Grainnet

by Barbara Krupp Selyem

While many of their contemporaries moved to urban areas for work after graduating from college, Brent, Bobby, and Luke Weiner returned to their roots.

They chose to work with their parents and grandparents in their family business, Cartersville Elevator Inc. The company has never had a losing year since it started in 1967, when Frank and Ann Weiner bought the wood crib elevator at Cartersville, IA.

The 15,000-bushel elevator was built in 1900, at the same time the Chicago Northwestern Railroad arrived. Until 1949, it was the Cartersville Supply Co., a farmer-owned cooperative. (A 1915 document still tacked to the office wall shows the price of one share at $10.)

In the 18 years between 1949 and 1967, the elevator had four different owners, Cecil Swant and Raymond Shultz, Ted Brownlee, the Casper family, and Stan Swiderski. None held ownership longer than five years, and Frank has been known to remark, “I’m the foolish one for staying.”

The Weiner Family Arrives
Before the Weiners bought the Cartersville elevator, Frank had been buying corn there and trucking it, as well as grain from his own farm, to eastern Iowa. Not much corn was grown in eastern Iowa at the time, and farmers bought it for feeding livestock.

Stan Swiderski had bought the elevator as an investment but soon decided to sell out to Frank, as the elevator required more hands-on work than Stan had anticipated.

From the first, Frank and Ann worked together—Frank was more liberal about jumping into things, and Ann more conservatively held back. This balance helped the couple prosper, where others had failed.

Many other things contributed to their success as well, not the least of which was a lot of hard work. But there are two opinions everyone in the family agrees on.

First, Frank is a great manager.

“Dad always held a carrot out there for us,” says his son Gary who started helping at the elevator as a teenager and now manages the family’s grain facility at Cartersville.

“He would say, ‘If you help me, we can do this or that.’ I have four siblings still living—Dick, who manages our Nora Springs (IA) elevator; Steve, who runs our fertilizer plant at Mason City (IA); Barbara, who handles social things like company gifts, our cookbook, and customer appreciation celebrations (her husband, Larry, runs our grain elevator at Mason City); and Janet, who is our company bookkeeper. Our oldest brother, Joe, passed away 10 years ago.

“Dad motivated all of us with the carrot technique. He is also a great listener.”

Second, and perhaps most important, was the influence of Joe, who was born with Down syndrome.

Janet relates, “Joe fostered a happy, loving, hugging, no fighting home. We learned how to get along from him, and that harmony has carried over to our work.”

Expansions
Over the years, change has been steady and deliberate, as the family acquired or built additional storage and new facilities.

The wood house at Cartersville still is being used for storing corn and soybeans. Two steel legs that fill not only the wood house but also external steel bins replaced the original wood leg. Electric motors replaced the gas engine, and access to the headhouse is now only by ladder, not manlift. About 10 years ago, the rusted metal siding got a fresh coat of silver paint.

“The elevator is still in good enough shape for OSHA,” Gary says.

The Business Today
Frank and Ann continue to go to work every day, though in recent years, they winter a couple of months in the South.

Frank says, “I’m 80 years old, probably the oldest grain buyer in Iowa (the rest of my contemporaries are dead or retired), but I still enjoy my customers and like merchandising grain. Even when Ann and I are away in the winter, I keep close tabs on things.

“I enjoy working with our family and am particularly proud that three of our grandsons, with four-year college degrees, have come to work with us.

“When I started, the elevator was just making the transition from ear corn to shelled corn—drying corn was our biggest challenge. And we coop-ered and loaded boxcars. We installed special spouting, and our elevator became the first to load hopper-bottom cars in our county. That created a lot of interest from other elevators nearby.

“We’ve seen a lot of changes, but thanks to Ann, we have never overextended ourselves while expanding.”

“Families working together” is a theme for Cartersville Elevator Inc. That vision extends from the Weiner family to their other 30 employees and on to their customers. All have shared in many ways in the company’s success.

Barbara and Bruce Selyem are directors of the Country Grain Elevator Historical Society. For more information, contact the society at 406-388-9282; e-mail: bselyem@country-grain-elevator-historical-society.org.

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