FROM OUR PRESIDENT. I am truly excited about what our future could be as Valley Ag Partners. - Troy Larson THE JOURNAL

Transcription

1 FROM OUR PRESIDENT Happy 2018 to you all! I hope this newsletter finds you enjoying the last bits of winter before the rush of spring is upon us. It s hard to believe that it was a little over a year ago when your boards of directors first sat down to discuss the merger. So much has happened since then, so much has yet to occur, and so much is yet to be discovered. One of the best outcomes of this merger has been all of the one-on-one conversations I ve had with patrons on questions or concerns they ve had about the new cooperative. Some of the questions I ve been prepared for, and some of the questions I hadn t even thought about. Each interaction I have with one of you teaches me something new; and I encourage you to continue to reach out to me and all of our board members on questions or issues you may have. Some of the question and answer highlights of those conversations include: Q: Who am I supposed to call now to get my questions answered and products ordered? A: We have never wanted to change with whom you do business because of this merger. Whomever you worked with before the merger at our cooperative, you can still call at any time. They know your business best and are the best link between your business and your cooperative. If you see numbers for the Barnesville office that doesn t mean you can t call the Kragnes or Rothsay location for a specific employee. If you ve seen Barnesville numbers in communications, it s because we are working to be more efficient in our operations, especially with new customers or vendors. Q: How much of the cooperative is going to change? I liked how things were. A: If you were happy with how things were before the merger, our goal is that you will be able to continue to work with the people and coop that made you happy. If you wanted more from your cooperative before the merger, our goal is that now, with us being more efficient through our better use of employees and assets, we can deliver on more for you. Q: Why do we still hear messages about the company transitioning? Wasn t the merger effective January 1? A: Give us and our employees some time. We re learning new things about the previous cooperatives, the LLC, and our new company every day. Topics that I never would have thought of as an issue take time and processes to be dealt with properly. We ve never done this before and it probably will not be the last one we do. While we are still learning, I am pleased with the progress and plans the management team has laid out and look forward to them being executed. I am truly excited about what our future could be as Valley Ag Partners. - Troy Larson THE JOURNAL

2 BOARD NEWS The vote to merge Kragnes Farmers Elevator and Rothsay Farmers Cooperative passed a membership vote in September Later that fall, the boards of directors of both cooperatives met for a final time to discuss some important governance issues including the following: Board members appointed to serve on the Valley Ag Partners Board: Troy Larson President Matt Krabbenhoft - Vice President Valley Ag Partners Mission: Provide quality products and valuable service to customers. Valley Ag Partners Values: We prioritize the safety of our employees and customers. We are a producer-owned cooperative dedicated to growing member-equity. We treat all stakeholders with respect and professionalism. We value our employees and their development. We are open-minded and innovative in creating customer solutions. We are the elected leaders who will drive the mission and uphold the values of Valley Ag Partners. We look forward to serving you. Board of Directors - Valley Ag Partners Chris Watterud Secretary Kevin Martin - Treasurer Larry Altenbernd Jason Wang Mike Nelson Ross Johnson Important Phone Numbers Rothsay Elevator and Agronomy Barnesville Agronomy Center Dilworth Elevator and Agronomy Sabin Elevator and Agronomy Kragnes Elevator Annual Meeting Notice Rothsay Farmers Coop March 16, 2018 at 12:00 p.m. American Legion 101 2nd St. SE, Barnesville, MN Lunch at noon with the meeting to follow Kragnes Farmers Elevator March 21, 2018 at 10:00 a.m. American Legion th St N, Moorhead, MN Lunch will be served These will be the final annual meetings for these companies. Valley Ag Partners will host its first annual meeting next year!

