Denzil Robbins got his start in the farm equipment business in 1970, when he was a high school student.

Denzil Robbins figures he’ll adjust to retirement, even after half a century in the farm equipment business, but he’s not so sure about his buddy dozing on a soft pad beneath Robbins’ desk.

That’s Ty, his 15-year-old Australian shepherd/border collie mix.

As Robbins recounted his career on a recent sunny morning in his wood-paneled office at Robbins Equipment Inc. in Baker City, he wondered aloud how Ty would react when her familiar routine changes after Robbins retires Feb. 29.

“She jumps in the pickup every morning and when we get here she makes the rounds greeting everyone,” Robbins, 65, said with a fond smile. “What’s she going to think?”

Certainly neither Ty nor Robbins will become strangers in this building on 10th Street.

Robbins’ two sons, Kristopher and Brandon, are buying the business, which includes dealerships in La Grande, Burns and Christmas Valley in addition to the original Baker City location.

Brandon Robbins lives in Cove and manages the La Grande dealership.

Kristopher Robbins runs the Burns operation.

One of Denzil’s daughters, Kassie, works at the Baker City dealership, and his other daughter, Lauren, is married to Adam Zink, the service manager in Baker City.

Robbins Equipment has been a family business since its inception in 1983.

Denzil’s wife of 40 years, Kathy, a registered nurse who retired in June 2019, kept the business’ books for 15 years.

“It’s kind of a difficult transition, letting it go,” said Denzil Robbins, who was named Legacy Man of the Year at the annual Baker County Chamber of Commerce banquet in January.

“But it’s staying in the family.”

Although Robbins opened his business in 1983, his career in the farm equipment industry started more than a decade earlier.

In the summer of 1970, between his sophomore and junior years at Baker High School, he worked at Britton Equipment in Baker City, where his duties included sweeping the floor and stocking shelves.

Robbins concedes that his entry into the business was perhaps preordained.

His dad, Lew Robbins, was an agricultural mechanics teacher and FFA adviser at Baker High School from 1961 until he retired in 1986.

(Lew Robbins, who died on Feb. 20, 2015, is honored with a plaque and artistic branding iron in front of Old West Federal Credit Union at 2036 Broadway St. in Baker City.)

Denzil, who was 7 when his family moved from Heppner to Baker City in 1961, grew up on the Pocahontas Road farm where his family raised cattle and sheep.

He still owns that property.

Even as a boy, Robbins was fascinated by farm equipment.

“I kind of liked to tinker with stuff when I was a kid,” he said. “It’s what I like to do — kind of my niche, although I didn’t know it at the time.”

One common thread throughout his 50 years in the business is his association with Hesston equipment.

“I wouldn’t have stayed with the Hesston line that long if I didn’t think it was a good product,” he said.

But though the name painted on the machinery is the same, the changes in their size and capabilities are immense.

“The implements we had back then were pretty small — efficient, but slow,” he said. “Today you look at the big swathers at 12 miles an hour. We were lucky back then to go 2 or 3.”

In those days a haying crew might get through 50 acres in a day, Robbins said.

Modern equipment makes 200-acre days possible.

And the workers today are likely to be fresher, and far less dusty, when they’re finished.

When Robbins got his start, tractors lacked cabs.

Modern models, by contrast, are as comfortable as a sedan, with enclosed cabs, air-conditioning and radios.

And the advent of GPS devices, which help farmers plant, irrigate and harvest more efficiently, has revolutionized farming, Robbins said.

“The technology is moving so fast,” he said. “I don’t move quite as fast. I’m old school.”

When Robbins started his business in 1983 he initially did repairs and servicing. In the fall of 1985 he decided to take a risk and become a full-line equipment dealer. That became official in January 1986.

“It was tough times, with high interest rates,” he said.

Robbins said that from the start he recognized that to succeed he needed to do more than just sell and repair equipment.

“You need to help producers do what they want to do,” he said. “These people work hard to make a living, and they’re frugal. They expect us to perform. Our customers take care of us and we take care of them.”

Robbins said he believed he had an advantage because he was himself a farmer, using the same equipment he sold. He raises horse-quality hay, something he plans to continue in retirement.

“It gives me firsthand knowledge on the equipment,” he said. “I try it, and it helps us be a better sales operation. People drive by my place and they look to see if I know what I’m doing. If I can go out there and do it, prove myself, I can show this is how the equipment works for me.”

But Robbins said farming his own ground is far more than a business tool.

“I just like to farm — it’s my therapy for the stress of everyday,” he said. “I turn off my phone, crawl in the tractor and put in some hours.”

Robbins said he’s so accustomed to rising with the sun — “farmers and ranchers work from 5 to 8, not 8 to 5,” he said — that he can’t imagine altering his schedule despite retirement.

He jokes that his wife wants to put blinds on their bedroom windows, but he can’t abide being awakened by anything except the light of a new day.

Robbins said he considered retiring five years ago but that plan didn’t work out.

About two years ago, he said, he started making definite plans with his sons and the rest of his family.

Then, when his wife retired last June, Robbins said he figured he would stay on until 2020 — to “shoot for 50” years.

And since Feb. 29 is Leap Day, that seemed a fortuitous pick for his final day.

His surprise honor as Legacy Man of the Year made the decision to retire seem all the more appropriate, Robbins said.

“That was quite an honor, to be recognized like that,” he said with a smile. “I figured I’d like to go out on a high note.”

“It’s kind of a difficult transition, letting it go.”

— Denzil Robbins