Board of Directors Archives

Members Elect, Ratify Three Directors to MCIA Board, and Approve Bylaws Amendment

Posted on January 30, 2025

The 2025 MCIA Annual Meeting, which was held Wednesday, January 29, 2025, included an election to fill two Category A Director seats on the MCIA Board of Directors. Category A directors serve 3-year terms of office. MCIA members elected two persons who are new to the MCIA Board: Brian Jensen (District 1) and Michael Backman (District 2). Members also ratified the nomination of incumbent Nancy Ehlke as the board’s Category B Director (who is nominated by the Director of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station to serve a one-year term of office). In addition, members approved an amendment to MCIA’s bylaws that was proposed by the MCIA Board of Directors.

Background information about the newly elected and ratified directors follows.

Brian Jensen (District 1). Brian grew up on the family farm near Stephen, Minnesota, and enjoyed helping on the farm and working in the seed conditioning plant at an early age. After graduating high school from Stephen, he attended NDSU and received a degree in agronomy and agriculture economics. He has continued farming and running Jensen Seed Co. with his father and family to this day. The farm grows wheat, barley, soybeans, sugar beets, corn, and dry beans among other crops over the years. The on-farm MCIA-Approved Seed Conditioning facility primarily conditions small grains. Jensen Farms and Jensen Seed Co. have been MCIA members for over 40 years, producing and conditioning certified seed including foundation wheat and barley for MCIA.

Brian has served on the Minnesota Wheat Research and Promotion Council, Augsburg Township, Storm Booster Club, and Church Council. Brian and his wife Betsy have three children and enjoy the diversity of their farm and seed business and look forward to helping the next generation grow. In his spare time Brian enjoys spending time at the lake and outdoor activities with his family.

Michael Backman (District 2). Michael Backman is a fourth-generation farmer from Herman, Minnesota. Michael farms alongside his parents, Tim and Marilyn, and his brothers, Pat and James. The Backman family raise corn, soybeans, wheat, and sugar beets. In addition to selling corn and soybean seed, they also operate a seed cleaning facility that primarily processes hard red spring wheat.

Off the farm, Michael is an active member of Herman Fire & Rescue, head coach of the local youth downhill ski racing team, Logan Township board member, and a parish council member at St. Charles Catholic Church. Michael and his fiancée, Jonnah, will be married this coming July.

Nancy Ehlke (Nominee from the University of Minnesota) Nancy Ehlke is a professor and plant breeder in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics at the University of Minnesota. She has been a member of the department faculty since 1986 and is nationally recognized as a plant breeder working on forage legumes, turf grasses, and native plant species. She is also a fellow in both the American Society of Agronomy and the Crop Science Society of America. In addition to her administrative and teaching responsibilities, Nancy leads research and outreach activities in northern Minnesota with the grass and legume seed producers. She received her PhD from Pennsylvania State University. She has been an MCIA board member since 2006.

Members approved the following amendment to Article XII—Miscellaneous, 12.8 Financial Accounts, of the MCIA bylaws:

The Board of Directors shall examine the accounts of the Association at their meetings as set forth herein, and shall, in addition, conduct a financial review every year and a financial audit at least once every three years by a disinterested competent accountant, or by a committee of three members of the Association who are not members of the Board of Directors.

Approved bylaws revision, above, highlighted in red.

MCIA Board to Propose Bylaws Amendment

Posted on January 23, 2025

The MCIA Board of Directors intends to propose an amendment to the Association’s bylaws at the MCIA Annual Meeting on January 29, 2025.

The proposal would change the wording of the following passage of Article XII—Miscellaneous, 12.8 Financial Accounts:

The Board of Directors shall examine the accounts of the Association at their meetings as set forth herein, and shall, in addition, have the books audited at least once a year by a disinterested competent accountant, or by a committee of three members of the Association who are not members of the Board of Directors.

The amended version would read:

The Board of Directors shall examine the accounts of the Association at their meetings as set forth herein, and shall, in addition, conduct a financial review every year and a financial audit at least once every three years by a disinterested competent accountant, or by a committee of three members of the Association who are not members of the Board of Directors.

