SEYMOUR — Cassidy Burnside received great words of advice from her business mentor.
While working on her project for the ninth annual Jackson County Maverick Challenge business planning competition for high school students, Cortland farmer Brian Thompson told her, “Show them your passion.”
Growing up around tractors and developing an interest in restoring them, the Trinity Lutheran High School senior said Thompson could tell she was knowledgeable and had a passion for what she does.
“One of the first things he told me was that he recognized that this was so important to me and I really did have a love for the subject,” said Burnside.
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She said that meant a lot because he has done restoration for a long time and is well known for having great pieces and doing a really good job.
“He definitely helped me with the business aspect of it,” she said. “He said, ‘Show them your passion because that is so obvious, and you need to share that.’”
Twenty-eight teams submitted a written plan for the Maverick Challenge. Burnside’s was on Classic Iron Restoration, an antique tractor restoration business she started in mid-2019.
Local business professionals helped narrow the contestants down to 10 to present in front of judges Kathy Covert, Doug Prather, Lance Gentry and Brett Bevers on Jan. 15 at the Community Foundation of Jackson County.
After hearing presentations from students at Trinity Lutheran, Seymour and Brownstown Central high schools, they chose Burnside as the winner.
The next day, she received the good news and found out she won $2,050. In all, $7,000 was available for the judges to divvy up between the top 10.
“I was pretty confident about the presentation beforehand because I am very passionate about this, and I knew that I would be prepared for what they might ask in giving the presentation because it’s stuff I know and I’ve experienced,” she said.
“I was certainly thankful to win, but I also knew if I didn’t win, I was still super thankful for the experience that it provided me just to go through all of this and learn the inner workings of a business because even though I’m starting the business, learning it in this different aspect was a great experience,” she said. “Also, it gives me more initiative to continue with my business.”
Burnside advances to the regional competition Feb. 22 in the conference center at Holiday Holiday Inn Express in Seymour.
The public is invited to watch students from Jackson, Bartholomew, Brown, Dearborn, Franklin/Ripley, Jennings and Scott counties make presentations. Each will have 10 minutes to pitch their idea and then have a five- to eight-minute question-and-answer session with the judges. Burnside will present at 10:55 a.m.
Judges will convene to do scoring at noon, and winners will be announced at 12:45 p.m., followed by a reception and networking. Money will be awarded to the top three.
The Columbus Area Chamber of Commerce started the Maverick Challenge in 2008. High school students from 12 area counties are invited to participate.
Burnside and her father, Troy Burnside, had just purchased a 4020 John Deere tractor together when she found out about the Maverick Challenge through Bryan Schroer’s agricultural business and marketing class at Trinity.
“I just knew that was what I wanted to do because I was really thinking about future projects,” she said. “Being a young person and a female in this industry is super rare, so when you tell people, ‘Yeah, I’m a teenage girl working on tractors,’ they are shocked, and it certainly does draw attention, I guess. It’s just unique.”
That gives her a sense of pride, and she’s glad that resonated with the judges.
“I have a younger brother (Cody Burnside), and everyone says, ‘Oh, well, so he’s going to drive a tractor,’” she said. “It’s just like people don’t always think that girls are capable or also just being young that you’re not experienced, but I’ve grown up on a farm, and I have lots of experience doing all of that stuff.”
Burnside said without a doubt, she knew how to drive a tractor years before a car.
On a farm south of Vallonia, the family had livestock at one point, but the primary focus was on harvesting grain, so she was around family members who had antique tractors.
Over the years, especially in rural Indiana, she saw antique tractors that were forgotten about and left to rust.
“They don’t have a good home, and people in modern farming technology, there’s not always a need for them,” she said. “Just my appreciation that I have for the tractors, I just wanted to start a business to help restore these and make a difference in that way.”
The neglected tractors inspired her to appreciate the ones that have been handed down in her own family.
