New Bush Hog president Gerald Worthington has known industry all his life.

Worthington, a native of Gary, Ind., grew up in the steel mill town where he got his beginnings at U.S. Steel while earning his bachelors of science degree from Indiana University.

After 12 years of work at U.S. Steel, Worthington worked with Modine Manufacturing Company, where he worked in a number of different locations, including three years in Germany.

All total, Worthington comes to Bush Hog with 23 years of operations leadership experience and is excited

“When this opportunity came up, I looked at it and talked to some folks and I would say the main thing that attracted me here is there are several things that this business has that others would die for,” Worthington said. “They have a brand that everybody in the (agriculture) business recognizes. In fact, they use the name for products that aren’t ours. The name is very good and the quality of the product has been good for years and years.

“The work force here is fantastic. They are high energy, the will do whatever it takes to get the job done and you look at that and say that is something good to build from.”

It’s no secret in Selma that Bush Hog has gone through trails during the past few years, but in the past 18 months, success such as the closing of streets around Bush Hog and the partnership with Alamo Group have the famed company on stable ground.

“In 2010 we spent a lot of time stabilizing the business,” Bush Hog vice president of sales and marketing said. “The core business of Bush Hog is just always fantastic, but we had lost our way over the years, but 2010 was about getting back to the basics and re-establishing with our investors and owners and community.

“We got that accomplished in 2010 and now, in 2011 we are positioned for growth. Community support has been a big part of that. There was some rough times in all the transition over the past few years, the streets is a good example of that. It was something Bush Hog needed to better our business and it was one of those decisions that had to be made by the community. But they came around and rallied around Bush Hog and we really appreciate it.”

With Bush Hog in such a position of growth, Worthington is excited about taking over the reigns and adding some new pieces to Bush Hog and taking some old pieces back from competitors.

“We want to grow the core business,” he said. “We have some stiff competition out there. I think we’ve probably allowed them to take some of our market share by things we didn’t pay attention to, so I’d like to steal that market share back.

Secondly, we would like to expand our product lines. So we are selling a few different things that we have in the past, so we can be more of an all-in-one stop shop.”