He was not satisfied with his fatherís reliance on horses for farm power nor with the machines available to farmers at that time. He converted to tractor power and immediately began modifying machinery to provide more efficiency and service.

Jerome put dual wheels on his tractor. He began the practice of using rubber tires on tillage machinery to cut down on drag. He developed a levelling hitch for a cultivator that reduced the pounds of pull. This was important in an era of lower horsepower tractors. He experimented with cultivator seeding. He developed new coatings for cultivator shovels to make them last longer. He invented the inline series hydraulic control system. He installed a drill fill with distribution augers on his truck to cut out back-breaking shovelling. Most of these ideas were picked up and marketed by farm machinery manufacturers.

His crowning achievement was the air seeder. Heíd discovered that standard seed drills did not seed at the same rate throughout the operation because when the box was full it was heavier. His air seeder, which he patented, had a caddy behind the tractor that carried seed and fertilizer and the seed was blown into the ground rather than being allowed to drop by gravity. It was manufactured first in Winnipeg as the Bechard Seeding System but later was produced by Bourgault.

Aside from farm machinery, he built an energy efficient house, mostly underground, and equipped it with a number of innovations, including electrically controlled curtains. He experimented with electrical generation by a huge windmill, running a 110-volt system. He had a powerful fan that blew snow away from his front door.

His many achievements in the farm shop and on the farm were important to him but he also found time to be an active community worker. He served on the Wascana Conservation and Development Board for 25 years, on his church board and in the Knights of Columbus. Jerome received the Air Canada Heart of Gold award in 1988. He died in 1991.