GROWMARK Employees Recognized by NCFC

Fourteen GROWMARK employees were recognized at the 2009 National Council of Farmer Cooperatives’ (NCFC) Information Fair, a communications contest that recognizes excellence in the publications, member relations, and marketing products of farmer cooperatives.

Earning first place honors were Jenny Haycraft, marketing communications specialist, for the 2009 Crop Protection Product brochure; Dorothy Ahlenius, corporate communications and marketing services administrative assistant, and Amy Bradford, corporate communications manager, for annual meeting promotional materials; and Karen Jones, publications and news specialist, for Spirit Online.

Second place honors were given to Bev Long, marketing communications manager, Rob Huston, manager, AgriVisor, LLC, and Paula McGowan, assistant market analyst, AgriVisor, LLC, for the AgriVisor, LLC 35th Anniversary and New Product e-mail; Jeff Bunting, weed science technical manager, Kevin Black, insect and plant disease technical manager, Howard Brown, manager, agronomy services, Lance Ruppert, crop protection marketing manager, Mark Thornsbrough, director, crop protection, and Long for the 2008 FS Crop Protection Handbook; Tiffany Loercher, graphic designer, and Jones for Spirit magazine; and Jones for multi-media presentation.

Huston, Long, and McGowan earned third place for the AgriVisor, LLC Major Product Line brochure and Haycraft earned third place for the FS Adjuvant Products 2009 brochure.

Honorable mention in the Annual Report category went to Jane White, creative design manager, Bradford, and Jones.

NCFC is a national association representing America's farmer cooperatives. There are nearly 3,000 farmer cooperatives across the U.S. whose members include a majority of our nation's more than 2 million farmers, ranchers and growers.

Spradlin Elected to TFI Board

Jim Spradlin, GROWMARK vice president, agronomy, was recently named to the board of directors of The Fertilizer Institute (TFI). He is one of 24 directors chosen nationwide to serve a one-year term.

TFI represents the nation's fertilizer industry. Producers, wholesalers, retailers, and trading firms which comprise its membership are served by a full-time Washington, D.C. staff in various legislative, educational, and technical areas as well as with information and public relations programs.

America's Heartland

GROWMARK, on behalf of the FS member cooperatives, is a sponsor of the America's Heartland program which airs on RFD-TV as well as local public television stations.

According to its website, the program's reporters and crews have brought in stories from all across America over its first four seasons. In 2005 the show opened with the line "America's heartland is more than a place; it's a state of mind," and more than 300 stories later, it's still proving true. Providing food, fuel, and fiber for America and the world is an act of passion on the part of farmers and ranchers big or small, mainstream or specialized.

Visit http://www.americasheartland.org/ for more information and showtimes in your area.

2009 Winter Outlook

MID-CO COMMODITIES recently held its Winter Outlook meeting for 2009 at the Doubletree Hotel in Bloomington, Ill.

Presenters included Bob Trimpe, MID-CO commodity risk consultant, provided the soybean outlook; Chuck Spencer from the Illinois Farm Bureau offered a governmental update; John Cripe, GROWMARK energy risk manager presented an energy update; Aaron Curtis, MID-CO commodity risk consultant, reviewed the wheat outlook; and Tim Abel, MID-CO commodity risk consultant provided the corn outlook.

More than 175 employees from across the GROWMARK System attended the event. MID-CO has hosted the Winter Outlook meeting for more than 20 years. They also hold a summer conference in August.

Advanced Director Certification Program

A completion ceremony was recently held for the first class of the Advanced Director Certification Program. The program is designed to help local cooperative board members broaden their business perspective, enhance leadership skills, increase knowledge of strategic issues impacting the GROWMARK System, and improve their understanding of the System’s strategic direction. Participants met for three sessions which included visits to the Chicago Board of Trade, Alpha, Ill. Distribution Center, the National Cooperative Refinery Association (NCRA) in McPherson, Kan., and GROWMARK Lubricants in Council Bluffs, Iowa.



Participants were: Rollo Burnett, Southern FS, Inc.; Mike DeSutter, RIVERLAND FS, Inc.; Rick Dickinson, Evergreen FS, Inc.; Scott Durbin, Assumption Cooperative Grain; John Eccles, North Wellington Co-operative; Robert Gratton, La Co-operative Agricole d’Embrun Limitee; Kevin Herink, New Century FS, Inc.; Michael Hoeft, Ag-Land FS, Inc.; Jim Maw, AGRIS Co-operative Ltd.; Glenn Milne, Madoc Co-operative Association; Dennis Neuhaus, AgriPride FS, Inc.; Mark Neumann, Evergreen FS, Inc.; Joseph Pickrell, Lincoln Land FS, Inc.; Ron Polage, Gold Star FS, Inc.; Don Schrader, Gateway FS, Inc.; and DonVos, New Alliance FS, Inc.

Embrun Co-operative Increases Storage Capacity

About a year ago, Norm Surprenant, crop manager for La Co-operative Agricole d'Embrun put forward a proposal to increase the co-operative’s grain storage capacity to keep up with the upswing in corn production.

At a cost of $600,000, two new storage bins that hold an additional 5,800 metric tons of grain were added to the facility in September and all storage bins at the site are already at full capacity holding 15,000 tonnes of corn.


“This will not be the end of our expansion,” says Surprenant. “There is an obvious decline in the number of dairy and livestock operations because farmers are switching to cash crops, and with the ethanol plant in Johnstown, about an hour away from us, we are pretty confident the demand for corn and the need to store it will continue to be in high demand going forward.”

Gauthier Honored for Service to Cooperatives

The evening of the eighth annual Ontario Co-operative Association Conference and Gala unfolded with the evening banquet revealing this year’s new crop of Spirit Award winners, marking the 10th anniversary for these awards.

GROWMARK Ontario Director of Operations Claude Gauthier, was recognized with the Distinguished Co-operator Spirit Award.

Gauthier began his career as a founding member of the Temiskaming Grain Marketing Co-operative Inc. (Temgrain) and served as a director, president of the board and later was appointed to the position of general manager. Today, Temgrain continues to be an integral and thriving operational arm of Co-opérative Régionale de Nipissing Sudbury.

In his youth, Gauthier participated in the first ever co-ed Co-operative Young Leaders (CYL) program in 1975. In 1985, he was elected as the youngest-ever director of United Co-operatives of Ontario (UCO) and in 1991, was appointed the youngest-ever chairman and president of the UCO Board. Claude is a member of several co-op sector committees and organizations. He is vice president of the Canadian Co-operative Association’s Board of Directors, and has travelled as far as Singapore to spread his passion for co-operatives as a Canadian delegate to the International Co-operative Association’s General Assembly. He is also an active trustee on the board of CDF (Cooperative Development Foundation of Canada), a charitable foundation which raises money to fund many co-operative development projects aimed at alleviating poverty around the world.

Many past award winners were honored during the 10th anniversary celebration and among them that evening were Bill Chamberlain, past general manager of North Wellington Co-operative Services and Denis Bourdeau, president of La Co-operative Agricole d’Embrun, both of whom had a role in presenting the Spirit award to Gauthier.

Bill Chamberlain, 2001 Spirit Award winner (L) and Denis Bourdeau, 2006 Spirit Award recipient (R) present Claude Gauthier with this year’s Distinguished Co-operator Award.