Jim Lenz:
All right, give me a second. So I usually have this done and I’m just. We have a board meeting tomorrow. We have meeting the Jeeps Foundation, I’ve got some and we got the learning development strategy that was executed and was laid out for four years in the future, and then there’s execution on that. So I’m just trying to do that and other projects that are going on all the time. So, apologies, but thank you so much. Okay, all right, get my microphone. Okay, it’s to be All right. Today’s guest is Wayne Bauer. Wayne is a longtime veteran of the grain industry and has served Jeeps in numerous roles. We are grateful for his service and it is so great that he can be here with us today in this episode. Welcome, wayne. Thanks for making whole grain part of your day.
Wayne Bauer:
Appreciate the opportunity, jim, to speak to fellow Jeeps members, as well as some of the others in the ag industry.
Jim Lenz:
Wonderful. Well, it is again very special. This is really the first of a number of times that the whole grain will be featuring veteran grain industry leaders, many of them retired in the grain handling and processing industry, many of them with great involvement with Jeeps and leadership roles throughout the years. Just gain for our listeners words of wisdom and really perspective. It’s good to know the story of folks and where they came within throughout the industry. And so you spent actually just about all of your time in the grain handling and professional, or you spent, wayne, about almost all of your adult life in the grain handling and processing industry, although you did say that you left for a few years and then you ended up coming back because you like that so much. So just before we start, could you give our listeners who have never met you a little brief background about how you got into the grain handling processing industry? What were some of your roles within the industry throughout your adult professional life?
Wayne Bauer:
Well, I have been involved with about eight different companies in my career so I won’t worry about all those details and changes and twists and turns. But back in 1975, I was hired by three cooperatives to supervise the construction of a grain terminal in Michigan and I don’t mind saying that at that point in my career I was very, very agreeing and I leaned on a couple of gentlemen in the Farmerville Services who owned and operated four grain terminals in Michigan and heavily for some guidance and after a period of time they kept emphasizing to me that, wayne, you need to belong to Jeeps. So that’s when I joined Jeeps in 1976 and went to my first Jeeps exchange at Kansas City.
Jim Lenz:
Oh, wonderful. So what were some of those positions that you held with the organizations?
Wayne Bauer:
Me within the ag industry. I started out as an agronomist after leaving Michigan State University and then managed a small feed mill for a short period of time, then was contacted to supervise the construction of the small grain terminal in Michigan and went to Wix shortly after that and then helped build another grain terminal with boat loading capabilities and then ended up supervising 28 grain country elevators in Michigan for a short period of time and became a credit manager and then ultimately got into safety and security. So I’ve kind of wore a lot of different hats over the last 46 years.
Jim Lenz:
Thank you for sharing. That Gives us a brief background there. What about Leadership roles that you served with Jeeps and now they’re quite immense Can you share with our listeners?
Wayne Bauer:
Well, I started with a Seaway chapter, of course, in 1976 and took it upon myself to start the Michigan Southern Ontario chapter in 1983. And that was a really interesting experience and we pulled in a number of people from Southern Ontario. So actually the Michigan Southern Ontario chapter is the only chapter in the Jeeps organization that is truly international, with the members from two different countries in our chapter. But that was a good experience. And then, as time went on, we started the regional conference in Angola, indiana, teaming up with the Hoosier chapter in Indiana and the Seaway chapter in Ohio, and that was a great experience for all three chapters for a number of years. That conference ran for close to 30 years there in Angola, indiana, and it was really easy for each chapter to reach. And then I got on the international board and served in a variety of capacities there and ultimately the international president in 2004 or 2005, and I was really glad, or I was really fulfilled, to get the industry award in 2017 as well.
Jim Lenz:
There are so many people are appreciative of your service. I know the current board presidents of the international board, chuck Kunish. There’s a connection for sure with you and him. Can you just share with our listeners? Chuck was on a previous episode. If you’ve never met him before, you can check that out on food grade soybeans and production. But yeah, tell us about your connection with Chuck. Is it rather interesting.
Wayne Bauer:
Yeah, you’re the current president, Chuck Kunish. Chuck and I are our families, actually farmed together just a couple miles apart from each other in Michigan, and as time went on, I also introduced Chuck to the Jeeps organization, as well as Jeff Trudell, who also serves on the international board.
Jim Lenz:
There’s lots of connection there. You were led by someone to Jeeps organization and you certainly have led a lot of others who are big leaders for the organizations and green industry as well. I like, since joining Jeeps, that if the organization can make the world of the green handling and processing industry smaller, kind of, we’ve done our job. In other words, this form of this global membership association allows people to make really strong connections where they can get help and support each other in literally just an email or a phone call or two away. That’s what’s pretty exciting. I mean, what does it mean to you to be part of the Jeeps family? What does that mean to you?
