68. Keith Glover – Producers Rice Mill – Leading a Farmer-Owned Cooperative

April 18, 2022 Robert Wagner, CPA, Advisory Partner

Keith Glover

Keith Glover is President and CEO of the farmer-owned cooperative Producers Rice Mill in Stuttgart, Arkansas, a position he has held for over 30 years. He is a CPA who earned his accounting degree from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro.

Glover previously served as a board member of the Miss Arkansas Scholarship Foundation from 2013 to 2018. His daughter Kristen, was named Miss Arkansas in 2011.  Additionally, he served as Director on the board of the Little Rock branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 2014 to 2020.

In this episode, Keith gives a look at the journey of rice from farm to table, the evolution of the co-op model since the earliest days of the rice industry, and how Producers Rice Mill uniquely adds value to their cooperative farmer members.

He also shares his company’s decision, in collaboration with Scenic Hill Solar, to invest in a 26-megawatt solar plant. The $55 million project is aimed at providing millions of dollars in economic development for Stuttgart.

This episode is now on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also listen via the podcast player embedded above.

Make sure to subscribe to “How That Happened” to receive our latest episodes, learn more about our guests, and collect resources on how to better run your business.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Keith Glover:

That kind of gets into the solar project.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

Keith Glover:

You can look at the last 30, 35 years of what rice farmers have done, not just our members, but in the United States. In general, they are a lot more efficient than they were back in the mid eighties. Today, they can produce about 40 to 50% more rice on the same amount of acres, so if you look at the acres that US farmers planted in the mid eighties, versus today...

Robert Wagner:

From HoganTaylor CPAs and Advisors, I'm Robert Wagner, and this is How That Happened, a business and innovation success podcast. Each episode of the show, we sit down with the business and community leaders behind thriving organizations to learn how business and innovation success actually happens. Thank you again for joining us on another episode of How That Happened. If you enjoy the podcast, we invite you to give us a rating and a review at wherever you listen to your podcasts, and that really helps others find the How That Happened podcast. We appreciate that a lot. If you haven't already, please hit the subscribe button and the podcast will be delivered to your podcast app every two weeks, automatically.

Our guest today is Keith Glover. Keith is the president and CEO of Producers Rice Mill in Stuttgart, Arkansas. That's a position he's held for over 33 years. Keith is a CPA. He earned his accounting degree from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, Arkansas. In addition to his leadership at Producers Rice Mill, Keith served as a board member of the Miss Arkansas Scholarship Foundation from 2013 through 2018, and that included four years as chairman. And what I'm was a very proud moment, his daughter Kristen was Miss Arkansas in 2011. Keith was also a director on the board of the Little Rock branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis from 2014 through 2020. Keith, welcome to the How That Happened podcast.

Keith Glover:

Thank you, Robert.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah, I appreciate you being here, I really do. Looking forward to the conversation. So Keith, I think just to lay context for Producers Rice Mill and to start our conversation today, I think it would help folks like me, who really have no clue how rice gets from the farm to the table. So can you kind of give us an overview of the journey of rice?

Keith Glover:

Sure, I'd be happy to, Robert. First of all, we are a farmer owned cooperative. We were formed in 1943, so this year we'll be celebrating our 79th year of operation. We have approximately 2,300 rice farmers that own Producers Rice Mill, and they're the whole crux of the operations. As far as this organization's concerned, it all begins with them. And this time of the year, they'll be going out to their farms and planting rice. Typically here in what I call the Mid-South area of Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, and Northeast Louisiana, they'll be planting rice from early April all the way through the end of May. It'll grow through the summer months, and then about the middle of August, they'll begin harvest, and that will continue on until about the end of October.

Now, the co-op that they own when they harvest the rice, about two thirds of them will deliver the rice in the fall to one of our locations. We have 12 locations where we receive green rice. And when I say green rice, when they cut it, it's high in moisture. When I talk high in moisture, it's typically about 18 to 22% moisture. In order to preserve the quality of that rice, you really need to dry that rice down to about 12% within say a week's period of time in order to preserve the quality. About two thirds of our farmers will cut their rice and deliver it to one of our 12 locations, and we'll dry it down to about 12% and we'll store it, initially.

The other third actually have drying facilities on their own farm, and they'll cut it in the fall and deliver it to their own drying facility, dry it down like we would, and then later on in the upcoming year, they'll deliver it to one of our two mill sites. And at the mill site, we'll take the rough rice, the raw material, we'll process it into a finished product, such as milled rice or brown rice or some version of that. And from there, we will go almost all around the world. About 30% of our rice is exported and 70% of it is sold here domestically in the United States.

