RFA Ethanol Podcast

GROWMARK Recognized for Communicators’ Works

John Davis

We’ve had the pleasure of helping our friends at GROWMARK tell their story right here on this blog, and now, several of the company’s employees who also tell that story have been recognized by the Cooperative Communicators Association (CCA) Institute, recently held in Tucson, Arizona. This company press release has details. First place honors went to Cassie Becker, corporate communications …

GROWMARK

Help Feed the World with GROWMARK Cookbook

Cindy Zimmerman

GROWMARK employees have created a cookbook to help a group focused on feeding the world. In celebration of the International Year of Cooperatives, GROWMARK has announced that proceeds from sales of a new cookbook will go to Farmers Feeding the World, an industry-wide campaign to rally North American agriculture in the war against hunger. GROWMARK System employees and friends submitted …

GROWMARK

GROWMARK Hosts French Cooperative

Cindy Zimmerman

In the spirit of cooperation between cooperatives, Illinois-based GROWMARK hosted leaders from the French cooperative Terrena last week as part of a 12-day tour of United States agriculture. “We were approached by the tour leader about coordinating an exchange of ideas between the Terrena leadership and GROWMARK’s leadership,” said Chuck Spencer, GROWMARK director, Government Affairs. “Because our agricultural products compete …

GROWMARK

GROWMARK Keeps IT Growing

Cindy Zimmerman

As a multi-state agricultural co-operative system with over 6000 employees and numerous brands, information technology (IT) is a vital aspect of GROWMARK‘s ability to communicate on a number of levels. That keeps GROWMARK Manager of Network Services Scott Bross busy keeping up with the latest on-line communications tools – from improved websites to blogs and all the various social networking …

Audio, GROWMARK, Social Networking, Technology

How GROWMARK Uses Social Media to Recruit

Cindy Zimmerman

GROWMARK’s gold-standard internship program is over 50 years old and it keeps growing because they are using all of the latest social media tools to reach students about the potential for career opportunities within the vast cooperative system. “Social media has allowed us to continue to enhance our traditional recruiting efforts,” says University Relations Manager Ashley McClintock. “We utilize Facebook, …

Audio, GROWMARK, Social Networking, Video

Total Grain and Fertilizer on Track

Cindy Zimmerman

Total Grain Marketing (TGM) handled 70 million bushels of grain at its 31 locations in Illinois last year and this year is likely to be even more. During the recent GROWMARK media tour, we visited TGM and South Central FS in Casey (that’s pronounced Cay-zee) and learned about that facility in particular which was created when the two entities joined …

Audio, Fertilizer, Grains, GROWMARK

GROWMARK Legislative Priorities

Cindy Zimmerman

GROWMARK government affairs director Chuck Spencer shared some of the agricultural cooperative’s top legislative priorities on both the state and national level during the media day tour this week. Chuck and other GROWMARK representatives participated in the Ag Day event Wednesday at the Illinois state capitol to talk with legislators about some of those priorities. “Obviously everyone in Illinois is …

Audio, Farm Bill, GROWMARK

cropNAtion App Now Available

Chuck Zimmerman

It has been a long time coming. Well, not really. It just seems like it. But the cropNAtion App is now available in the iTunes Store and Android Market. The “virtual coffeeshop” was introduced last fall. I spoke with Heather Thompson during the GROWMARK Media Tour about the newly available app. She says that cropNAtion is a social network for …

Agribusiness, Apps, GROWMARK

GROWMARK Media Day Tour

Cindy Zimmerman

It was a beautiful day for a media tour in Illinois on Tuesday. About a dozen journalists joined representatives from GROWMARK to tour some of the unique facilities of South Central FS around Casey and Effingham. Chuck and I both got to attend the event this year and we’ll be bringing you some of the highlights of our trip, including …

GROWMARK