Wayne Bauer:
Well, it means a lot, Jim. I’ve grown a great deal through Jeeps and learned so much. We’ve made some tremendous friendships and acquaintances. As a matter of fact, four of the past Jeeps and the officers we still the four of us still meet every year for an annual reunion, even though it’s been 30 years since we served together in the local chapter. It’s just been a great experience meeting with people. When I was on the international board, we used to tell people frequently and I don’t know if that’s still, that story is still shared but we used to tell everybody that you can meet anyone in the grain industry in the world if you so desire, by making two phone calls through Jeeps, and we’ve done that many times.
Jim Lenz:
Well said. I’ve heard that dozens of time over. So certainly true, great to be a member of Jeeps to help and support each other. Now, thinking back, reflecting, I know I’ve contacted you last week kind of out of blue. By the way, is this your first podcast episode ever where you served as a guest on?
Wayne Bauer:
Well as a podcast per se, but I’ve been involved in a number of other video broadcasts with Grain Journal and Mark Avery over the years and also did some online distance learning development at Kansas State University.
Jim Lenz:
Great. Well, we are excited to have you. So you did have a not a lot but a little time to kind of reflect about your time in the grain industry and working with the Jeeps family. Be part of that. Now, is there a memory or two that you could kind of pull out for the listeners? Something I know got lots of memories that it’s probably really hard to do, but if you had one or two, could you share that?
Wayne Bauer:
Yeah, there are so many great memories that I have Jim going back over the last 46 years. It’s hard to you know psych out one or two, but a couple of them that kind of come to mind is I had the opportunity to do an actual high angle rescue one time and save an employee’s life, and it was also nice to be able to participate very actively with the steel bend manufacturers in helping to look at better ways to get in and out of grain bends and actually have them adopt some of the design parameters for safer steel bends over the years.
Jim Lenz:
Now it’s gratifying to see Wow, that’s pretty amazing what you shared there, helping to save someone’s life, but in expanding that by working with manufacturers. And you also mentioned in a previous conversation, outside of this, that you spent some time in Argentina. Can you tell us about with Jeeps at the time? What was that about? Was it for an industry in there? And did you say you showed some educational program?
Wayne Bauer:
For many years. Jeeps and Aposcan down in Argentina, I realized, hooked up and sent the international president and back in 2004 and 2005, I was, course, international president at that point so I made my first trip to Argentina during that year up to meet Aposcan and some of the folks down. There was a great trip. But then, four or five years after that, the ag industry down in Argentina invited me back to actually put on a presentation on grain entrapment prevention. So we set up a mock elevator in a large railroad handling facility and I don’t recall the exact number of Jim, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 350 to 400 people from five different countries from South America attended that full day session and that was a tremendous experience for me to be able to participate with all of those folks down there and doing that and sharing those thoughts. And what was really neat to hear, six or eight months after that I heard from one of the companies that was involved that they actually took some of the techniques that I shared with them and saved an individual who was suffocating in a large bin of soybean milk and they felt that they would probably not have saved them if it would not have been for being exposed to some of the techniques we shared with them at that meeting. So it was good to hear that kind of stuff.
Jim Lenz:
Oh, my goodness, Wow, wow, what obviously great feedback. How quickly important is. You never know the impact someone can have and a lot of times you don’t know about it, but you did happen to hear from them about six, seven minutes after that educational event that you conducted. It’s incredible, thank you, I don’t know. Another question that I may be asking uh guests who come on, uh with this great experience and uh episodes like this, what would you do differently? Is there something that you don’t have to have a response for that? But I’m just. I’m just curious if there’s something.
Wayne Bauer:
Well, one thing I’d probably do differently, uh, jim, was, um, you know the fact that over the years, you know, because of a lot of committee meetings and uh working with Homeland Security and and the Jeeps and the many other groups, um, you know, I went into a lot of different groups like the California grain and feed and the Idaho seed producers and different flower mill organizations just a lot of different organizations besides Jeeps. But often I would fly into uh to a place for a committee meeting or a quick uh uh presentation with somebody, and then I jumped back on the plane again that same day or grab a flight early the next morning and head back out and then and respect, if I look back at that if I could do anything differently, I would have just taken a little extra time, maybe an extra day, and stayed there and and took some time to go out and visit some of those facilities that was in that area and meet some of the people in that area. You know, I think we’re all in such a hurry, uh, when in fact, you know if you’re taking the time to go someplace, whether you know I went to Vancouver and Texas, louisiana, and then you know other places in Canada. You know, looking back, I never really got a chance to see those areas because I didn’t take the time. I was too, too much of a hurry to get back and you know I had other responsibilities and wanted to dress the next day. But I should have taken an extra day or two and visited some of our fellow Jeeps members and maybe visited a few extra facilities while it was in those areas, and that would have been one thing. I’d have done different if I could go back and do it all over again. I can’t hear you, jim, jim, I can’t hear you.
