Le Mars Agri-Center

Harvest at the Popken farm east of Akron/north of Le Mars. Photo courtesy Austin Popken.

Previously, Alex worked for Icon Ag in Le Mars for 10 years. When Icon was rolled up in a merger, he decided the new company’s plan didn’t match his vision for his career; plus he wanted the flexibility to help on the farm. But the years at the John Deere dealership paid a lot of dividends. He was the “technology guy” at the dealership and the Popkens often got to test new technology on their farm. But Alex also worked in all aspects of that business, including sales, maintenance, and parts. “I got to know pretty much everything and that knowledge ended up helping us here drastically reduce our down time.”

The networking he did with college classmates paid off because some of them are now engineers and program writers at Deere. He’s able to stay in the loop with new technologies and sometimes get equipment questions answered faster than others.

712.546.4127 lemarsagricenter.com 205 First Ave. SW, Le Mars, IA 51031 LOVING EVERY SECOND OF A SURPRISE CAREER

Austin is eight years younger than his brother. During his junior year at SDSU, Austin was approached by Bruce Brock, owner of Brock Auction Co., to see if he’d like to shadow the auctioneer for the summer. “I loved every second of it.” In May 2019, he graduated on a Sunday and was in the Brock office working on Monday. Bruce also gave Austin the flexibility to help on the farm during the busiest times of the year. In the world of auctioneering, “You never know what’s going to be behind the machine shed door – from a rare piece of