work being done with this equipment is putting food on people’s plates every day. But it goes far beyond just food, even the cotton in the clothes we wear is harvested from farms using Kuhn equipment.
This facility in Vernon actually predates the one in Broadhead. Kuhn, a French company, opened the office in Vernon back in 1976 as a North America distribution center. As the company’s manufacturing presence in the United States grew, so did the size of the Vernon facility, undergoing a massive expansion back in 1990.
Kuhn’s growth can be attributed to the high quality of their equipment, well known for its longevity and return on investment. Plus, their distribution network makes them a reliable choice for their customers. “The broad scope of our dealer network and the support that we have in the field across the whole country and Canada, I think also can set us apart from competitors in some product lines,” said Scott Borgwardt, Marketing Communications Manager at Kuhn. “We have a very fast dealer network of over 1,300 dealer locations that sell and support our equipment. There are not a lot of our competitors that can match that.”
The team here may be small, but the work they are doing here in Vernon puts food on the table for all of us. That’s something they all take enormous pride in. “We’re really proud of the fact that we are supporting farmers who are feeding the world. It’s something that we try to promote to our employees and reinforce,” Borgwardt said. “We are proud of the fact that we are doing something that we believe has a very noble purpose and supporting an industry that a lot of our employees have grown up in.”
