Retail businesses and acquisitions really put the “Grow” in the GROWMARK system.

Shelly Kruse is GROWMARK vice president of retail and acquisitions and I spoke with her earlier this year about her job.

“I work a lot with our retail divisions, which are member cooperatives that have actually merged into GROWMARK,” Shelly said. Three of those retail divisions are located in Iowa, one in Illinois, two in Wisconsin and one in Ontario, Canada.

The acquisitions part of her job really keeps Shelly busy. “Some of the most recent ones have been very focused on agronomy, adding fertilizer storage,” she said, adding around 250,000 tons of storage for fertilizers with the purchase of several CF terminals. Other acquisitions have been in the areas of seed and energy.

Shelly has been with the GROWMARK system for 28 years and she has seen lots of changes in that time. Listen to my interview with Shelly here: Shelly Kruse Interview