Sunshine Quality Solutions Revenue and Competitors

Sunshine Equipment Company, Inc., with corporate offices in Donaldsonville, LA, is a Louisiana corporation with a history dating back to 1961. Initially named Waguespack Tractor Company, it evolved from a joint venture between John Deere Company and local farmers, that was run as a company branch outlet retailing agricultural equipment to the local sugar cane industry. The original location was near the downtown section of Donaldsonville at the junction of Bayou Lafourche with the Mississippi River. A location and name change occurred in the sixties, when we moved to a site near the Sunshine Bridge, just on the outskirts of Donaldsonville. This bridge, built during the administration of Governor Jimmy Davis (song writer of "You are my Sunshine!", hence the name Sunshine Bridge), was the first to provide highway access crossing for rural parishes in South Louisiana, other than the bridges in the cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Our Donaldsonville location has two separate facilities, a retail store complex, and our new administrative building. Through our retail store at the Donaldsonville location, we currently service the agricultural, commercial turf and consumer product lawn care needs of the rural area bounded by Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and Thibodaux-Houma area. This retail store is normally staffed with nineteen permanent and three part-time employees. Our administrative building houses our corporate offices, on the second floor, and is normally staffed with seven permanent employees and two part-time employees. The first floor is of our administrative building is leased to the local United States Department of Agriculture's offices of Farm Service Agency and Natural Resources Conservation Service. These offices Service all farmers within the surrounding three parish areas. In 1983, Sunshine purchased an existing John Deere Consumer Products dealership, Waguespack Machinery, in Napoleonville, Louisiana. This dealership was moved in the spring of 1988, to LaPlace, Louisiana, a community located about 15 miles west of New Orleans. Today the LaPlace location services the commercial turf and consumer product lawn care needs of New Orleans and surrounding areas. This location is normally staffed with five permanent employees and is located approximately 33 miles east of Donaldsonville. In June of 1988, Sunshine purchased an existing John Deere Agricultural and Consumer Products dealership, Sugar Belt Equipment Company, in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Today the Thibodaux location continues to service the agricultural, commercial turf and consumer product lawn care needs of the Thibodaux, Houma, and lower Bayou Lafourche areas of South Louisiana. This location is normally staffed with seven permanent employees and is located approximately 31 miles south-southeast of Donaldsonville. In the fall of 1987, Sunshine entered into a new venture, John Deere Golf and Turf Products Distribution, which serviced golf courses throughout Louisiana and Mississippi. Then in mid 1988, we expanded further by picking up the Ransomes Turf and Professional Lawn Care Products Distributorship. We further added the Ryan, Cushman Turf Vehicles and Cushman Turf Front Line product lines to our distributorship in 1990, 1991, and 1992 respectively. In the early spring of 1991, we moved our commercial golf and turf product activities to a new location in Prairieville, Louisiana, just on the southeastern edge of the Baton Rouge metropolitan area. On 30 September 1997, we moved our downsized Golf and Turf operations back into our Donaldsonville location as the growth into the Golf and Turf industry did now meet the criteria we had laid out in our initial business plan. And finally, in the summer of 1998, we decided to completely exit this sector of the turf business. We have retained our facilities in Prairieville, however, and it has been converted to a lease property. The location is about 20 miles north-northwest of Donaldsonville. In January of 1994, Sunshine's expansion continued, purchasing another existing John Deere Consumer Products dealership, Kathryn's Power Equipment, located in the northeastern Louisiana city of Monroe. The Monroe location continues to service the consumer product lawn care needs of suburban and rural areas surrounding Monroe and equipment needs of both golf courses and commercial cutters throughout the northern Louisiana and central Mississippi. This location is normally staffed with ten permanent and two part-time employees and is located approximately 230 miles north-northwest of Donaldsonville. In 1995, another expansion was undertaken that involved building a separate two-story administration building to house our corporate offices and to provide leased space for our local CollocatedUSDA Agencies. Construction began in December of 1995, with our tenants moving into their office space in March of 1996, and our corporate offices taking occupancy the next month. The Administration building is just next door to our Donaldsonville Store facilities, and as mentioned earlier, is staffed with seven permanent and two part-time employees. In September of 2000, expansion continues as Sunshine was awarded the contract to service the Baton Rouge market area for John Deere Commercial and Consumer Equipment. We purchased the assets of the former John Deere Dealer, Appel Tractors, and have located in their facility in a strip mall on Perkins Road area between Essen Lane and Bluebonnet Boulevard, just off of Interstate 10. This location will be staffed with seven permanent employees and is located approximately 31 miles northwest of Donaldsonville, just in the center of Baton Rouge.