Jan 18, 2016

Dale Cowan named 2015 CCA Award of Excellence winner!

Dale Cowan, 2015 CCA
Award of Excellence winner
The Ontario Certified Crop Advisor Association congratulates Dale Cowan on being honoured by his peers with the CCA Award of Excellence at the annual CCA Conference and Annual Meeting in London, Ontario last week.
Dale has been involved in agriculture for over 35 years and is currently employed by AGRIS Co-operative and Wanstead Farmers Co-operative as a senior agronomist and sales manager. Previously, he was the owner/president of Agri-Food Laboratories for 18 years and continued with the company for an additional two years as the manager of the transition team
The CCA Award of Excellence recognizes a certified crop advisor (CCA) who delivers exceptional customer service, is highly innovative, has shown strong leadership and has contributed substantially to the exchange of ideas and the transfer of agronomic knowledge within the agriculture industry.
In his current role, Dale works directly with growers as well as collaborating with 14 other CCAs in his sales team. Combined, Dale reviews recommendations across thousands of acres. The growers contacted as references for this award valued Dale’s strong technological knowledge and his ability to communicate. They noted his innovative spirit and enthusiasm for new technology is what sets him apart.

Dale has been very involved with the CCA program. He was a board director from 2002 to 2010 which included serving as board chair in 2005 and 2006. Dale received his CCA designation in 1997, among the first group in Ontario to be certified.

Congratulations Dale!

Information for this post originated from the CCA (Jan. 15) news release. To read full news release click here.


Jan 11, 2016

Ontario’s Aspiring Leaders graduate with great aspirations!

Most times when a new program is introduced that involves substantial commitment from a large group of people, it takes time, maybe even years to gain momentum. Not true for GROWMARK’s Aspiring Leaders Program that was just recently introduced in 2015. In its first year, GROWMARK put almost 100 FS System employees from Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin and Ontario through the multi-faceted three-month leadership program that involved several training sessions on GROWMARK, leadership styles, accounting and finance, communications and government relations. 

Participants received daily readings and exercises to stimulate their knowledge base and help them look inward and develop strengths and weaknesses, and were also asked to keep a daily personal journal.

The best way to understand the value of a program is to listen to what participants are saying. These are some of the comments we heard from Ontario FS System employees about their experiences:

 “I felt both needed and wanted by mentor.”

 “I never worked with this group before, and now we are friends!”

“Brand yourself; join groups that matter to you, define what success is for you!”

 “Journaling was something very new to me, but my mentor held me accountable!” 

Last Friday, Ontario GROWMARK System employees that took part in the Aspiring Leaders program came together to present their final group presentations to other aspiring leaders, their mentors and managers from various member companies and GROWMARK Ontario region staff.

Teams of three and four were responsible for picking their topics and preparing for this day. Group topics covered a number of team building and leadership concepts as well as insight into consumer misunderstandings about agriculture and food production. 

Congratulations to the following Ontario Aspiring Leaders graduates!


From (L-R), back row: Carrie Kuhns of GROWMARK and program facilitator, Ontario graduates: Paul May (UPI Energy LP), Chris Albrecht (FS PARTNERS), Robyn Pool (AGRIS Co-operative), Luke Siertsema (Huron Bay Co-operative), Matt Minshall (AGRIS Co-operative), Jackie Rodgers (UPI Energy LP), Cindy Charlebois, (GROWMARK Ontario region), Jeff Wilson (County Farm Centre), Lucas Meyer (FS PARTNERS). Front row: Nicole Weber (FS PARTNERS), Larry Croft (FS PARTNERS), Holly Becker (Huron Bay Co-operative), Claire Mumford (UPI Energy LP), Kyle Beatty (County Farm Centre), Sharon Fleming (FS PARTNERS), Brady Debruyn (AGRIS Co-operative) and Jason Murray (FS PARTNERS).