Become the best groundskeeper with the CoreMax48
Helping greens to heal faster and more conformed to produce an enjoyable playing experience.
A new year and a new exciting partnership with Aspen Outdoors as the sole distributor!
Please visit their website to place orders.
Become the best groundskeeper with the CoreMax48
Helping greens to heal faster and more conformed to produce an enjoyable playing experience.
A new year and a new exciting partnership with Aspen Outdoors as the sole distributor!
Please visit their website to place orders.
The Beginning
The history of this product from the manufacturing portion of the CoreMax 48 goes back to a conversation with Jeff Druzak and Ken Flisek, the Golf Course Superintendent at The Club at Nevillewood, in Presto, PA.
While the two were golfing together in the middle of July 2017, a conversation came up, while in the middle of the 12th hole, about a good friend of his, John Shaw, who was the Golf Course Superintendent at Valley Brook Country Club in McMurray, PA.
Ken said John Shaw had an idea and was looking at how and who to manufacturer a product that would help make the aeration of the greens faster, easier. Jeff Druzak told Ken Flisek that they shouldn’t be looking at a plastic core box, but aluminum.
Jeff discussed a 30-year-old company he purchased in 2012, Dukane Radiator and Sheetmetal Solutions, which had manufacturing capabilities that could help. Jeff told Ken Flisek to tell John Shaw to call and that they’d look at it. Remarkably John Shaw had already been looking and was in to see the operation in the Bethel Park Industrial Park the previous week. In the pursuing week, John Shaw hooked up with Joshua Druzak, at the end of July 2017. The two went back and forth on how to manufacturer the product successfully. The HDPE Sheet was key to the process. This took many months but produced the first CoreMax 48 by the end of 2017. However, the product was redesigned a few times during that first year and some of the original Core Boxes that were welded together have been replaced with ones that are bolted.
Manufacturing
The box on top isn’t the most difficult portion of the product to manufacture. Since it is fit to work exclusively with the Toro PROCORE 648, the manifold under the is by far the most difficult part and is very precisely made. Cutting metal pieces with a 4,000-Watt CO2 laser to extreme accuracy and the precision of all the bends and welds of the items is required to produce the pieces which are built to last. In fact, since the creation and the replacement of Core Boxes that first year, not one has ever been returned. Manufactured right here in the U.S.A.
John Shaw owns the patent on the product while Joshua Druzak kept the detailed CAD drawings that he created. It was always intended to produce the product as efficiently as possible to reduce costs and provide the end user the best value.
The sales portion was slow, and changes kept taking place to improve product performance and make the installation of the product onto the Toro PROCORE quick and easy. Shortly after the first manufactured items were working successfully, John Shaw partnered up with Synatec Solutions to help in the sales process and introduced us to Alan Easter. Alan was there at the very start of this business relationship and knows all the people personally in the manufacturing process.
Sales went well, but slow. Primarily the manufacturing process was slower due to so many other manufactured items being produced by the company that weren’t related items to the Coremax 48. In addition, the sales team wasn’t covering enough golf courses. However, interest was very high and seemed to be very welcomed by the golf course community in whole. The customers, many are highly prestigious courses, who had purchased and used the product were extremely happy with the outcomes.
Moving Forward
Jeff Druzak made the decision in 2018 to create a new company called Druzak Auto Parts, LLC, and purchased the franchise 1-800-Radiator of Pittsburgh. Covid hit and some plans were delayed, but the franchise was acquired on November 30, 2020. The idea was to purchase a much larger building and move Dukane Radiator and Sheetmetal Solutions in together with the other new entity. It took 2 years to locate the right location, but the building was purchase in June 2022. The current location is at 1000 Gregg St., Bldg #1, Carnegie, PA., and now houses both of these entities.
At the end of 2022, Dukane Radiator and Sheetmetal has been closed and absorbed into Druzak Auto Parts, LLC. The space includes a 46,000 square foot warehouse, but the manufacturing space is now larger, easier, faster, and more productive than when it was in Bethel Park, PA. From the manufacturing side of things, the company has decided to stop producing many other items and dedicated itself to producing primarily the Coremax 48. The specific work of Joshua Druzak, Greg Wall, Aaron Roberts, and Mark Anderson are highly efficient and produce one of the best products a Golf Course Superintendent can purchase, the Coremax 48!
We want your experience of running this equipment to be easy and effective. We want the product to be durable and do exactly what it is intended to do. We want you to save time, money, and produce great golf greens to putt on... Just as John Shaw intended when he came to us in 2017.
At almost the same time, at the end of 2022, John Shaw decided to move the sales portion of his company from Synatec Solutions to Aspen Investments, (aka) Aspen Outdoors. Keith Montgomery, the Chief Business Development Officer was brought in at the end of 2022 and the relationship has produced its first order and it was picked up on January 17, 2023.
These two things coming together at the same time, as well as Alan Easter moving from Synatec Solutions to heading up the sales on this item with Aspen Outdoors, is a dynamic combination that will introduce the CoreMax 48 to a much larger audience and we look forward to greater success in 2023 and beyond.
New Year, New Look
The Coremax 48 has a new logo on the box for 2023. Below is a better look of the boxes in production as well as seeing the parts that go along with the box on a pallet below.