3 DAN NOREEN - GENERAL MANAGER January 1, 2018 marked the first day of business for Valley Ag Partners. Since that day, our team of employees has been working diligently to ensure that the integration of our legacy companies is as seamless as possible for our patrons. There is a lot of change happening all at once, for you and our employees. The board of directors and I ask for your patience as we work through these first few months of transition. Valley Ag Partners is a new company. While we will move forward with the best aspects each legacy organization brought to the table, we will also be changing. Change is inevitable and exciting! Your team has been hard at work structuring, transitioning, and executing tasks to create the new standard for how your cooperative will do business. Here are a few of the things we re working on: Structure The biggest question I still receive from patrons post-merger is How can you operate both the LLC and the co-op as one company? The answer is a lot simpler than the question actually seems and can be broken down into two parts: the employees and the flow of grain. As you may remember from the merger communications, your cooperative is now a 50% owner of Agassiz Valley Grain, LLC. In the LLC board room, it was decided that all employees of the LLC would become employees of the cooperative, saving money and creating efficiencies for the joint businesses. The LLC would then reimburse the cooperative for any time leased from employees. The majority of leased employees are operational in nature, in addition to the grain marketing staff. Valley Ag Partners will continue to implement innovative marketing programs that help you receive the highest return on your bushels, providing you pricing for country elevator delivery or shuttle facility delivery. These bids will always be determined by the market. At the end of the day, where you deliver your grain is your choice based on your business needs. For more answers to questions about our grain marketing programs, please contact your grain marketing rep. Transition One of the biggest hurdles in any merger is the merging of accounting systems. Fortunately, both legacy cooperatives operated on the same accounting platform before the merger, making our transition a little easier. This, however, does not mean that we have not and will not experience some challenges. All equity must be consolidated, all products must be entered exactly the same way, all customer addresses must be updated the list goes on and on. The administrative staff has been hard at work over the last two months working out all the kinks and are available to answer any question you may have on billing, equity, or other data-related items. It is not a perfect system yet, but I am confident we will continue to get all the kinks worked out and rolling for our first spring season as Valley Ag Partners. Execute Creating plans and evaluating options is a necessary and important task in saving time and money but the most important part of any plan is its execution. Over the course of the coming months, the employees will be hard at work executing our new structure, preparing for the spring season, and setting up your company for long term success. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to take this journey, and for coming along with us. I wish you all a safe and efficient spring season! Remember, different name same locations! See you soon.

4 PAUL JORGENSON - AGRONOMY MANAGER Hi everyone! Welcome to the new chapter in the history of our coops, Valley Ag Partners! As most of you, if not all of you, are aware, back on September 15, 2017, a vote was conducted on behalf of Kragnes Farmers Elevator and Rothsay Farmers Coop for the possibility of a merger. The vote to merge was overwhelmingly positive so here we are! Most of you know me, whether you ll admit it or not. I was previously the general manager of Rothsay Farmers Cooperative and am now the agronomy manager at Valley Ag Partners. We re excited to bring a great group of people with strong knowledge and experience to help you with every aspect of your agronomy needs. Your new coop has a full line of fertilizer, chemical, seed, and custom applicator services to offer you. Please feel free to call and contact any of us. Together, with you, we will be able to keep our new cooperative as sound as your previous ones. Thanks, and I look forward to hearing from you! Agronomy Contacts: Paul Jorgenson Mark Ostlund Dylan Wilkens Gary Schultz Ben Christopherson Michael Stetz Jerry Wigdahl

5 TRAVIS ZERFACE - GRAIN MERCHANDISER I am Travis Zerface, the new grain merchandiser at Valley Ag Partners. I bring with me more than twenty years of grain business experience, having managed and merchandised in Minneapolis, Chicago, Montana, and North Dakota. I look forward to learning from our employees and patrons and bringing my experience to the mix to create a strong, competitive, and vital market for your grain. The last three months have been a complete whirlwind. In addition to relocating to the area for this new opportunity, I have also joined a new company with a unique structure. As Dan mentioned earlier in this newsletter, our new responsibility is in the operations and merchandising of both the cooperative s and the LLC s grain and assets. While this may be a unique structure to this area, it is not a unique structure for the industry. Leased employees, assets, and shared merchandising responsibility is a common way companies have learned to create efficiencies in operations while providing new services to patrons. Some highlights of our new grain department you should know are: We currently employ two grain merchandisers, Jacob Schecher and myself. We are looking to hire another merchandiser to serve the northern area of our trade territory. All current grain programs, markets, and pricing opportunities can be found on our website valleyagpartners.com. Feel free to visit this website frequently or to call us at any time. I am so excited about leading this grain department and working with all of our patrons on creating valuable marketing programs and plans. I am still new to the area and am working on learning names and faces. If you are ever in the Barnesville office, please stop in and introduce yourself. There are many new crop opportunities to take advantage of at this time and we encourage you to call us with questions or orders. I look forward to meeting you in the future. Have a safe spring! Grain Contacts: Office Travis Zerface Jacob Schecher

