With the introduction of the Hi-Vac deck the Snapper walk mower developed the reputation of being the best bagger on the market. When it came to mulching, however, this deck design did not disperse the clippings evenly. This problem needed to be resolved quickly because the market was heading towards recycling and away from bagging.

  During this time, I was in charge of customer service, quality control and testing. In other words, anything that was a problem would eventually be my fault. I was traveling around the country trying to understand and correct these recycling issues.

  One of the engineers came up with several blade designs, some of which had multiple cutting tips. Our assignment through testing was to evaluate the performance of these blades. Some designs required too much horsepower while others simply would not cut grass. As the testing continued we began to understand what was required to achieve a quality cut with good grass dispersal.

  The test engineer zeroed in on a blade that had the low tip forward and the high tip trailing behind it. Work was then done to position the trailing tip in exactly the right position so the low tip would feed the clippings directly into the cutting surface of the trailing tip. This ensured that the clippings would be cut multiple times, which reduced their size. A downturned airlift was then added to the top blade which directed the clipping inward and downward away from the rolled lip of the mower housing.

  As the testing continued I started calling this, the blade with the leading edge forward. Every time I called it by that name the test engineer would point out that leading edges were always forward. Finally, to keep me from confusing the various designs he declared that from now on this blade would be called the ninja.

  As the blade was perfected, its performance was better than we could have imagined. When we demonstrated it to the sales and marketing folks their reaction was overwhelming. Marketing began immediately to develop a campaign calling it the Double Edge Mulching Blade. The reduction in clipping size, which was remarkable, was compared to other blades on the market and animated pictures of the action of the grass as it passed through the blade were developed.   Shortly after the double edge program was presented, the president of the company came down to the test lab to learn more about the development of this blade. While there he overheard it being called a ninja blade by those who were close to the project. He immediately stopped the Double Edge designation and it became known as the Snapper Ninja Blade. To the best I can recall, over the next two years 700,000 were sold yielding a gross profit of over five million dollars from blade sales alone. Not bad for a lawnmower blade. After this, when a new project was presented, I met with the salesmen and wrote the brochure proclaiming the features and benefits of the new offering and then let the smart people figure out how to meet the requirements. If someone said that some part of the project could not be done, I simply referred them to the brochure. Some folks did not like that approach but we always got good results. I still have a plaque with a gold plated Snapper Ninja Blade on it.