(Changes, above, highlighted in red.)

The proposed amendment will be considered at the meeting. Adoption of the proposed amendment requires an affirmative vote of a majority of the members present and entitled to vote at the meeting.

You may view this proposed amendment in the context of MCIA’s complete Articles of Incorporation and Bylaws, here: https://docs.mncia.org/public/annual_meeting/Proposed-Bylaws-Amendment-250129.pdf.

Chairman’s View

Posted on January 17, 2025

Brad Barth, Chairman of the MCIA Board of Directors.

By Brad Barth, Board Chairman

2024 is now in the rearview mirror and the new year is upon us. Some constituents I have spoken with about 2024 had an average year while most others in our area will be glad to have the year behind us. Excessive rains during the planting and growing season and a super dry end of the season made it a challenging year. Like all the challenging years before, we will survive to farm again.

At Thanksgiving I concluded that, despite many challenges, I am sure we can all find many things to be thankful for. I reflect on every year as a learning experience, whether it was a good or poor year there is always something we can learn and take forward into the rest of our career.

MCIA will have its Annual Meeting on January 29, 2025, in St. Cloud. This will be a single-day event and will include all the things we have done in the past, just in a shortened version. I am excited to hear the speakers’ presentations as this is always a highlight of the meeting. There will be vendors to visit, and the MCIA staff will be there also. Please plan to attend as I am sure you will enjoy all the meeting has to offer.

I write this with a heavy heart as this will be my last correspondence with you. The Annual Meeting in January marks the end of my second and last term. To say that my time with MCIA was a great experience would be an understatement. To serve on this board was truly a fantastic experience.

The staff at MCIA are second to none. They have all the talent and people skills to carry this organization far into the future. A shout out to Jody Prudhomme, who is the most impressive office personnel I have ever met. The board members are quite a diverse set of super talented individuals, all here with one focus; that is, to steer this 100-plus-year-old organization down the path to the next 100-year benchmark.

I will miss meeting and conversing with my fellow board members and having a hand in guiding this organization. I encourage anyone interested in becoming a board member to take the challenge. You will not be disappointed.

Chairman’s View

Posted on October 23, 2024

By Brad Barth, Board Chairman

Fall harvest is here. I hope that your harvest is a great one and that you’re able to complete it in a timely and safe manner.

My family and I just recently celebrated my mother’s 90th birthday with a party full of camaraderie and rarely seen relatives. We also celebrated the release of her autobiography, full of pictures and stories spanning 90 years on this planet. The idea for this book came about five years ago when I saw a picture of her at her first job as a telephone operator in 1954. She looked so cute with her headset and cords in her hand, “physically” connecting callers to the called by plugging a cord into the correct jack. Fast forward to the present: Mom was on her iPad and cell phone one day and I said, “You have seen a lot of change in your life, you should write a book.” It turned out to be a great read.

One of the attributes I have tried to instill in my children and grandkids is “change.” It is very important to have the ability to change in your lifetime. Without this skill you will be forever destined to travel the same path without the option of taking the other fork in the road. Sometimes I find myself wishing that the world would slow down and wait for me, but to no avail. I usually find myself running to catch up.

On my farm when something breaks and I don’t know exactly how to fix it, I usually get on the phone, call my equipment dealer, and have the service man come to repair the problem. Enter my young hired man. He jumps on his phone and Googles the problem. He soon has an answer and a repair to get us back to working. I need to follow my own advice, change a little, and embrace the Google thing a little more.

During MCIA board meetings we discuss the future and how to stay current with technology. As a younger and more technologically savvy member base is growing, MCIA is changing and evolving into an organization committed to better serve them, now and in the future.

I would like to take a little time to welcome Amy Olson and Sean Manzano-Rabbitt to the staff of the Seed Laboratory. I look forward to meeting you in November.

2024 is almost over and soon it will be time for a New Year’s resolution. Maybe a “change” to embrace modern technology would be a good thought. I think that might be my resolution! I wish you all a safe and prosperous harvest.