Robert Wagner:

Okay. That's fascinating. When I'm eating rice at home, am I eating just milled rice? Is that what I'm eating, or is it [crosstalk 00:05:12]?

Keith Glover:

Most likely.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

Keith Glover:

There is what we call regular rice, which is typically what you eat at a Chinese restaurant.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

Keith Glover:

And I can think of P.H. Chang or Panda Express. When you go in there, they give you an option of white rice, which is what you typically think of, we make that rice. They also give you a option of brown rice, which if you look at and compare the two, brown rice is just like it's in the name. It's a brown color or tint, and it actually still has the bran layer on it, and brand is actually the most healthy aspect of rice. That's what I typically eat, is brown rice. Also at Panda or P.F. Chang, you can have what they call refried rice, where they take the rice, they cook it, they add soy sauce to it, they add other little things like onions and celery or eggs and come up with refried rice. So there's a lot of different ways you could have consumed rice.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. And then we haven't even got into the whole, many, many other commercial ways that rice is used.

Keith Glover:

Sure.

Robert Wagner:

So we can maybe touch on that at some point, but so for producers, is your customer more like distributors of rice or are they these major food chains? What's the makeup of your customer base?

Keith Glover:

Well, that's a great question. And as I mentioned earlier, 30% of our rice is exported, and we export it around the world and we've exported to the Middle East, Europe, the Caribbean, Central America. Mexico happens to be the largest export customer for the US rice industry, and that's a good thing. That's our neighbor.

And then the 70% that we sell here domestically, it goes in various segments and sectors of the food industry. We have a segment that is what we call the retail, and that would be rice that goes into the grocery stores or supermarkets. We have a pretty big segment that goes into what I call the food service, and of course the food service industry, our distributors, kind of like you mentioned, and they take our rice, buy our rice, and then they resell it to restaurants, cafeterias, universities, schools, nursing homes, people like that.We have another segment that we call the club stores, and of course there's generally about three or four big club stores that operates here in the United States, and we sell rice into those various club stores. And then there's the industrial aspect. One of the big users of US rice is the brewing industry. Anheuser-Busch is known as the largest buyer of US rice.

Robert Wagner:

Wow.

Keith Glover:

Another big buyer and user of US rice is the pet food industry, and they use it in their pet food that they sell, primarily for dogs. One reason why they like rice: rice is hypoallergenic, which means if you've got allergies, and a lot of our pets do have allergies. If you go take your dog to a vet and tell them that the dog is scratching and itching all the time, most likely the first thing the vet's going to say is you need to put that dog or pet on a rice-based diet. That's just another example of some of the industry uses. We also sell a lot of rice into the cereal industry. And of course, you're familiar with Rice Krispies.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Keith Glover:

And there's a lot of other great cereals out there that use either meal rice or brown rice as one of their ingredients. So we sell in pretty well all sectors in the United States domestic market that use rice as an ingredient.

Robert Wagner:

Gotcha. So just to try to complete the circle here on kind of the value add of what producers is adding to this process, so you're collecting it and you're drying it. I see the service there. And then I assume all of this marketing that we're talking about is producer's responsibility, right? It's your job to... Not find these customers, I'm sure they're well established at this point, but establish relationships with customers. And then, is the pricing commodity-based or is that kind of contract by contract?

Keith Glover:

Well, we like to consider... We're adding value to our farmers' rice.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Keith Glover:

And our members, as I mentioned, we're a co-op. And basically when they deliver their rice to us, they entrust us to go out and market it and try to get the highest price we can for their product, and that's what we try to do. The aspect of adding value to the rice they deliver, that's something that's very important for us at Producers. And along those lines, we take the rice, as you mentioned, we dry it down, and we will store it until it's time to send it to one of our mill, and then we'll process it for the particular sale that we have made, whether that's industrial retail, food service, or export. We'll process it, basically for that particular order. And in the processing, we do add value to the basic commodity. To kind of prove the point that we are adding value for our farmers is that for the last 32 consecutive years, our return to our members has been higher than what USDA has reported was the average farm cash price for rice farmers in the entire United States.

Robert Wagner:

Gotcha. Wow.

Keith Glover:

It means the return that our members have received at Producers beats their fellow co-rice farmers, nationwide.

