SECTION
Attachments Pages 51-56
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Muskox Eyes Market Expansion for Snowblower Attachment Muskox photo
Muskox photo
(L-R): Ron, Noah and Adam Bergman, the core team of Muskox.
By Ruksana Hussain CEG CORRESPONDENT
For many in the design and architecture industries, less is more is a mantra. For the Bergmans, that principle held true with the October 2020 launch of their Muskox bi-directional snowblower attachment. Taking a wellknown industry pain point and creating a streamlined solution has allowed the Minnesota-based company to find great success in the last few months, despite launching during the pandemic. “My father Ron, who is also my partner, was doing snow removal at his shop — he was using two different attachments to do it,” said Adam Bergman, co-founder at Muskox. “He had the idea of combining those machines, so he’d only have to use one attachment. My background had been as a real estate investor, and we do snow removal on all our rental property.
One of the biggest pain points we had was the shoveling in front of garage doors.” Adam saw the potential for not just shops but also homeowners’ associations to use such a solution. Prototyping began in spring 2017 and finetuning the product over the
The 22-78 Muskox bi-directional snowblower attachment’s back drag feature, for which the Bergmans received the patent in spring 2021, allows operators to blow snow while back dragging in front of obstructions, saving time and money, and lowering any chance of injuries by decreasing the manual labor typically involved in the process. The lowered chute, a result of the finetuning process, also is better for operator visibility.
next few years included a hydraulic slip clutch and redesigning the bottom of the machine to incorporate a glide plate to avoid accidents on grass or gravel surfaces. “Whether you're an 8-year-old or an 80-year-old, you understand
Muskox photo
About 90 percent of Muskox sales are direct-to-consumer while the rest are in partnership with RDO Equipment, through which Muskox is sold in 36 different locations.
the challenge with existing snow blowers of needing to shovel in front of garage doors, it’s a universal problem,” said Adam. “When you see ours where you have that opportunity to back drag and blow at the same time, you instantly see the value and what makes our product different.” In 2020, Muskox won first place in Northwest Minnesota Foundation’s IDEA Competition receiving a $15,000 cash award and another $5,000 in professional services in recognition of its innovative product. The 22-78 Muskox bi-directional snowblower attachment’s back drag feature, for which the Bergmans received the patent in spring 2021, allows operators to blow snow while back dragging in front of obstructions, saving time and money, and lowering any chance of injuries by decreasing the manual labor typically involved in the process. The lowered chute, a result of the fine-
tuning process, is also better for operator visibility. The 78-in. machine is available as a single auger and dual auger, but Muskox is looking at expanding into additional sizes. They turned to operators at snow removal companies to test the product. “We've had a lot of positive feedback from operators letting us know where they would like to see our next steps go,” said Adam. “We are operators building for operators. We've had a lot of requests for different sizing on machines both smaller and larger.” The core team at Muskox consists of co-founder Adam, managing business development, marketing, and financing; his father Ron, a retired engineer from Artic Cat Snowmobiles — where he did research and development on snowmobiles for more than 30 years — who heads engineering, see MUSKOX page 52