Chairman’s View

Posted on June 14, 2024

By Brad Barth, Board Chairman

Usually in the summer edition of my column I talk a little about the weather and how it affected the spring planting season. Spring weather is a lot like some of the idiotic things one sees on the internet, kind of crazy and weird. Of course, this year was no exception, almost a 180 of last year. We had very little snow and a warm winter, which should turn into an early spring, right? Yes, farmers were in the field early and wheat seed sales saw an increase in volume accordingly. After a quick start Mother Nature turned on us and showed all who was really in charge. As of Memorial Day, when I penned this report, northern Minnesota is probably still barely past the halfway mark of being done seeding. Just proves that we may be good at what we do, but we are not totally in charge.

At the Annual Meeting in St. Cloud this past January we discussed succession planning and what we can do to keep our young adults in our industry. On Friday, Joyce and I attended high school graduation and saw our oldest grandson graduate with honors. We are very proud of his success as a student and how he has matured into a fine young man. Our family has never pressured any of our young adults to go to school for anything but what is in their hearts. Well, this boy has decided to go to the U of M in Crookston for agriculture, I am so proud. I am glad to see that being born and raised on the farm was a positive experience and has become his first career choice. Granted there are four years ahead of him and he could change his mind, but he seems to be pretty determined that this is his path. When he is ready, I hope to mentor him in the seed industry and someday, maybe, he will become one of “us.”

I would be remiss if I did not spend a little time discussing the health and direction of our organization. MCIA is a unique and (121 years strong) successful organization which has excellent leadership and very talented personnel. There are many exciting opportunities for MCIA on the agenda in the future, but as always it is focused mostly on taking care of its members and their current needs. This organization has been solid for the past 121 years and will be for the foreseeable future.

I hope the summer of 2024 treats you all well.

Chairman’s View

Posted on March 11, 2024

Brad Barth speaking at the 2024 MCIA Annual Meeting. Photo by Alan Makinen. © Minnesota Crop Improvement Association.

By Brad Barth, Board Chairman

Hello everyone, it is close to the end of the winter here in Minnesota and I am just wondering, has anyone seen winter? It seems to have missed us. Usually, we are all either ice fishing, snowmobiling, skiing, or shoveling and cursing. Not so much in the winter of 23/24. No matter what type of winter you’ve had, I am sure we all are looking forward to spring.

On January 24, 2024, MCIA held its 121st Annual Meeting in St Cloud. It was an excellent gathering with great sponsors, outstanding speakers, and wonderful times networking with our fellow seed professionals. I would like to recognize Fawad and the great staff at MCIA and thank them for organizing such an excellent event. A special thanks to all the sponsors and the members who attended.

On behalf of the Boad of Directors I am pleased to report that MCIA is in good financial standing and looks poised to stay strong for the near and distant future. As with all companies there are times when it appears that the year may not meet expectations. Revenues could be down and expenses soaring, but the company and employees dig deep and right the ship as it sails into a prosperous end to the year. Well, MCIA has had those times too, but the hard work of the excellent staff and the loyalty of the members seems to always bring this organization out on top with a little profit to spare.

MCIA has been blessed to acquire some excellent staff members in the past year or two and is currently fully staffed. Few organizations can make that claim. That being said, the organic department is growing every year and will soon need to add staff.

I am sure you have all heard that Roger Wippler has retired. I was very happy to see him there for another yearly meeting, allowing us all a chance to visit with him one last time. I heard from the staff that it has taken quite some time to clean out Roger’s office as there were 34-plus years of memories in there. Truly, Roger, I tip my hat to you and your excellent career here at MCIA. You will forever be in our hearts and thoughts.

Roger has left us with an excellently trained, hardworking, and resourceful young man by the name of Carl Anfinson. I have had many conversations with Carl and can tell you that he will do an excellent job for MCIA. If you have any questions about foundation seed in the future, well, Carl is your man.

2024 is almost a quarter gone and I am still writing 2023 on my checks. As surely as time flies, MCIA we will always have personnel transitions, such as retirements, relocations, and family changes, but we always find new employees to keep the organization running smoothly. I want to welcome all the staff members who joined MCIA over the past year. I hope they can make MCIA their career. You’ll only need to work here 35 years to beat Mr. Wippler!