Robert Wagner:

Right.

Keith Glover:

We've done that for 32 consecutive years, so that's one of the big objectives we try to accomplish each year. And by doing that, it kind of proves that we are adding value to our cooperative farmer members.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah. So you may have already answered this, really, but just again, just in my own mind, it kind of closes the loop on this business model. So why is the co-op model... Why does it work so well in this business?

Keith Glover:

Yes. Well, it kind of goes back to the origins of the rice industry here in the Mid-South, prior to us forming. And there's a other big cooperative here in town called Riceland Foods, they were formed a little... In fact, I think they celebrated their hundredth anniversary this past year. The reason why the co-ops were formed and have evolved over the years and been very successful is because I referred to stories that I heard about the origins of the industry where rice farmers would take their product to the mills, and back in those days, the mills were all independent. As you can imagine, after harvest, when all the farmers deliver at the same time, their rice, to all these mills, of course it was a buyer's market.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Keith Glover:

There was a lot of bad stories about mills and merchants taking advantage of the farmers, so the farmers decided they had to change the mix, so they organized, and they formed these rice co-ops. Basically, what that allowed them to do is to have more power in the marketing of their product. So, number one, they took a situation from them all coming to the market at the same time. And with the storage that the co-ops built over time, they spread that marketing out over the entire year, so that added value. And then also by coming together to form the rice mills and the co-ops, they added additional value to their prices and returns, so that's why the co-ops have been successful for, you could say up to the last hundred years.

Robert Wagner:

Right. Very good. I don't know, it's a very interesting business model to me, and it's not prevalent in a lot of... I think it's prevalent in agriculture, correct? But it's not prevalent in other areas, so it's very interesting.

Keith Glover:

Yeah, and I would also add that unlike corn, wheat, and soybeans, we do have a futures market in Chicago. But we were one of the last grain commodities that developed a futures commodity in Chicago, so since there wasn't that futures that farmers could look to see what the price of their commodity was, they had to rely more on the cooperatives. I think that's another reason why there was a big need for rice marketing cooperatives when they developed and continued all the way up into the mid eighties. Our rice futures in Chicago only got started in the mid eighties.

Robert Wagner:

Gotcha. Gotcha. So Keith, we're going to talk about... Producers has announced a big solar project, and I want to talk about that in a minute, but what else is going on in ways of innovation in your world? How is technology and just innovation happening in your business?

Keith Glover:

Right. Well, I've been with Producers since 1982, so this will be my 40th year, and I've seen a pretty good transformation over those 40 years in technology. Each time we have a new generation of technology, it makes us all better. One thing that I have seen here recently is how rice is being used as an ingredient in so many products, and we kind of touched on that a little bit, but one of the things that we did to try to add value to our members is that back in 2005, we went in business with a company out of California at that time to build and operate a rice flour mill. Basically, when you meal rice, the whole kernels, that's what the market generally desires. When you eat rice at a restaurant or cook it for your meal at night, you eat typically the whole kernels. But in the milling process, you do create some broken kernels. In our rice flour mill, we take the larger and the higher quality brokens, and we send it to our flour mill, and in the flour milling process, we grind it to a powder, or a flour.

I'm really amazed since we built that rice flour mill in 2005, how the growth of rice flour has just kind of grown, and to some degree, mushroomed. And to give you example, for some of the products that we're selling rice flour or companies we're selling rice flour to to make various products, gluten free, rice is a gluten free product. Any time that you go to a restaurant and buy a pizza. That's gluten free, the dough, odds are that pizza dough is made from rice flour. I mentioned earlier that rice is hypoallergenic, which means if you've got allergies and most of those are related to wheat, that's why the baby food companies, when they need a flour product, they buy rice flour, because babies, some of them have allergy issues. If the formulas are based on rice flour, then they don't have to worry about that as much.

Believe it or not, rice flour is now used in potato chips, which I consider that kind of oxymoron, that a potato chip actually has a significant portion of rice flour in it. But rice flour is very functional and easy to work with for the chip makers, and potato flakes have really kind of gone through the roof price-wise. And as potato flakes get higher, they insert more rice flour. Believe it or not, rice flour is used in coating French fries for most of the major fast food restaurants. Now you wonder, "Why in the world would they coat a French fry with rice flour?" Well, there's two reasons. Number one: it's healthier for the consumer. And number two: when they coat a French fry with rice flour, it absorbs less oil, so again, that gets back to being healthier for the consumer, but also it makes it crispy. It gives it a nice crispy, outer texture.