Jim Lenz:
Oops, sorry about that. That’s good, I hit the mute button. I’ve got that in my microphone right here, all right, so let me start that again. Um, but what I was also going to ask others in this type of series is about safety improvements. It’s obviously so critical. You’ve already mentioned the positive impact that’s been made with your great service. But, looking maybe broadly on the industry, what do you think you’ve seen as some of the greatest safety, the greatest safety improvement or some of the greatest safety improvements during your time within the industry?
Wayne Bauer:
Well, two or three things come to mind. I guess one thing that I think we see a lot more of the last 10 years in particular is our companies that are developing short videos to use for orientation purposes for new employees and maybe people coming to visit your site. You know it’s pretty hard. You hire somebody to cover 25, 30 different safety issues. You want to cover with them the first, you know, a couple hours or half a day even. And some of these introductory videos do a really nice job of nothing else, just to perk their interest and attention. So they get asked to do something like Ben entry or lock out, tag out or whatever. It just maybe raises their awareness enough to know that take your time and ask somebody how to do it properly. But I think those orientation videos are a great tool to use and a good use of everybody’s time. Excuse me the other thing I think everybody’s doing a better job of using safety committees. You know, challenging the employees to get involved and help to identify hazards on site and helping to train each other. I think that’s a great tool and I think the more we can do in terms of hands on training, those are good use of time, I mean, I think for anybody to appreciate how to do things like lock out a tag out, Ben entry, things like that, just to watch a simple PowerPoint is not going to get the point across as effectively as going out there and watching that employee physically do that task and making sure they understand it properly.
Jim Lenz:
You know makes sense. Great, Great and thanks for sharing. Now, when you retired, based on just some preliminary questioning leading up to this interview, I found it kind of fascinating that you didn’t just go fishing or whatever you’re having, maybe, but you continued to educate and reach out and, particularly after retirement and really from 2005 to 2020, you taught local fire departments in both Michigan and Ontario how to effectively respond to different types of farm related injuries agriculture related injuries. Can you describe that Then? Not only that, you worked with high school students and interested to stem to some concepts about where food comes from and such. Can you describe some of those things you did following your retirement?
Wayne Bauer:
We created an organization called Emergency Services Rescue Training here in Michigan. We petitioned my OSHA for grant money and they have been very supportive. As a matter of fact, the director of Michigan OSHA at one time her father was buried in a grain bin, so she was very supportive of some of the things we were trying to do in the farm and egg industry. But three things that we did. Number one was to develop a training program, was a three to four hour training program for fire departments on how to effectively deal with 20 different types of farm related emergencies. We covered everything from tractor rollovers, pto issues, large animal issues, toxic gases around manure pits, handling anhyzer pneumonia just a wide variety of things that local fire departments really aren’t knowledgeable about. We would train fire departments all over the state as well as Ontario on how to address some of those things. But as part of that, when we went into a community, if we had an opportunity to go talk to the local school and share some thoughts with the students about agriculture and just raising their awareness of where does your food come from, what kind of career opportunities are in the egg industry, those kind of things, we always took that opportunity to go and talk to the students in that community as well. Then the other thing we did is we went out and talked to farm families to try to raise their awareness and making sure they understood how to get things done without harming somebody in their family as well. So we tried to target fire departments, students and farm families through emergency services rescue training. Then it was a great a lot of good feedback, met a lot of great people. Unfortunately, the whole COVID scenario really slowed that whole process down. But up until that point we had a lot of great feedback and some good results from that program. Some of the programs we offered were actually hands-on training besides PowerPoints. We actually had a full 12-hour training program on tractor rollovers. We actually use live tractors and show them how to deal with them or tractor rollovers, an example. There was a great program.
Jim Lenz:
Fantastic, the green industry. Thank you for your service. It’s about reaching the next set of generations. Just one or two other things before we conclude here today. Obviously, you have been involved with chapters yourself. As you reflect on chapter leadership, direction of chapters, chapter engagement, what are some Maybe pieces of advice, if you will, or some sort of commentary you can have surrounding chapters and chapter engagement?
