Home of the Range

Who would ever guess that the upscale kitchen range revolution would be birthed in a rural Mississippi town? And by a lowly home builder? And that Greenwood, MS once the cotton capital of the world would become a hotbed for entrepreneurial activity? More on the entrepreneurial hotbed in the next couple of days.

Today, I want to focus upon the birth and growth of one of the great American stories of developing a dream into reality. Fred Carl was a fourth generation home builder who loved to cook. He wanted a commercial-type range for his new house in 1980 but couldn’t find any. He was frustrated that there wasn’t anything available for his new home. He thought that there might be other new homeowners who would also want a fancier stove in their kitchen.

Fred drew conceptual drawings during that frustrating time in 1980, but he didn’t start the business until late 1983. He raised money from ten local individuals, people who knew Fred and shared in his vision to launch the very first commercial range for home use in the USA. It wasn’t going to be an easy journey.

He approached every manufacturer of commercial ranges in the USA with his idea, but they all turned him down. He said, “When I first came up with the idea for Viking, people laughed at me and sent me on my way.” He finally found a California company that would help him engineer the product and contract manufacture it for him. Testing and certification took years and it wasn’t until 1987 that the first stove rolled off the production line. You need a lot of patience to be a successful entrepreneur!

Homeowners loved it! Sales exploded and Fred decided to move all production back home to Greenwood, MS in 1989. He thought of moving to Jackson, MS to grow the business and went so far as to rent space there, “but, I saw that it didn’t feel right. I’m a local boy and I decided that I’m either going to do this in Greenwood or not do it at all,” Fred said.

His first plant was a 35,000 sf former distribution warehouse that his father had built in the 50s. Today the company has four manufacturing and distribution facilities in Greenwood, totaling over 500,000 sf. The corporate headquarters are located in the old Opera House and a collection of ten historic cotton buildings constructed in the late 1800s and early 1900s located on the banks of the Yazoo River.

Viking, still privately owned, employs over 1,000 people in this Delta town of 19,000. Annual sales exceed $250 million. The product is sold throughout the US and Canada and is found in more than 80 other countries throughout the world.

“We use the Viking Grill as a great example of what we can produce here,” Robert Ingram, Executive Director of the local economic development agency told me. Tomorrow, how Greenwood, the Home of the Range, is benefiting from Viking’s cultural influence.