“Growing up on a farm, my dad always taught us to appreciate what we have, to take care of our equipment, just cleaning every night or make sure everything is oiled and greased and just take care of what we have and appreciate it because it is something that’s important to our family and our livelihood,” she said.
When she was younger, Burnside said her father restored tractors in the winter. As the family’s harvesting operation grew, however, they were drawn away from restoring tractors.
After Burnside’s great-uncle died, her father inherited a couple of tractors from his collection: A Farmall H and an Allis-Chalmers.
“My dad and one of his cousins always helped him on the farm, and he promised those to them from a young age because he knew they would take care of them,” she said.
Having the Farmall H in the family’s shop, Burnside said she researched the make, model and serial number to learn as much about it as possible.
“That one has been in the family for a while, so that’s also really important to me to appreciate that it has stayed in the family,” she said.
Through Classic Iron Restoration, Burnside offers Type A and Type B restorations.
Type A is when the business purchases a tractor, invests in it, restores it to their choosing and then sells it at a set price. Burnside said the customer is buying a product rather than a service.
Type B is when a customer has a tractor they want restored and they choose what type of restoration they want.
“Some people just want it for the aesthetic appeal to kind of show off or just have as a showpiece in their barn or just as a family heirloom-type thing,” Burnside said. “But then they could also choose if they want it exactly like it was coming off the assembly line, more functionality and different things.”
The restoration time varies depending on the work involved.
“We don’t want to give customers a set timeline and say, ‘We’re going to have this done by this date’ because we want to make sure they get a quality product,” Burnside said. “We don’t want to rush ourselves. We want to make sure we do everything right and please the customer.”
After graduation, Burnside plans to attend college to double-major in agricultural economics and business and law and justice. She ultimately wants to go to law school and practice law with an ag focus.
She wants to keep the business going, too.
“I’m definitely going to keep it going when I’m home from college, and also, I can certainly have people help me work on the projects throughout the year, too,” she said.
For now, she’s preparing for the Maverick Challenge regional by getting feedback from the judges, Thompson and her father.
“When we’ve gone through our ag business class, it’s all about inspiration because if you don’t have the drive to push your business along and have a connection that draws you to that subject, you’re not going to invest your heart and soul into it,” Burnside said. “This is something I really have poured my heart into, and I think that I’m pretty confident going into it just because it is so important to me.”
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What: Maverick Challenge regional competition
When: Feb. 22
Where: Holiday Inn Express conference center, 249 N. Sandy Creek Drive, Seymour
Who: The public is invited to watch the presentations
Schedule: Bartholomew County, 9 a.m.; Brown County, 9:25 a.m.; Dearborn County, 9:50 a.m.; Franklin/Ripley counties, 10:15 a.m.; Jackson County, 10:55 a.m.; Jennings County, 11:20 a.m.; Scott County, 11:45 a.m.; judges convene to do scoring, noon; winners announced, 12:45 p.m.; reception and networking to follow
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With this year’s Jackson County Maverick Challenge high school business planning competition, 10 finalists presented to a panel of four judges Jan. 15 at the Community Foundation of Jackson County in Seymour.
Here are the results:
First place: Classic Iron Restoration, Cassidy Burnside, Trinity Lutheran High School, $2,050
Second place: (tie) Wholesome.Fresh.Prep., Libby Wischmeier, Trinity Lutheran High School, $1,500; Quick Box, Dustin Justice, Brownstown Central High School, $1,500
Other participating students:
Learn Inc., Sofia Segovia and Juan Silva, Seymour High School, $500
CM Cranks, Johnathan Engleking, Seymour High School, $250
Drop, Riley Roberts, Brownstown Central High School, $250
Grip It, Ethan Isaacs, Brownstown Central High School, $250
AutoPad, Olivia Hackman, Brownstown Central High School, $250
Kailee for Flint, Kailee Edwards, Seymour High School, $250
TechBro Brush, Raul Jimenez and Ericson Sebastian, Seymour High School, $200
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