Agriculture joint enterprise tends to make its headquarters in Decatur | Decatur

GreenPoint Ag, jointly owned by Alabama Farmers Cooperative, Tennessee Farmers Cooperative and WinField United, operates more than 100 retail and wholesale areas. The organization claimed its whole yearly revenues will be about $1.2 billion. Its Decatur spots are at former Agri-AFC internet sites.

“We’re positioned for advancement and hope to insert work around the coming months as we have in the last many months considering that the merger shut,” reported CEO Jeff Blair.

Blair mentioned he and many of the prime leaders that operate from the Decatur headquarters will reside exterior Decatur.

The merger combines all functions of Decatur-dependent Agri-AFC’s wholesale and retail business enterprise, Memphis-centered GreenPoint Ag’s retail enterprise and Tennessee Farmers Cooperative’s wholesale agronomy organization. Agri-AFC is a joint venture among Alabama Farmers Cooperative and WinField United, an entity of Land O’Lakes.

Blair mentioned GreenPoint now has around 900 employees, and there are 67 workforce in Decatur — at the corporate business office at 121 Somerville Street, the seed and crop defense warehouse adjacent to the workplace and fertilizer terminal at 800 Marketplace St. The organization gives farms and rural enterprises with seed, crop nutrition, crop protection and qualified turf care products and solutions and also delivers soil sampling and other expert services.

“Though all 3 corporations had been financially powerful, consolidation in the market is required for companies to safe the balance needed to serve our growers and rural communities prolonged expression,” Blair stated. “It’s making synergies and useful resource realignment that is enabling us to carry our retail consumers and member co-ops agronomy and sustainability answers throughout 10 states, which we think will ultimately position us to be the premier provider of Southern agronomy.”

Regional offices have been maintained in Tennessee at LaVergne and Memphis, “so we even now have a excellent selection of workers at both of those of these locations,” Blair mentioned. “While the vast majority of the workforce in Decatur have been formerly Agri-AFC employees, the leadership group has or is in the approach of relocating to the Decatur-Madison-Huntsville region.”

He said the merger has resulted in a number of new executive positions.

“Seven management positions have been added, one particular leader was by now at the company headquarters, (and) quite a few other leaders from the legacy corporations transitioned to other roles that matched their personalized plans, whether or not that was moving to other departments, subject positions, or retiring,” he said.

Blair mentioned that the former CEO of Agri-AFC, Mike Malone, is on employees as an adviser to the CEO, and the previous CEO of GreenPoint Ag was an adviser to Blair until eventually his retirement at the finish of Oct.

“Our objective is to increase the company, and as that grows and we increase different management roles, some of these are certainly going to be in the space,” Blair said.

He explained a lot of guidance staff in areas like data know-how, accounting, finance and human methods will at some point transfer to the Decatur headquarters.

Condition Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, stated the new headquarters is a moreover for Decatur. 

“It is not every day that a business with $1 billion in revenue locates in your back yard,” he stated. “This joint enterprise will with any luck , serve as a springboard for Alabama Farmers Co-op and its companions to garner more current market share and thus increase in affect in the agriculture market.”

Blair was most not too long ago with Ohio-based mostly The Andersons, exactly where he was president of the plant nutrient team. He also held management roles at Intrepid Potash and Orica Mining Expert services and he was a captain in the U.S. Army, serving in the Military for 8½ years.

Blair said his spouse and children has relocated to Huntsville, and the company’s chief economical officer, vice president of retail and vice president of wholesale, key management positions announced final thirty day period, are in course of action of moving to the Madison and Limestone County areas.

“In conditions of Decatur, we are expanding our warehouse (truck) load-out abilities,” stated Blair, who estimates that will be a roughly $300,000 building task. “And I would say we’re in the early levels of trying to evaluate our demands all over a company headquarters and corporate business office. I really do not have a definitive approach, but are we thinking about it? Yeah. We’re not going to sit in which we are for really very long.”

With the merger, GreenPoint Ag now directly operates 82 corporation-owned retail and 25 wholesale spots in 102 communities and also serves an additional 185 member co-ops in 10 states — Alabama, Arkansas, Ga, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Texas.

Combined with its member co-ops, GreenPoint services 28 million acres of 11 important crops.

“Geographically, it would make a large amount of feeling for us” to have headquarters in Decatur, Blair stated. “It’s geographically centered in our region.” And the company already has a existence in this article, with a big warehouse and other functions.

“We seriously like the area,” Blair said. “We really feel like the good quality of lifetime in the Decatur-Huntsville space is great.”