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John Barron

John Barron

Journalist and TV show host

Aug 1, 2026

11:12
So they're putting a lot of work, a lot of effort into that, really marking the fact that he made such a remarkable contribution to farming.
11:20
He was probably one of the greatest innovators that the world of agriculture has ever known.
11:26
He created the Ferguson system of farming, which was first saw light of day in the black tractor that he built in 1935 in collaboration with a team of local people here that he had surrounded himself with.
11:41
80% of all of the tractors in the world that are built since then incorporate the Ferguson system.
11:47
He was also the first man in Ireland to fly a plane, the second man in the British Isles to fly a plane of his own manufacture.
11:54
He came from a culture here in Northern Ireland at the time when he went into the workforce around 1902.
11:59
There was a huge culture of innovation, engineering, entrepreneurship.
12:23
What impact did that have on Harry Ferguson growing up here in this landscape? What impact did that have on him as an innovator?
3:04
So why in the world are you out here?
3:07
So my aunt actually lives out in Santa Fe, so just my cousins.
3:12
So for the last 16 years, I remember very fondly, 2010, the Christmas that we had the entire family come out.
3:19
And that's like one of the first times I've really kind of, you know, remember being in snow.
3:23
And I thought, how do you have snow here? And I always thought about that.
3:29
And I know Santa Fe gets a little bit more than you guys down there.
3:32
But, you know, it was a lot of fun.
5:36
So are you going to be able to survive in a state with no major, major pro sports teams?
BenHOST
7:37
How does it work for them?
7:39
We have an annual plan.
7:40
We now know the cadence of the challenges.
7:42
We do one challenge per quarter.
7:45
And what we do at the end of it is that if an employee completes all challenges, that they get some reward.
7:50
So one company we're working with at the moment gives an extra day's annual leave the following year.
7:55
Another company actually gives a financial bonus.

6 MINS LATER

BenHOST
13:43
Can I tell you about it? Or can I have a meeting? What do you do? What's your message?
Colm Flynn
Colm FlynnCORRESPONDENT
29:17
He traveled around Ireland demonstrating them at agricultural shows, and once again, his ability to put on a good demonstration got people's attention.
29:27
The demonstrations were so impressive, he was asked by the Department of Agriculture at the time, I think it was called the Board of Agriculture in Ireland, um, would he help farmers to, uh, grow extra cereal for the war effort because Ireland was remitted to grow, I think, another 500,000 acres of cereal by the British government for the war effort.
29:49
So Ferguson was asked to help farmers in the tillage areas of Ireland to, to achieve that.
29:56
So he was appalled by the tractors, which were large.
29:59
They were clunky.
30:00
They were dangerous, and of course, the, the majority of farmers at the time on the smaller farms were using horse-drawn traction.
30:08
So Ferguson then set out really to improve the plow, and over a period of time, up until 1933, he developed what was known as the Ferguson system.

5 MINS LATER

Colm Flynn
Colm FlynnCORRESPONDENT
35:44
With all this, uh, success in business, was he a very wealthy man? Was he happy? Was he satisfied?
Colm Flynn
Colm FlynnCORRESPONDENT
2:01
Now there isn't a huge amount of detail about Ferguson's early childhood, but if we jump forward to 1902, we find him moving to Belfast to work for his older brother Joe, who had set up a car and cycle repair business on the Shankill Road.
2:19
He hated farm work.
2:20
He had left school in 1899.
2:23
He'd worked until 1903 on his father's farm.
2:26
He hated the work.
2:28
He was very independent-minded.
2:29
He was never going to be interested in repetitive work.
Colm Flynn
Colm FlynnCORRESPONDENT
5:06
And once again, his ability to put on a good demonstration got people's attention.
22:13
Tell us about the Orca.
22:14
Yeah, so the Orca is supposed to be a mass-produced, mass-operated aircraft, right? So we make them here in Virginia, or sorry, in Virginia where we're from.
22:23
And the idea is we designed for easy manufacturing, wide use, and operable by as many folks as possible, right? So what you see here is the basic Orca, right? So this is what we start off with.
22:36
and then we customize it to whatever mission you need.
22:39
In this case, here at Camp Atterbury, our mission was a one-way attack, right? And one-way attack, FPV Ukrainian style, requires a bunch of other equipment to make it fully useful, right? So here we also have a relay for the Orca so that we can see it all the way to the bottom.
24:51
Yes.
24:52
And we're working with the folks over at Cochise County, and we're trying to integrate into their border monitoring system out there.
25:00
Are you working with DHS? Just local for now, but I think eventually they all work for DHS.

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