And as I mentioned earlier, rice flours are being used in a whole host of adult cereals, especially of the healthy ones. You have brown rice flour that's being used in those. Also, if you've ever eaten a snack bar or a power bar that is kind of puffy, odds are they're using rice flour there. If you've ever eaten a candy bar that has crunch in it, that's chocolate and it's got a crunch element to it, odds are that's rice flour that's been puffed into a little bead, and then they cover that up with chocolate, like in a Krackel bar or Crunch bar, most likely that's a little rice crunch bead that's embedded inside the chocolate. That's one thing that I have been amazed at, is how rice is being used as an ingredient in so many products. I could take you some time and go to the grocery store and just go down almost every aisle and point out all the products that some form of rice is being used in.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah, that's fascinating stuff. I guess that brings a question to mind about supply and demand. Everything you're you're describing here... It was pointed towards increasing demand for these products because a lot of them, as you're describing them, they're healthier, they're non-GMO, all these things. What is the ability of farmers to increase supply? Can they plant more? Are they increasing harvests using the same amount of land or is there things like developments like that going on?

Keith Glover:

Well, that's kind of gets into the solar project.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

Keith Glover:

You can look at the last 30, 35 years of what rice farmers have done, not just our members, but in the United States. In general, they are a lot more efficient than they were back in the mid eighties. Today, they can produce about 40 to 50% more rice on the same amount of acres, so if you look at the acres that US farmers planted in the mid eighties versus today, it's less.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

Keith Glover:

They're able to produce way more rice per acre than they did in the eighties. Now that helps in many ways. It makes them more efficient. It means they use a lot less inputs, such as water or fertilizer and all those sort of things. And of course technology, we talked about technology in the previous question. We've seen a lot of improvements in the area of field yields compared to over the last 30 or 40 years.

Another area of technology, I grew up in a rice growing community here in Arkansas. My family wasn't rice farmers, but I can remember being in elementary school and rice harvest typically started in October. And when I joined Producers in 1982, rice harvest, wouldn't kick off until after Labor Day. And then today, we have people that cut rice in the first week of August. Now what's the significance of that? Well, the growing period has decreased, or shrunk, so it's not out in the field as long as it used to. And of course, when we grow rice, a flood is maintained on it. It's grown in water. Well, if you shaved, which they have over the last 40 years, the growing period, by as much as 40 to 50 days, that means they use less water and they use less other inputs such as diesel fuel to pump the water and all that stuff, so they have become a lot more efficient and better stewards of the natural resources that they've been blessed with.

With regard to our solar project, we want to continue that good news or that movement in that direction, so that's the next step. The farmers have done an amazing job of reducing their inputs and improved their sustainability over the 30, 40 years, and we're now the next step in the chain, with our farmer owned cooperative, and that's why we have chosen to invest into a solar farm.

Robert Wagner:

Yeah, that is fascinating, just the conservation and the efficiency and the gains from that is absolutely fascinating, the impacts that it has. I hope the rice trade association is effectively communicating that, because that's a fantastic story. Let's talk about the solar project. You guys have announced a very large investment, you're going to install and I assume are in the process of it, installing a 26 megawatt solar plant on 160 acres, which is adjacent to where I assume you are right now. Just talk about that, and I guess what fascinates me about it is the size, the commitment that you're making. It just seems like a huge, huge commitment to solar.

Keith Glover:

Yes, it is, and we're very excited. We actually, the board voted to do this about three years ago, but in order to build a plant of that size and do net metering with our utility and various other aspects of it, you have to get approvals through the state public service commission. About the time that we submitted our plans is when COVID hit, so because of COVID that delayed the process quite a bit, and it took a lot longer to get approval through the state public service commission. But fortunately, last March, a year ago, in 2021, the public service commission approved it. Since that time, we have been getting with bids with various EPCs to quote us and to design the layout and all that. We kind of waited to make sure the PSC was going to approve it first, before we spent a lot of time and effort working with the EPC, so we have narrowed it down to one EPC and we're in the final stages of drafting the contract and agreeing to and everything. We have gone forth and put orders in to buy solar panels.

