The brand new urea center in St. Louis received its official name at the grand opening ceremony on Tuesday – the Richard W. Stegmann St. Louis Urea Center.
Lange-Stegmann president Mike Stegmann (left) surprised his father Rich, who is chairman of the company, by naming the center after him. “It was really humbling,” Rich said in an interview after the ceremony.
Lange-Stegmann, the parent company of AGROTAIN International, was started in 1926 by Rich’s father-in-law Henry Lange and his brother Dewey. “At that time, it was meat scraps and tankage and steam bone meal that was fertilizer,” said Rich.
The reason the plant was first located at the site near the Mississippi River was because it was next to the stockyards. “At that time a lot of livestock moved by rail and they had to unload it every 24 hours,” Rich explained. “People would come in with trucks and they would haul back fertilizer.”
Stegmann celebrates his 48th year with the company on Friday and he is proud that this global corporation is still very much family-owned. “And our employees are like family too,” Stegmann says. “And that is very gratifying.” A whole line of family, friends, employees and business associates lined up to cut the ribbon opening the urea center and the adjacent Stabilized Nitogen Center.
Listen to an interview with Rich here: agro-rich.mp3
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It seemed like the ABN Show midday here at the Farm Science Review. The BARN has a nice barn. Here’s Andy and Lindsay just before their big announcement today.
Also on hand to commemorate the announcement was University of Ohio President, Dr. E. Gordon Gee. He said this was an exciting day for him since ABN Radio founder (deceased), Ed Johnson, was his friend and he knows that Ed would be proud of this announcement and to see Andy and Lindsay carry on his legacy.
Well here I am at the 
Another day, off to another farm show. After Cindy and I got in to St. Louis last night we re-grouped and re-packed. She’s going to be attending an event for Agrotain in St. Louis today while I’m on my way to Columbus, OH and the 
I like the way Fran Fischler, President of the IFAJ Congress 2008, started his remarks at the end of the event.
The new President of IFAJ is Mike Wilson, Farm Progress Companies.
Then during our final dinner of the IFAJ Congress in Portoroz Mike took the microphone as the new man in charge. 
The final night’s activities at the IFAJ Congress was a historic event for me. The only IFAJ President I’ve ever known up until this Congress was David Markey and this was when he turned the reins over to a new leader. 
Then David had some time to talk about his opportunity to serve IFAJ as President. If you know David then you know that he’s a professional and a businessman. I think he brought the organization a new outlook that has helped it to grow significantly. He looks at things a little differently than your average person with an insight that comes from years of successful business management.