I hope that you all have a safe and prosperous 2024.

Members Elect, Ratify Four Directors to MCIA Board

Posted on January 29, 2024

The 2024 MCIA Annual Meeting, which was held Wednesday, January 24, 2024, included an election to fill three Category A Director seats on the MCIA Board of Directors. Category A directors serve 3-year terms of office. MCIA members re-elected incumbent board member Kelsey Henke (District 3). In addition, members elected two persons who are new to the MCIA Board: Anthony Cortilet (Related Industry) and Gabel Hoseth (District 2). Gabel Hoseth will serve the remaining two years of a vacant position. In addition to the election of the aforementioned directors, members also ratified the nomination of incumbent Nancy Ehlke as the board’s Category B Director (who is nominated by the Director of the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station to serve a one-year term of office).

Background information about the newly elected and ratified directors follows.

Gabel Hoseth (District 2) Gabel Hoseth is a young farmer in the Waubun area who owns and operates a seed business, Spring Creek Seed LLC. He works alongside his grandfather John Pazdernik of Pazdernik Farms Inc. This is a fifth-generation family farm. As a graduate of North Dakota State University with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural systems management, he is passionate about the future of farming. Along with raising seed and serving customers, Gabel enjoys sharing his passion for farming with his wife and two young daughters on their small farmstead near Flom. He foresees serving on the MCIA Board or Directors as a great way to learn and give back to the seed industry in Minnesota.

Kelsey Henke (District 3) Kelsey Henke is currently the Sales and Office Manager at Anderson Seeds of St. Peter. Her main role is to oversee all aspects of wholesale and retail seeds sales. She handles the accounting, customer service, and many other aspects of the office work. Before being employed by her family’s seed business, Kelsey worked for United Farmers’ Cooperative, MCIA, and BioDiagnostics. Kelsey graduated with high honors from South Central College, Mankato, in 2012, earning an associate degree in applied science in agribusiness service and management. Currently, she is a county and state 4-H volunteer, the secretary of the Nicollet/Sibley County Corn & Soybean Growers Association, and she has served one term on the MCIA Board of Directors. Kelsey and her husband, Jeremy, reside in Gaylord, where in her free time she enjoys quilting, embroidering, and spending time with her family and friends.

Anthony Cortilet (Related Industry) Anthony Cortilet is the manager of the Seed, Weed, Hemp, and Biotechnology Section of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Plant Protection Division. Tony has oversight of all four programs but focuses on Noxious Weed and Industrial Hemp. Recently, he has been very busy helping establish the Office of Cannabis Management.

Chairman’s View

Posted on December 15, 2023

By Brad Barth, Board Chairman

Harvest 2023 is over for me but there are still a few acres of corn and soybeans left to harvest here in northern Minnesota. There was a snow in October that hung around for quite some time. After about three weeks the snow finally melted off the corn and bean fields. The local farmers got busy again and should finish up everything before December is upon us.

Thanksgiving came and went this year and I found myself being thankful for family, friends, nice weather, and a great crop. A farmer cannot ask for much more than that.

Seed cleaning is underway in Minnesota, and I encourage you to take advantage of the excellent service you can obtain from our lab at MCIA. Chase and the crew work hard to process your samples and get your results back to you as fast as possible.

MCIA will hold its Annual Meeting on January 24, 2024, in St Cloud. This will be a single-day event and will include everything we have done in the past, just in a shortened version. I am excited to hear the panel discussion on the future of the seed industry, the involvement of our youth, and how we are going to attract and keep them in our industry. There will be vendors to visit with, and the MCIA staff will be there also. Please plan to attend as I am sure you will not be disappointed.

I could not write this without talking a little about Roger Wippler. Roger retired this fall and has left some big shoes to fill. Roger was the face of the foundation seed department for many years and his name will be forever synonymous with that department. A few years back, my daughter and her husband went to the State Fair, I told them to stop by the MCIA building and check it out. She told me later that she met the nicest man there and had an excellent time visiting with him. Roger made that impression on everyone he met. MCIA board meetings will be a little different now as we will not have that familiar voice and wisdom at the board table. Congratulations to you, Roger, and I hope retirement treats you well!