Like you mentioned, this is a 26 megawatt solar array, but the thing that makes this one different than most other solar farms that you hear about, we're also going to add 40 megawatt hours of battery storage and also conduct a micro grid. We'll be our own little utility company here at Producers Rice Mill, and of course you know the sun shines roughly half of the day, the other half of the day is dark, so we will able to generate far more electricity during the daytime than what we need. And in the meantime, we'll be putting that electricity in the batteries and keeping them full. And then at nighttime, if we need to, we'll use the electricity from the battery. T.

His facility, when it's complete, and we hope to turn the switch on in the second quarter of 2023, would be the largest non-utility-related solar farm here in the state of Arkansas. And according to the head of the state public service commission, we have heard him mention that he says it's going to be the largest non-utility-related facility in about a 13 or 14 state region around here in the Mid-South Arkansas area. We're very excited about it. We can't wait to get it up and going. If we knew that the energy costs were going to skyrocket like we've seen over the past two months because of the invasion of Ukraine, it would've been nice to have had the facility up and going now, because electrical rates and all forms of fuel costs are kind of going through the roof, and I'm excited can't wait to get the array and the micro-grid online.

Robert Wagner:

That is very exciting. Just a quick question: will you be able to other businesses? Is that part of the micro-grid piece?

Keith Glover:

Even though this is going to be the largest micro-grid and solar array in the state, it's only going to service about 67% of our needs at this complex here in Stu-

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

Keith Glover:

Okay? Now, when we planned, when we laid it out, we intended to do a hundred percent, but unfortunately a couple years ago, the state legislators put a cap on how big a non-utility micro-grid and solar array could be, and we're at that cap.

Robert Wagner:

Gotcha.

Keith Glover:

If we didn't have that cap in the state, we would've been higher.

Robert Wagner:

Right.

Keith Glover:

So since we're only going to supply 67% of our needs, the answer to that would be no. And of course, we will be working with the utility on a net metering. And as I mentioned, our array's so big, we're going to export prior to and during the daytime. And at night, when we can't generate any electricity, and say we don't want to use our electricity and our batteries, we will to take that excess power back at night, kilowatts back at night, which allows the utility to run their plants 24 hours a day.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Keith Glover:

So a lot more efficient for the utility that service us. And also in the summertime, when everyone uses a lot of air conditioner. And of course the demand on the power grid. I'm not talking about producers, but the power grid in, say, our part of the country skyrockets. We'll actually be doing the utility a favor because we'll be giving them kilowatts when they really need it to help their grid, and then at night, when things cool back down, they'll be giving us kilowatt hour back to us in the evening.

Robert Wagner:

Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, this is a fascinating conversation, learning about Producers and the value chain and I really appreciate that. I want to have a couple questions about just your career and things that you've done. You joined, you alluded to this, I think you said you're headed towards your 38th year, 39th? Or maybe 40th year at Producers, is that right?

Keith Glover:

40 years at Producers, 34 years as president and CEO.

Robert Wagner:

Right. That's the question I wanted to get to. So you came on as a CFO, you were a young guy then, and I think you were made CEO at the age of 30, is that right?

Keith Glover:

Yes, that's correct.

Robert Wagner:

What did people see in you? That's the transition that a lot of CFOs never get to make and...

Keith Glover:

Yeah.

Robert Wagner:

People often think the CFO would naturally transition to the CEO role. It doesn't happen that often, really, but someone saw something in you at a very young age. What do you think those traits were?

Keith Glover:

Well, when I was hired, I was hired as being the CFO. And at that time I was the first CFO or educated accountant that Producers Rice Mill had ever hired, or had ever had employed working for them. They had a lot of great people, they were good bookkeepers. Whenever it was year end, they would hire the accounting firm to come in, and the accounting firm would spend two weeks, or excuse me, two months, in the summertime kind of fixing things. And finally, the accounting firm, which I actually worked for at the time, they finally said, "Y'all really need to get a CFO." So the people that were the president and CEO at Producers at the time, and in fact, my wife worked at Producers at that time, they reached out to me and asked if I would and join Producers Rice Mill, and be their very first CFO.

I have to confess, I took a bookkeeping course when I was in the seventh or eighth grade, and I fell in love with bookkeeping. At that time, I really thought I would be in public accounting for the rest of my life. I really did. That's what my career visions were, but they offered me the job, and I joined in 1982. Within two months, I realized I had made a great move, that I really enjoyed being CFO and working with a one company, instead of going... I was an auditor with the CPA firm I worked for, and you know how that works, where you spend a month or so at somebody's business, and then you go to another client and so forth. But I realized after two months, that I had really made a great move and I really enjoyed working for just one company.

