We started the day off with a tour at Vermeer. It wasn’t as much of a tour as it was an informational session with Jaap. He was very impressive; he was in operations, finance, and IT throughout his career, and from my understanding, did well in each area. He loves data and making data relevant to make decisions.
Vermeer started with Gary Vermeer. He was a farmer and had an extreme passion for farming and advancing tactics. He hated having to bail hay, and ended up creating a successful prototype that would bail hay in the big circles instead of smaller rectangles. By doing this, you could leave the hay out and the rain would not ruin it, unlike the rectangular bails. His neighbors saw what he had created and they wanted a machine as well. So, he ended up creating these machines for them and realized that he was a manufacturer.
He and his newfound company never looked back. They started making items such as woodchippers, directional drills, stump cutters and so forth. He was a very innovative man, and his company grew tremendously as a result. They currently (according to Jaap) have a net worth of a little over a billion dollars. They have plants in Iowa, China, Latin America, the Netherlands, and Asia Specific. So, they are a very large and innovative company, who continues to have success.