GRAIN GUY FIFTY BLOG

I didn’t start diving in some tropical paradise. Hell, I didn’t even start in a place most people would willingly swim. I got certified in the borrow pits of central Illinois, cold, murky water that smelled like mud and tractor grease, the kind of place where you learn to trust your gear before you ever see a coral reef. I was a country boy who worked hard, and when I finally got the chance to play hard, I took it. Diving became my escape, my reset button, my Jimmy Buffett Ca

If you've followed my writing on grain, logistics, management, and supply chains, you already know what I do. This is a bit of the story behind why I do it and what's been driving me since I was a kid. In the late 1970’s I watched a management and leadership training film entitled “ You Are What You Were When”, produced by Morris Massey. The theme of the film was that your core values, the things that drive your decisions, reactions, and worldview are shaped by the era and

If you want to understand the rise of American agriculture, don’t start with seeds or soil. Start with steel. Start with the rails that cut across the prairie and the rivers that carried grain to the world. The modern U.S. grain industry — its elevators, its markets, its export corridors — is the product of a transportation revolution that unfolded over 150 years. At the center of that transformation sits one of the most consequential infrastructure decisions in U.S. history: