President’s Column - Looking Back

Through my 40-plus year career in the cooperative system, I have had the opportunity to write numerous newsletter articles on an array of topics. While it may not be that apparent, at one point in my career, I was even the editor and attended a newsletter school to sharpen my skills. However, through all of my commentary, I have never written one like this, so bear with me.

It was with a mix of emotions that I recently announced my retirement. While some start the countdown and desperately look forward to the day they picked on the calendar as their date of retirement, I haven’t looked at it with that much eagerness. Over the past year, with each event that passed, the thought would cross my mind that this is the last one of these events I would have the opportunity to attend.

As I was thinking about retirement, I realized that if I am fully engaged in performing my role to the best of my ability, there was never going to be the perfect time to step aside. If the team at MKC is executing on our intent statement and driving hard every day to achieve our objectives, then we won’t ever have a slow period. If we’re waking up every day with the intent of making our customers more successful and raising the bar on what good performance looks like, then I don’t anticipate there being a perfect time to step aside.

At the end of that discovery, I had to pick a date. I was comforted by the knowledge that our team would execute the plan as well as ever, and the Board of Directors had the skills and foresight to select the new CEO. I was also constantly reminded that while managers have a retirement date, the cooperative never does.

Those of you who know me know that I don’t spend much of my time looking back. Possible exceptions would be to remind myself of what not to do again or to make sure we still have alignment. Nevertheless, generally, I’m forward-focused and the company is today. On this occasion, I am making an exception. I invite you to join me as I reflect on what I’ve observed as the movement of the cooperative system in my career.

It has been fascinating to me over the years to watch the local co-op morph from basically a warehouse for growers, a place to aggregate their purchases and a place to store and collectively market their grain, to what it has become today. The most influential and most successful cooperatives have positioned themselves to be an integral part of the operations that many of you operate today and to make that required massive investments in infrastructure, technology and talent. Our value propositions of the past simply were not going to get it done regardless of how tightly we hung on. Our structural anchors no longer had the same value to your operation. Our core values did, but not the tools, talent and infrastructure of yesteryear.

We had to realign and reshape our business to reconnect with yours. The tools we have adopted today are the differentiator for our customers. Even the most stubborn carpenter transitioned from the hand saw to the power saw, but we didn’t get rid of the carpenter—better tools, better knowledge and many times a better outcome by most measures. I have also learned that the best of these companies have incredible focus, especially when the landscape is changing as rapidly as we see it today. The strongest local co-ops have a plan; they clearly define what success looks like and then work their plan. None of us can begin to compete with companies like Nutrien, Cargill, ADM or Simplot on the world stage, or negotiate products like they can with that kind of volume. Still, we can compete with them on a local level and drive customer goal achievement better than any of them.

This cooperative, a co-op of the future, is going to continue to be successful by understanding your farm, your goals, and what you see as success. We will be responsive to your needs better than anyone else. We are capturing and utilizing data to do just that like never before. Data is the new gold and is the currency on which we’ll operate in the future. Clearly, in our operation, we can drive further efficiency by driving out costs. On your farm, we can use the data to help you make better decisions. Never before has it been more critical to understand your cost by each field and by each unit of production. Data, data management and understanding how to utilize the data gathered will separate the successful “fill in the blank” in the future. I used to fear the fact that someone was collecting my data. Now I believe if they can help improve my performance, drive cost from my operation, and help accomplish some of my goals, power to you.

Every business of the future will be a technologyoriented business. We may be a product and service provider, but the delivery mechanism will begin and end with our ability to deliver via technology. Everyday growers tell us they want more of an Omnichannel approach, and they want to conduct business how they want and when they want. These growers want to meet with an expert, develop a plan and then act out the plan at their leisure. Our customers will ultimately be able to dictate the type of experience they want with us and not have to conform to merely one size fits all approach. This customized approach aligns perfectly with our objective of making it easy to do business with us.

I hope you are as excited about the future of this company as I was when I first arrived at MKC in 2004. The same excitement still exists if not even of greater magnitude today. The challenge for all of us is to “re-learn” as fast as the world around us is changing. You don’t have to be a product of your environment; sometimes, you can create your own.

As I continue to reflect, I am constantly reminded of this quote, “We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past.” We have to have a ravenous determination to improve every aspect of our company. It’s in our best interest every day, regardless of any success we may have, to begin each day as a startup company. We have to be hungry to improve and fanatic about knowing our customers and helping them achieve whatever success means to them. I am more than confident we have the team to do it at MKC. Thank you for letting me be part of this team for so long, and know I will be a vocal advocate for this team forever. It’s a great one!