Roger may be gone but he has left MCIA with a very well trained and super talented replacement in Carl Anfinson. Carl has trained with Roger for quite some time now and will surely be a huge asset for MCIA. Welcome aboard Carl!

In closing, I sincerely hope that all of you had a great year and can take some time during these holidays to enjoy your family and friends.

Chairman’s View

Posted on November 17, 2023

Babe Ruth during batting practice with the Boston Red Sox in 1916. Photo: Charles M. Conlon. Public domain.

By Brad Barth, Board Chairman

Fall is my favorite time of year, not only for the cooler weather but also because it is the time to harvest the fruits of our yearly labor. For the past year, we have been planning and researching crops, inputs, and markets. Harvest is the culmination of all the decisions made during this past year. Did I make good decisions or poor decisions? Will I learn from these decisions? Whether they were good or bad decisions, they are always a learning opportunity.

If you are like me, you probably make as many poor decisions as you do good ones. Sometimes the poor outweigh the good, but it usually takes only a few good decisions to overcome and forget about all the bad. Babe Ruth was a home run king, but he also was a bigger strikeout king, but no one remembers him for that. It seems best to relish the wins and learn from the losses.

Fall is a busy time on the farm, and I just want to remind all of you to be extra vigilant and extra safe this harvest season. Nothing is more important than safety for you, your loved ones, and your employees.

MCIA is planning the 2024 Annual Meeting and it should be an excellent one. Save the date: January 24, 2024. There will be a new venue, a new schedule, and some great speakers and panel discussions. If you haven’t been to one of these meetings in the past, this will be the year to attend.

I would like to take a little time to welcome the staff members recently hired at MCIA: Sarah Lindblom and Tessa Parks in Organic Services, and Kate Sinnott in the Seed Laboratory. I am sure you will find working with the members and staff of MCIA to be rewarding.

2023 was a challenging year for all and I am sure we all made a few mistakes, but I hope everyone also hit a few “home runs” and had a prosperous year.

Chairman’s View

Posted on June 30, 2023

By Brad Barth, Board Chairman

Hello from Northern Minnesota!

Every year we seem to be surprised by the weather and how it acts. So far, this year is no exception. Northern Minnesota had quite a bit of snow last winter and we thought it would be a terrible late and wet, sloppy spring.

But once again mother nature has proven us wrong. The temps went from 30 degrees to 60s and 70s so fast that we barely had time to take off our jackets. The snow melted fast, and the runoff was gone seemingly overnight. All-in-all, the crops in northern Minnesota went into the ground nicely and almost timely. There are the typical pockets of “too dry” and areas of “too wet,” but on average it is starting out to be a good year.

Whatever the weather in your part of the state just wait a little bit and it will change—right?

After a successful spring seeding and a nice timely rain or two, my bride and I took a little trip to Kansas to pick up a piece of equipment. It is always fun to travel a little and see agriculture in areas other than our own. To me, it does not matter what state it is, a field green with a new crop and a farmyard as a backdrop is always a beautiful sight.

On the way back from our little Kansas adventure we stopped in the Twin Cities to spend a couple of days at the annual Association of Official Seed Certifying Agency’s (AOSCA) meeting in Bloomington. This meeting comprises all the crop certifying agencies from throughout the US and is held in a different state each year. This year happened to be Minnesota’s turn. As the hosting state agency, MCIA cooperated with the AOSCA staff to select a hotel venue, obtain meeting sponsors, and suggest speakers and activities, among a host of other details.

I spent a part of two days at this meeting, and I must say that our team at MCIA did a phenomenal job of putting this together. As the board chairman, my job was to mingle and visit with as many attendees as possible, which is a job well suited for a jabber jaw like me. I will not go into detail as I am sure it will be covered elsewhere on this blog. Suffice it to say that the speakers were excellent, and I thoroughly enjoyed their presentations.

My heartfelt thanks to all the sponsors and to all the volunteers from the MCIA staff for their work to put together and execute this fantastic meeting. I will again leave it to others to report on the awards presented, but I just wanted to make a point of saying that I was super proud to see MCIA and the staff be recognized for their great efforts.