January 09th, 2024

We’re all familiar with how hard the members of the Machine Dealers National Association (MDNA) work.  But how aware are we of how hard some of them play?
 
Putting in long hours at the office, on the shop floor, or on the road is necessary and expected for business success.  For some people, though, it’s just the start.  Away from work, they find focus, inspiration, and meaning from involvement in what most people consider “extreme” recreation — distance running, triathlon competitions, even diving and surfing. And these are not extensions of childhood pursuits. Some came to strenuous sports at relatively advanced ages.  And they’ll tell you they’re now getting as much or more out of these activities as they’re putting in.
 
Here are profiles of four MDNA members — John Butz, Nick Gibbs, Tom Lowkes, and Mike Mills — who are athletes in it for the long run, or the long bike ride, or the long swim, or… well, you get the idea.
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John Butz was a latecomer to extreme sports, but the Florida triathlete quickly made up for lost time and learned a valuable lesson in the bargain.

Butz is CEO of Resell CNC, a used CNC dealer and live and online auction service with a global customer reach, located in Midland, Fla., a suburb of Orlando. As a high-schooler in Madison, Wis., he ran cross country but didn’t keep it up through college and most of his early career in the used machinery business.

But an older brother who had taken up running didn’t let John forget those days on the course and badgered him to get into extreme distance sports with him. 
 
"I did a little bit here and there — 5Ks, 10Ks, a bit of exercise — then quit,” John recalls. “But it stayed on my mind. Then one day I woke up and said, ‘I want to do an Ironman’.”  So he did.  He rearranged his schedule to train, then ran half-triathlons in Idaho and his old hometown of Madison in preparation for the real thing: a 2.4-mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bike ride, capped by a 26.22-mile marathon run.
 
He trained seven days a week, improved his poor swimming skills and learned to appreciate the restorative effects of ice baths.
 
“This was in my mid- to late 40s,” he says.  “And you can ‘fake’ a half-triathlon but you can’t fake a full one. It’s rough. It took a while, but I was finally ready in November, 2019.”
 
The course was in Tempe, Ariz., just outside Phoenix. He wasn’t after a podium finish, but he’d set a combined-time goal of 15 hours — and achieved that goal with a couple of minutes to spare. It was his one and only full ironman so far, but he learned a life lesson in the preparation.
 
“What holds us back, nine out of 10 times, is our mind, not our body,” he reflects. “Our challenges are mostly mental.” So as he honed his physical skills, the mental obstacles disappeared, and “I must say, it has been a beautiful journey.”
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If anyone seems determined to go the distance, it’s Nick Gibbs. When he goes for a weekend run, he often schedules it carefully because it can take the better part of a day — and night.
 
Gibbs, the Director of Business Development at Gibbs Machinery Company, is an ultramarathon runner. Unlike triathlon participants, ultramarathoners don’t swim or bike as part of their pursuit. But they more than make up for it with the distance they cover on foot — 50 kilometers (just over 31 miles), minimum, and often 100 miles or more.
 
"I might not be the fastest out there, but I can go for a long time,” Gibbs says of his running credentials. He grew up playing hockey, but turned to running during COVID and ran his first ultramarathon a few months later in Traverse City, Mich. Gibbs Machinery is located in the Detroit suburb of Warren, Mich., a couple of ultramarathons southeast of Traverse City. Over the past three years, Gibbs has run both the traditional point-to-point 100-milers as well as lap races around 20-mile courses like the one at Traverse City. Among his biggest supporters is his wife Courtney, who will no doubt one day soon be joined in the cheer block by their first child, daughter Josephine Jane.
 
Gibbs took part in his first New York Marathon in November, enjoying the relatively short 26.2-mile experience he calls “a bucket-list thing.”  He says he’s willing to consider entering what he described as “pretty gnarly” ultramarathons planned for distances of 200 and even 300 miles.
 
“It’s a really good way to get your thoughts together,” he says, explaining how ultramarathons can translate to the business side of his life. “You Iearn to structure your time as you prepare for the races, and to problem-solve on the go if things start to go sideways out there.”
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Many dedicated runners who train all their lives and never find themselves competing in the Boston Marathon — arguably the most famous annual distance race in the world.  For Tom Lowkes, though, the Patriot’s Day promenade was the first — and so far, the only — marathon he has completed.
 
Lowkes is owner and president of Fabricating & Production Machinery, Inc., an MDNA member that is a 40-year-old, family-operated new, used and liquidation machinery business in Worcester, Mass.  Boston is just 47 miles east of Worcester, and the Marathon in 2000 marked the beginning of Lowkes’s affinity for long runs that has yet to be fully explored.
 
“I began running as an adult," says Tom, who played soccer and football in high school. Runners can enter the Boston Marathon either by virtue of their qualifying times in other marathons or by being a member of a fund-raising team.  Tom took the latter route, but the six months of training needed to prepared him for the 26.3-mile course produced something unexpected.
 
“It turned out to be a great stress-reliever,” he recalls. “I call it my decompression time. Not being the fastest runner in the world, you’re not competing with other runners. You’re competing with yourself.”
 
In the years since his Boston debut, Tom has limited himself to half-marathon distances. But the internal competition has spurred him to take on a new challenge, and he has begun training for an ultra marathon over a 50-mile course in Vermont in September 2024.
 
“It’s just a goal at this point,” he says. “We’ll see how the training goes.  But I’ve found that I need a goal — something like this to look forward to, something difficult to achieve so I can get out the door and go after it.”
 
Whether the door leads to a long day at the office or an extended run through the forested hills of central Massachusetts, Tom Lowkes looked within and found the everyday secret to going the distance.
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At the age most people stop taking part in extreme sports, Mike Mills decided to start.
 
Mills, who manages MDNA-member Machinery Resources International’s office in Scottsdale, Ariz., has been in the machining business since graduating from high school, 45 years ago.  Early on, his work schedule was too hectic to allow for recreational sports, but as more time became available he chose to spend it in the out-of-doors.
 
Mills took up swimming in his after 40s, and soon was scuba diving in Hawaii and off the California coast at La Jolla, not far from his home in Cypress, a community tucked in among Los Angeles, Anaheim, and Long Beach. He took up surfing — “the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted” — at age 50.  That led him closer to the extreme edge of competition and eventually to his first Ironman Triathlon — 140.6 miles of cycling, swimming, and running — at age 60.
 
“As you train yourself for these kind of events, you learn you can do anything you want to,” he says of the process of reaching one’s mental and physical limits.  “And you learn that many of  the same things are required to finish a tough race or finish a tough day in business. You find your focus, meet your deadlines, overcome your challenges.”
 
Lately, Mills has gravitated to Spartan racing, a combination of long-distance running and obstacle course challenges that attracts participants of all ages.  It has become a family activity of sorts for Mills and his three grown children, along with his brother and a niece and nephew.
 
“They’re more fun that doing triathlons,” he declares. “I’m going to do them while I still can.”
 
With more than three dozen triathlons under his belt, Mills says he might still be game for an ironman these days, “if a really close friend wanted to do one.” But the Spartan races or even a dash through a shorter “mud-run” course are more his speed now.
 
“Events like these still have meaning because you’re tapping into resources that are already inside you,” he reflects. “When you find them, it’s very satisfying.”
 
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