Like A Well-Oiled Machine

Last Thursday I traveled to Council Bluffs, Iowa to visit with some of the employees at the GROWMARK Lubricants plant for a story in the March/April issue of Spirit. Scott Rarig was kind enough to visit with me and give me a tour of the facility where FS, Archer, and United lubricant products are blended and packaged.

One thing that stands out in my mind was how clean the facility was. One thing Scott mentioned in his interview was the housekeeping policy - at the end of each shift, every work area is responsible for a short checklist of clean-up duties. From what I observed, everyone there should be commended for a job well done!

I was also impressed with the employees I visited with as I walked around. I really appreciated the time they took out of their busy shift to answer my questions and be part of the Spirit story. A big thank you to Rocky, Chuck, Ryan, and Mike for allowing me to interview you, and also to everyone else whose day I disrupted with photos!

My interviews focused on the importance of safety and various safety procedures in place around the plant. The employees at GROWMARK Lubricants have an excellent safety record and are taking advantage of a variety of training materials available through GROWMARK. As Ryan Wood so nicely summed up our conversation: "Safety's good."

Career Makes a Complete Circle

This article is reprinted from the Gateway News, with permission from author Herman Albers.

The old adage is that what goes around, comes around.

That sums up Dean Reichert's career with the FS companies. Dean retired Jan. 16 from Gateway FS's Waterloo, Ill. fertilizer plant. It is the same facility at which Reichert began working out of high school in 1965.

In between, there have been several job changes and a lot of people helped. And, if not for some interest rates, Reichert might not have worked for Gateway FS at all. He explained that he worked at his father's Western Auto store in Columbia and was going to buy the store from his dad, but high interest rates at the time made him change his mind.

Instead, he got a job with Monroe Service Company at the Waterloo fertilizer plant. There were some other jobs in between, but in 1977, he was hired at the Farm Town store in Waterloo, present location of the Fast Stop. He began as a "do-it-all" and delivered some LP gas and LP bottles in between. He eventually became manager.

"Farm Town was a combination Tru-Valu Hardware store and appliance store," Reichert said. "We were really one of the few places in town that sold appliances at the time."

In 1990, he left Farm Town and became a petroleum delivery salesman. The Farm Town store closed one year later to become the Fast Stop store.

"It was a good move for the company to get out of the appliance business," he said. "Other stores were coming into town and offering appliance sales. It was a good time to bow out."

In 2003, Reichert went back to the Waterloo fertilizer plant as the office clerk where he did billing, ordered chemicals, and waited on customers.

He said the plant sold a lot of lawn fertilizers, lawn chemicals, and aquatic chemicals for weed and moss control in ponds and lakes.

"People would bring in water samples and we'd make recommendations based on the samples," he said. "We had a service there that nobody in the area had at that time."

Reicher retired from the Waterloo plant completing 32 years in the FS system.

He said that farming has changed a lot: larger equipment, anhydrous applications, and spreading done by something other than a truck.

But he said one of his fondest memories was that he enjoyed his job.

"It's kind of special to like your job all these years," he said. "I never dreaded going to work."

"I liked what I was doing, I liked the people I worked with, and I liked the company," he added.

So what does he have planned now? "I'm going to do the grandpa thing."

Reichert has five grandchildren ages three to 21 and spending time with them and their parents is a priority.

His son, Steven, lives on his home place, and daughter Deanna lives nearby, so the family is close.

Reichert lives in a log cabin that he promised his wife, Guyla. It was completed for five years before she died suddenly last year after 43 years of marriage.

He looks forward to the "grandpa thing." He has a few horses to keep him busy and may do some occasional camping. "I'm also going to do some traveling; not sure how much."

All in all, not bad for someone who ended his work career at the same place he started.

1,174 Years and Counting

Last spring, you may recall a Spirit article about Floyd Koester of Gateway FS, Inc. who acheived a new System milestone in safe driving - 43 consecutive years. Floyd recently retired, but I'm told that another Gateway employee, Robert DuFrenne, recently marked his 43rd year of safe driving as well.

When I looked a little closer at the spreadsheet provided by the Safety and Insurance Services Division, I realized that Gateway has a whole fleet of safe drivers. Dave Rippelmeyer has 39 years, Mike Kuhn, 38; James Reinhold, Roger Liefer, and Dale Heller each have 36; Randy Osterhage has 35; and the list goes on.

I grabbed my handy caculator and did a little math and discovered that the 65 drivers at Gateway have a combined total of 1,174 years of preventable accident-free driving, an average of 18 years per driver. Remarkable!

I'm certain that other member cooperatives could boast of similar safety records. I think that's due in part to the top-notch safety training provided through the GROWMARK System. But I also believe that some behaviors can't be learned in a classroom - that it takes a certain kind of person to put safety first and be aware while on the job, driving or not. From what I've seen, our member cooperatives do a great job of finding those kind of people. Keep up the good work!