6 JOEL FENGER - OPERATIONS MANAGER Hi everyone! My name is Joel Fenger. I have been the superintendent at the Barnesville terminal for the last six years and am now the operations manager for both the grain and agronomy departments of Valley Ag Partners. I am also conducting the safety administration. It s been a busy winter for your operations team at Valley Ag Partners! Similar to you, our winters are spent moving grain, fixing machinery, and prepping to get ready for the rush of spring. This winter has been even more eventful than past seasons as we ve also been meshing the two teams of our former cooperatives and creating new operational plans to work as efficiently as possible for you, our patrons. Safety is always a top concern at your cooperative; and we ve placed even more emphasis on safety as a part of our culture at Valley Ag Partners. We hosted a training in January for our employees. It was beneficial for us all to learn about what each previous company had done for safety checks and accountability. I look forward to rolling all these initiatives, and adding more best practices, into one company. At the Barnesville terminal, we wrapped up the bean pile in early February. We also started moving the 16-month corn pile in mid-february and were pleased to see quality held up for over a year and a half. Over the winter months, we ve been loading a shuttle train a week in hopes of getting all old crop corn cleaned up by the middle of march. We will work on our new corn pile in late March and April, which will hopefully leave us with the hoop building for the summer. The agronomy teams have been working through all equipment and department of transportation repairs for the trucks and floaters. While these are not typically due until late March/early April, we wanted to get a jump start on them to ensure we are ready to serve you come spring rush. Fertilizer product continues to be delivered to all facilities and we are looking forward to being full and ready to go for fertilizer season. While the employees have been hard at work moving and sorting products and preparing equipment, I have been working managing and organizing the spring work load for our employees and rolling stock. As you may remember from the merger conversations, one of the main benefits of coming together was the ability to more effectively use shared equipment and employees across an expanded geography. While this is true in theory, it is my job to ensure this ideal is executed in our operations clearly and effectively. Spring will be our first major season as a consolidated cooperative, and while there will be kinks to work out, going through this season with a firm plan will help us learn and grow our capabilities to serve you even better for seasons to come. Finally, I d like to welcome our two new hires to Valley Ag Partners. Kacey Watterud will be based out of the Barnesville terminal and will also be used as a float for employees at all of the facilities. Michael Steer will be based out of the Dilworth location and helping in the driveway and also with fertilizer in the spring. It is truly an exciting time for our cooperative and we look forward to seeing you on your farms this coming spring!

7 MEET OUR NEWEST TEAM MEMBERS We are excited to welcome two new employees to Valley Ag Partners, Dylan Wilkens and Mark Ostlund. Dylan Wilkens is an Ada, Minnesota native. He graduated in December 2017 from NDSU and started with Valley Ag Partners on January 15, We are thrilled Dylan accepted our offer to join the cooperative after having worked with him previously as a summer intern at Kragnes Farmers Elevator. Dylan will work within the agronomy team and be based out of the Dilworth facility. You can reach him at Mark Ostlund hails from Rothsay, Minnesota and brings many years of experience to our agronomy business, having worked with fertilizer, chemical, seed, and product sales in previous roles. Mark will also be based out of the Dilworth facility and can be reached at Dylan Wilkens Mark Ostlund

8 Volume 1, Issue 1. THE JOURNAL th Ave S Barnesville, MN 56514