Well, a few years into my service here at producers, when you looked at the executives at that time, it kind of became apparent to the board and also upper management that I had potential. About two years before I was named the CEO president, they sat me down and told me they thought I had potential, and they made me executive vice president, which technically moved me up to the second position. And basically they had given me a timeline that I would eventually become president and CEO, probably about five years later than when I actually became CEO. The timetable was sped up by about five years, and things just came together where my predecessor, the guy that hired me, he wanted to take retirement sooner than what he intentionally had planned. And the board still had faith in me that they thought I would be the best choice, and they stuck with me. Fortunately things have worked out well for us, and I'm still here.

Robert Wagner:

That is an awesome story. They obviously saw great leadership potential, and that's a fantastic story. One more question, just from your career. One of the things that's in your bio was mentioned in my intro was your role at the Little Rock branch of the Federal Reserve of St. Louis. Tell us what that is and how you have input, I guess, into the Federal Reserve, in that kind of a role.

Keith Glover:

Sure. I have to say that's been one of the highlights of my career, is being involved with the St. Louis Federal Reserve. Before I became a director for the Little Rock branch, prior to that, I was asked to serve on a agribusiness council that was involved with the main office in St. Louis, and we would meet twice a year. We would go up there and we had other agribusiness leaders throughout our district, the St. Louis district. We met twice a year and really got to know the leadership in the St. Louis Fed, and really kind of gained a tremendous amount of respect, not only for the people in St Louis, but also the Federal Reserve system in general.

And then there was an opening that came up on the Little Rock board, the branch board, and I was asked to serve, and I finished out the predecessor's board term, and then I served two three year terms. The way the rules are, you can only serve two terms, a maximum of two terms, so I termed out in December of 2020, but it was a awesome experience for me. I learned a lot, and I hopefully, I contribute some to the overall input on the information that people higher up in the Federal Reserve need to make key decisions on tightening or loosening [inaudible 00:37:39] policy, monetary policy or the effect of interest rates, whether to raise them or lower them.

I will tell you that being on the board was totally different than any board I've ever served on. Typically in a company or organization, when you're asked to serve on the board, you go and meet, and you sit at the board table and the executives give reports, and you kind of make decisions and approve what they recommend and so forth. Well, on the Federal Reserve board, it's kind of just the opposite. In fact, they look at the directors to come and make reports.

Robert Wagner:

Okay.

Keith Glover:

And basically every time we had a meeting, and typically we met five or six times a year, we had to report on what's going on in our industry. We had to give a 10 or 15 minute report, and sometimes those reports would turn out to be twice the time because the officers would be asking you a question about what's going on in your particular industry. So like I said, unlike any other board that I've ever served on, we actually had to work. We had to prepare the reports, and we had to report to the executives, where typically, in most organizations, it's just the opposite, so really a great experience and one that I'll treasure my entire career in the business world.

Robert Wagner:

That's very interesting. In your instance, they're looking at what's happening with yields and pricing and all those demand and all those kind of things, right?

Keith Glover:

Well, they're trying to have their finger on the pulse of what's really going on in our economy.

Robert Wagner:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Keith Glover:

And in my case, when I served, I kind of gave them a report of what was going on in the farm economy and agribusiness economy, such as when we saw issues with regard to supply chain. Transportation is something I reported on a lot. We rely on all modes of transportation, maybe not air mode, but we use a lot of trucks. We use a lot of rail. We use intermodal, we use barges, we use ocean freight. And when I gave my report, I would tell them whether there was an issue with the railroads. We wasn't getting all the equipment we needed, or if there was an issue with the river and barges or ocean freight and so forth. And what they're doing, they're relying on those directors to report and give them an insight about things that are changing, either good or bad, so that they can use that information and make their decisions on monetary policy and interest rates and things like that, before it becomes a critical problem.

Robert Wagner:

That's good. Well, that's fascinating. It had to be a fantastic experience for you, but I think just as a taxpayer and a citizen, it gives me confidence that there's information coming from the ground up. It's not just an ivory tower exercise, so that's very good stuff.

That's all for this episode of How That Happened. Thank you for listening. Be sure to visit howthathappened.com for show notes and additional episodes. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Stitcher. Thanks again for listening. This content for information purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. Copyright 2022 HoganTaylor, LLP, all rights reserved. To view the HoganTaylor general terms and conditions visit hogantaylor.com.

 

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