So last Friday we set out on a tour of some Retail Partners en route to a meeting in Kansas. We, in this case, was Senior Financial Manager Craig Mead, Senior Sales Manager Galynn Beer, and me. Galynn was kind enough to fly us in his plane which is fine since I didn't feel like driving. You can see a lot while cruising at eight thousand feet. Like these crazy fields of alfalfa and corn in Wisconsin. I don't see how they plant those sharp turns.
Saw lots of combines in the field harvesting corn. Also saw these quite a bit: wind turbines. These were in Iowa and seemed to go to the horizon. So apparently more farmland has now become un-treatable for insect pests and disease by aerial applicators. More on that in the future.
We landed in Spencer, Iowa and went down to the nearby town of Webb which is the home of Brown Fertilizer. Here is their tank farm near town. Obviously they are able to provide lots of AgroLiquid product to their customers from here. And of course they are still looking to expand.
Brad shows Galynn some of the tank arrangements. After that we saw their new office where Kerry manages the accounts, well she is an accountant after all. And also was nice enough to cook us some ribs for lunch. Thanks. I'll be back.
After that we flew down to Fairbury, NE and drove over to Deshler which is where SAM Brad Schultz lives. Now I have shown this picture of the home of Reinke Irrigation before, in September of 2014. But it's all I had of the whole site. Well we made a visit there for a private tour arranged by former Reinke employee Brad.
And it wasn't just any tour, but one given by the President of Reinke, Mr. Chris Roth. That's him next to Craig, Galynn and me. And it helped break the ice since we have two Reinke linear systems at the North Central Research Station. I didn't realize that they sold pivots all over the world, and have engineers from countries like India, China, South Africa and others to support sales. All living there in rural Nebraska.
We toured the plant where they have machines to roll steel into pipe. Robots cut and weld the sprinkler attachments and flanges. It was cool to see them in action. In fact Chris said that when they are referring to a particular robot, they call it "he", as in "he is cutting a hole in the pipe for a fitting." They sure don't act like regular machines. Some parts are dipped into tanks of molten zinc at over 800 degrees for galvanizing. And we saw lots more very interesting manufacturing steps as well. I couldn't take pictures of any of that though. But here we are out in the yard where pipe and other pieces are collected as needed to fill orders. That's Brad on the far side.
Craig, Brad and Galynn look over the large numbers of tank trailers that growers can use to haul fertilizer out to their fields to keep the planters going.
As we saw today, AgroLiquid is growing in Iowa and here in Nebraska. This was a long day that started early back in Michigan. But it is always enjoyable to visit with some of our Retail Partners...
...plus to have the opportunity to learn more about other agricultural suppliers like Reinke. The sun sets on this pivot, and that is our signal to also retire for the day. But our adventure was just beginning.
