Charles Eubank has lots of irons in the fire.
He's the owner of Eubank Farm in Johnston, S.C., where he raises Angus cattle. He also runs Palmetto West Trading Co., which sells mounts for GPS equipment, cameras and other small electronic devices.
In his spare time, he volunteers as a reserve deputy in Edgefield County.
The retired mechanical engineer didn't know the first thing about farming when he got started 13 years ago. After his wife, Nancy, retired, they decided to move to the country.
Mr. Eubank bought his Edge-field County farm in 1993, when the land was already in production as hay fields. He sold hay for a while and, in 1996, bought farm equipment and decided to manage the hay production himself. At the time, he was doing engineering consultation, but he decided to commit his efforts fully to farming.
Baling hay "is not as easy as it looks," he said. It depends heavily on the weather.
"If it's raining, you can't cut hay. If it's too dry, it's not going to grow. If you cut it and then it rains on it, it's worth a lot less once you do have it dried out," Mr. Eubank said.
He explained the economics of farming: "In good weather, everybody does good. In bad weather, everybody does poorly."
This year, he has 300 bales of hay weighing 800 pounds each. His priority is feeding his cattle through the winter and selling what remains.
"In a good year, I can put up 500 of them," he said of the bales. "I think I'll have some to sell this year, but last year I didn't because it was dry."
Mr. Eubank admits he was frightened when he bought 15 calves.
"I had never owned a cow, never been around a cow before," he said.
He learned farming by reading and asking questions. In the Southeast, farmers raise calves and sell them at auction to feed lots, which produce much of the meat for grocery stores. Mr. Eubank became frustrated when he couldn't get a consistent price for his calves, so he decided to raise beef cattle in 1997.
His favorite cow is Lucy, a red animal he named after the actress Lucille Ball.
"She's been a good cow. She has a calf every year. She's jealous. If I'm petting someone else, she'll come over and butt me," he said.
Eubank Farm produces pasture-raised natural Angus beef. The meat contains no hormones or antibiotics.
"About half of a cow is ground beef," Mr. Eubank said.
He sells his meat at Hammond's Ferry in North Augusta, farmers markets in Columbia, several health food stores and his North Augusta office at East Pine Grove Avenue. He also sells milk and eggs from a South Carolina dairy.
"I was justifying living in paradise," he said. "That's our little corner of the world. That's my own country. I just love it up there. I like to get out and just see nature."
A health food store in Lexington, S.C., 14 Carrot Whole Foods, has been buying Mr. Eubank's meat, including ground beef, sliced liver, cubed steaks and sausage, for five years.
"It sells pretty well. People like to find grass-fed beef," owner Ed Elbrecht said.
Lou Cattano, the manager of 14 Carrot Whole Foods' meat department, said: "A lot of people like supporting local, sustainable agriculture. That's one reason why people would opt to purchase his food over something that comes from a mass market. He keeps low numbers of cows per acre of land. The cows eat what they themselves are biologically designed to eat. That, in turn, makes healthier cows."
Mr. Cattano said he has never had a customer complain about the meat: "I eat the meat myself. It's top of the line."
Farming is only a part of Mr. Eubank's business life. In 2002, he became a silent partner in Palmetto West Trading Co. LLC to produce the Lobstermount, which holds a BlackBerry, Palm Pilot or calculator. The product fits on the handles of motorcycles, ATVs and golf carts.
Today, Mr. Eubank runs the company by himself. He has plastic parts manufactured in Clover, S.C., and aluminum plates made in Sumter, S.C., The parts are shipped to Greenville, S.C., to receive an anodized coating, he said.
"We own the molds and the dies, and then they keep them and maintain them. When I need some, I'll just call and send them a purchase order. They get here, and then I assemble them, put them in boxes and wait for orders," Mr. Eubank said.
He is expecting an order from a motorcycle parts and accessory company in Japan, which usually purchases 10 to 15 cases.
"I've been trying to get in with the military, but that's a hard nut to crack," he said.
Growing up
Mr. Eubank was born in Shreveport, La., in 1944. His father was in the Navy, so the family moved frequently during his childhood
"It was a neat way to grow up," he said.
Mr. Eubank is proof that the path to success is sometimes a bumpy road.
"I had two unsuccessful freshman years in pre-med," he said. "After my first freshman year, I joined the Marine reserves rather than go home, because my dad had orders to go back to the East Coast. And I wasn't going to sit with him in the same car all the way across country while he berated me about my poor performance."
His first college experience was at Centenary College in Shreveport. Then he enrolled at Emory University in Atlanta.
"I still wasn't ready. At least not for chemistry and biology," he said.
Over the years, Mr. Eubank took classes at Brunswick College and Georgia State University. At one point, he lived in a tent at Jekyll Island, Ga., until he could find a roommate.
