Los Altos Parks Supervisor - Damon

Damon Cockerham – Supervisor of Parks Maintenance – Los Altos Parks and Recreation
650-947-2870

In-Person Interview with Joe Bingold

Los Altos has 20 acres of turf spread across several parks (biggest park ~3.5 acres), which are mowed once a week by 2 operators with 2 ride-on mowers. It takes 1 day (Wednesday) 9 hour shift to mow the entirety of the Los Altos parks. Thus, it takes about 18 hours to mow the parks. Of this time, about 5 hours is actually spent on the mowers – a lot of time is spent in travel between parks, clearing the grounds, etc.

They currently have a John Deere and a Toro mower. The mowers last about 10 years and cost about $60K. Residual value of the mowers at the end of the 10 yrs is $3K.

Given the smaller amount of turf that Damon is responsible to mow, there is probably not a business case for an automated mower. It is unlikely that they will reduce their manpower with this technology. That said, Damon did believe that an individual could start a mower going in a park and then go do other maintenance in the meantime (edging, park inspection, etc.)

Damon’s biggest concern was liability. He knows that teenage kids will likely mess around with the mower and create problems – potentially damaging themselves.

They are not overly concerned about damaging the blades by running over something small because they use rotating blade mowers. The mowers, would, however, need to have sensors to avoid other obstacles that can be present in the parks – such as bottles, branches, etc.

Due to noise ordinances, they cannot mow in the evening or night.

Mowers’ health is not a liability for them. Workers sometimes complain about back pain, but they don’t do anything about it (don’t sue).