CHS has grown into one of America's biggest companies, and one with worldwide reach. But its size and scope won't obscure the continued importance of small towns and rural communities, Jay Debertin says.
"We do need to operate globally, for the benefit of our owners. And we need to do that without losing our connections to our owners and to our rural communities," says Debertin, president and CEO of CHS. "That's something I'm committed to."
Debertin, who this spring took over as president and CEO after 32 years with the company, spoke recently with Agweek about the cooperative and himself.
CHS, an energy, grains and foods company, is the nation's largest member-owned cooperative and a Fortune 100 company. Headquartered in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, it has 11,000 employees, represents 600,000 farmer-owners nationwide and is a familiar, powerful presence across the rural Upper Midwest.
Debertin has strong ties to the Red River Valley of western Minnesota and eastern North Dakota, an area in which CHS is strong.
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He's a native of East Grand Forks, Minn., a northwest Minnesota farm town and the sister city of adjacent Grand Forks, N.D. He still has family in the community, where his father once was involved in a car dealership, and returns there occasionally.
His ties include graduating from the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks with a bachelor's degree in economics. "I had a great experience at UND. I really have fond memories of attending school there," he says.
Later, he earned an MBA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In 1984 he joined CHS, even though agriculture was struggling at the time.
"I really liked the idea of having a connection to farmers," Debertin says. "It was an environment I felt really comfortable in, and I looked at a future of a world eating better and knowing the U.S. farmer has an opportunity for growth in a world that wants to eat better."
"I saw a future I wanted to be part of," he says.
Debertin has held a number of leadership positions in energy marketing, crude oil supply, refining, pipelines and terminals, trading and risk management and transportation. Most recently, he served as executive vice president and chief operating officer for the company's energy operations and processing and food ingredients.
Agriculture is cyclical and now, as was the case in 1984, ag is having difficulties.
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But CHS is familiar with tough times, just as it with good economic times, he says.
"It is who we are. We've been through these ag cycles for the past 85 years," he says. "We know we need to be successful in both these times."
"We will operate well, operate efficiently and come through this period even stronger," Debertin says.
CHS will do that by focusing "really, really hard at operating our business at the highest level. Bringing maximum value we can to our owners across our entire trade territory (by) focusing on our business, on our customers and our markets," he says.