Wayne Bauer:
Well, you know, one of the things that was really one of my grits, jim, when I was on the Egypt International Board. I think we currently have about 26 chapters in the national organization but over the years I think in the last 40 to 50 years we’ve actually probably formed over 32 different chapters and over time some of those were scratched and deemed and not viable. And what’s really hard for me to see is when you have a good, strong chapter going and then four or five years later just dies because you know we had a hit, a soft spot as far as the succession planning and things like that with new members coming on the board, quite frankly. But one of the things we did with Michigan, southern Ontario chapter, which I was very proud of, probably for the first 15 to 20 years from 1983 on, we actually dedicated a full day every June to bring in the new board and we usually met at the golf, local golf course and we spent the morning talking about succession planning, strategic planning and what meetings worked well last year, which ones could we improve upon, things like that. The other thing we did is we really spent a lot of time talking about who should be on the board in the future. Now, keeping in mind our chapter back for many, many years, we had six board members. Four of them were regular members and two of them were associates. The other thing we always had as a guideline we wanted four members from Michigan and two members from Ontario. So to try to juggle that and make sure that coming up next year we’re going to have the right people with leadership potential to carry the torch, I mean, we took that very seriously. So we met with the board as well, as we always invited three or four past board members to come in and join the new board and we shared thoughts and talked about that in depth for two, three hours and then we had a little barbecue and then had a little golf outing with each other afterwards in the afternoon. But that was a tremendous tool and it just worked so well for Michigan Southern Ontario chapter to maintain a strong, viable presence. And you know the chapter kept growing and we balanced the mix between Ontario and Michigan and I would sure encourage other chapters, if they’re not doing that, to take a serious look at doing that and actually spending a good chunk of time doing some planning, orientation and strategic planning with the boards, inviting the old members back in as well to share thoughts and things that worked well in the past.
Jim Lenz:
And that’s a good advice, thank you very much. So you talked about strategic planning being strategic thinking, with the board of the chief’s chapter now staying along with the theme of chapters and engagement, and I think we’ve left back and think about now and as things evolve here with family schedules, work schedules, just the range of changes going on in facilities. So what are some ways that you think are best or have drawn the most engagement? What are the activities that you see and how does education play a role in all that?
Wayne Bauer:
Well, you know, I guess a couple things come to mind. You know one thing I guess I would try to do a better job of. You know I did a lot of it in the last eight to 10 years, but I wish I would have done more of it earlier in my career, just to take advantage of some of those synergies in the egg industry between you know, not only the company you’re working for but the new employees that are coming on board, local response groups and local farm families. I mean there are so many things we could do together in terms of sharing, you know, resources and just knowledge and things like that, if we could work more effectively together. And I think, as we look going forward, you know, let’s face it, everybody’s having a challenge to find the right employees to come on board and recognizing today that you know, less than 1% of our population is on farms, so to find anybody with any egg experience is getting tougher and tougher to do. So I think getting out there and even talking to high school students and kind of priming the pump and letting them know about what the egg industry looks like and what kind of a career opportunities out there, I mean it doesn’t hurt to start that process when those students are in, you know, our 15, 16 years old. We need to do more of that kind of thing.
Jim Lenz:
Beautiful, great advice. Now, one final little task I was hoping you could help me out with. I’m going to start a sentence and I love for you, wayne, to finish this sentence being part of the Jeep’s family. Being part of the Jeep’s family means to me what?
Wayne Bauer:
That just means being part of a very, you know great association of people, very, you know, strong. You know people that support each other and they’re doing something very worthwhile for our whole, our whole industry and, you know, society in general. People don’t realize that we spend less than 8% of our GDP in this country and food, and the reason that’s that small is because we’re efficient at the farm level and at the grain handling levels. You know that’s not the case in the rest of the world and I think that you know we need to take credit for how efficient we really are.
Jim Lenz:
That’s well said. I think a lot of people appreciate that it’s a wonderful industry to be in. I have had demonstration of passion for safety, passion for advancing industry and then this generational influence that you’ve had During your time as a professional and then after retirement. We are so proud of you, wayne, and we are very grateful that you are here on the Jeeps whole grain podcast so that you can, we can, use this channel to communicate your strong message to others, thank you, thank you so much for being a guest in the show.
Wayne Bauer:
Well, thank you for inviting me, jim. My jeeps has given me an awful lot over the years and I would be happy to participate in something as minor as this. It’s a great opportunity and good luck to everybody in the grain industry moving forward. Thank you.
Jim Lenz:
All right way, announced. Fantastic, your one hit wonder. This went real smoothly. The only issue I think I’m gonna have in editing is every five seconds you peaked in volume and then In the next five seconds you got low and it was like this the whole time, and that happens sometimes with internal microphones for laptops or desktops. They’re the least best kind of microphone, but but with the magic of editing I can improve that and so, but anyways, yeah, that was weird that they happened, but I think it’ll turn out. The content is terrific. Thank you so much, wayne.
Wayne Bauer:
Well, there’s anything else I can do in the future. Let me know a gem that you know. Yeah, great organization and good luck to you guys. So you go. I think you do a lot things well and and if I can help in any way, shape or form the next year or two, let me know.
Jim Lenz:
Thank you. I will share the link to this episode. It likely will come out about Nine days to 12 days from now, so I will email you with a link and then you share that out to your family and friends and I’m sure you’ll get some contact information from people in and out of the industry to say rain we love hearing in the podcast. Thanks for for being there.
Wayne Bauer:
Yeah, okay, jim, take care of yourself. Yeah, bye-bye.
