“It”™s like putting a puzzle together,” says Kay Covert, store manager of TSC Tractor Supply Co. in Patterson.
Covert is speaking of the seasonal changes that require rearrangement of inventory. And, she is not just talking about tractors or even tractor parts.
The store serves the needs of the agricultural community, both professional and amateur, full and part time.
Clothing and footwear, lawn and garden supplies, power equipment, tools, pellet stoves, fuel tanks, pop-up sheds, electric fencing supplies, hydraulic parts, automotive and tractor batteries, and feed and other items serving equine, cattle, goat, sheep and poultry needs ”“ all are covered in the store”™s inventory.
For the store manager, the seasons come early and summer finds her contemplating where to position woodstoves. By late February she is involved in grass seed and other spring needs.
“In addition to Putnam and Dutchess counties and Connecticut, we get people coming from as far as Manhattan and Long Island,” Covert says, speaking primarily of part-time residents who are into small farming in their summer and secondary homes.
The Patterson store is one of 1,130 in 45 states that owe their origin to the late Charles E. Schmidt Sr. of Chicago, who in l938 started a mail-order business offering tractor parts. The following year saw the establishment of a successful retail store in Minot, N.D.
Covert is grateful to the staff at the headquarters, now located in Brentwood, Tenn., for relieving her of onerous paperwork. “They have a fabulous administrative staff,” she declares. “It”™s one less thing to worry about.”
There are phases of the business that are under scrutiny of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. “They pop into nurseries, but if you run things right, there”™s nothing to worry about.”
“The stores have their own brand of livestock feed, known as Dumor, in addition to carrying the branded seeds,” she says.
“We are only closed for five days of the year,” noting that store hours are from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays and 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays.
One of the delights of her business life is the puppy rescue that the store conducts every two or three weeks in cooperation with PawSafe. “We have gotten 15 to 42 puppies brought for adoption at one session,” she says.
Those are not the only animal visitors. The store is at 1253 Route 311, nestled in a rural area near two major nurseries. “I was at my desk when a Jack Russell terrier broke in and jumped into my arms. Then there was the squirrel that we removed with a have-a-heart trap.”
Animals present no challenge to the store manager, who has a menagerie of her own at the duplex log cabin where she lives in Millerton. She and her husband, a retired correction officer, care for three dogs, one indoor cat, two feral cats, 30 chickens, two ornamental turkeys, two Asia Blue peacocks, three llamas and four geese. Future contemplated additions include a miniature horse and a pony.
Born in Edison, N.J., Covert was raised in Las Vegas, working the majority of her life in insurance and part-time in retail. Marriage to Edward Covert brought her back East, where she was initially employed by the TSC facility in Amenia and was later in on the building of the Patterson store from the ground up three years ago. She has been with the company for nine years. She is the mother of two, stepmother of four, and the Coverts claim “three and two-thirds grandchildren.”
Challenging Careers focuses on the exciting and unusual business lives of Hudson Valley residents. Comments or suggestions may be emailed to Catherine Portman-Laux at cplaux@optonline.net.