A career counselor recommended an applied engineering program at Southern Technical Institute in metro Atlanta.
"I graduated, and about that time, Lockheed laid off about 10,000 people. And there were no jobs to be had in Atlanta in a technical field," he said.
In 1971, he accepted a job as a maintenance supervisor at Lily Cup. He was going through a divorce 21/2 years later, and a friend talked him into moving to Saluda, S.C., to open Mechanical Services Co., which provided service for foreign cars.
"It turned out that he and I had about half the foreign cars in the county. Not a good business decision," he said.
To make ends meet, he worked on farm equipment and motorcycles. He landed a job as a project engineer at Southern Machine & Tool Co. on 15th Street in Augusta, the premier machine shop in the area, he said.
Later, he accepted a job at Hamburg Industries in North Augusta as a plant engineer. When his position was eliminated, he decided to go out on his own. During that time, he and his wife, Nancy, were married.
He taught classes at Aiken Tech's maintenance school and returned briefly to Southern Machine & Tool, but he took a leave of absence to go on a church mission trip to Tanzania.
Flying solo
During his mission trip, Mr. Eubank's roommate in Africa suggested opening an engineering support company. That evolved into selling mounts in 2002. Mr. Eubank loaned him the money for the venture.
"That took a lot of money to get the molds made," he said. "After a while, we had a whole lot of notes and a whole lot of stuff going on. We were doing pretty good."
In 2006, his partner wanted to close the business, but Mr. Eubank felt he had invested too much money, so they dissolved the partnership.
Today, Mr. Eubank sells his 12 products internationally. His customers include a motorcycle company in Japan, a production equipment business in New York, an online GPS store headquartered in South Carolina and an aircraft supply company with businesses in California and Peachtree City, Ga.
He once sold a mount to a soldier in Afghanistan who needed one for the GPS in his helicopter.
His products are functional, but not "shiny and pretty," and he thinks that might be a roadblock in selling the product.
"I'm not going to put any more money into trying to pretty it up. It's functional. It doesn't look pretty, but it works. And it's simple."
Going wild
Mr. Eubank said Eubank Farm makes enough money to pay his farming expenses. He has 14 cows that produce 14 calves every year. This averages to slightly more than one animal per month to slaughter and sell.
"By the time you pay to process it and what it takes to grow an animal for 30 months, I've just about broken even," he said.
Mr. Eubank doesn't give his cattle antibiotics or growth hormones nor use commercial products to kill insects: "I'm using something that is natural and a lot cheaper, too."
His farm isn't certified organic because that would limit what he can do on his farm. He sprays for weeds once a year.
"I just go on my reputation. I do what I say I'm going to do. It's as natural as I can make it," Mr. Eubank said.
He can't cross state lines with his meat because he is unable to get it USDA certified, and there isn't a USDA processor nearby that performs custom work.
Because of the summer heat, Mr. Eubank decided he wanted red cattle rather than black. He figured they would be cooler.
He didn't want to own a bull because of their aggression, so he went to the Clemson University to learn how to do artificial insemination. He purchased semen that came from a red Angus bull in New Zealand. Lucy was his first all-red cow. He eventually bought some bulls, one of which is now breeding.
"Boy, he is a hunk," he said. "I weighed him the other day, and he weighed 1,800 pounds. He's apparently doing the job, because I'm on my third set of calves from him. His calves are all little, so I haven't had any birthing problems. A lot of people get bulls that tend to throw big calves, and so they have problems with cows or calves dying."
Mrs. Eubank never dreamed her husband would be a farmer, though she's proud of him. He does most of the farm work by himself, she said.
"It's very hard work, and Charles is a workaholic." she said. "He works constantly. He doesn't sit still very well. He had to learn from scratch. If there's something that he wants to learn to do, he's going to do it. When he has an idea, he's not going to give up on it, either. He can do anything he puts his mind to."
Reach LaTina Emerson at (706) 823-3227 or latina.emerson@augustachronicle.com.
CHARLES EUBANK
TITLE: Owner of Eubank Farm and Palmetto West Trading Co.
BORN: Dec. 21, 1944, in Shreveport, La.
EDUCATION: Southern Technical Institute, bachelor's degree in applied engineering
FAMILY: Wife, Nancy
CIVIC/EXTRACURRICULAR: First Baptist Church of North Augusta, choir member, Sunday school teacher (sixth grade), past deacon and past member of finance and building committees; Augusta Auto Sports Club, past member; Augusta Shooting Sports Association, past member; MCG Flying club, past member; reserve deputy in Edgefield County
HOBBIES: Reading (mostly history), hunting, fishing
The Augusta Chronicle ©2010 Morris Communications, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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Great story! I wish Mr Eubank continued success, he certainly has put in the effort to get where he is.
Wow!
What a neat and interesting story! We didn't know that you are talented in so many areas. Keep up the good work!
PBG