Wood River Vision 20/20 Business of the Month Spotlight
Midwest Independent Soil Samplers
611 Walnut Street
OPEN HOUSE!
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Employees include, left to right, shop manager Bob Blacketer, area manager Tim Friedel and Western Regional Manager Jake Hofman.
One of the newest additions to the Wood River business community is Midwest Independent Soil Samplers (MISS). Established in 1981 as Tri-County Crop Survey, MISS began providing crop scouting in south central Minnesota. The company grew into Midwest Independent Soil Samplers in 1995, focusing on intensive soil sampli
ng servicing agronomy centers in Iowa and Minnesota, according to Jake Hofman, Western Regional Manager, explaining the company’s history. “We expanded into Nebraska and Northern Kansas in the early 2000’s. In the fall of 2010 MISS was purchased by a group of longtime MISS employees and active outside investors.” In 2013 the SoilView branding of their site-specific sampling system occurred, with the release of their own online ordering system and collection software. He added that the company contracts with dealers throughout their trade area, such as Agronomy retailers, seed companies and crop consultants.
MISS located in Wood River in January 2015 at 611 Walnut Street. Hofman noted, “We were needing to upgrade our offices and shop/storage area, we looked around the Tri-City area and found the location we are at and it just seemed like a good fit for us.” The agronomy firm purchased land in the southern part of Wood River on Walnut Street for their building from the Wood River Area Economic and Housing Development Corporation. The Wood River Area Economic Development Corporation, consisting of Brian Bangs, Brian Hayes, Chris Stewart, Doug Peters, Barry McCoun and Jim Rennau, were instrumental in MISS locating its new facility in the Wood River Community along with Mayor Greg Cramer and members of the Wood River City Council. Mr. Rennau also worked to bring MISS to Wood River in his capacity with HGI Realty. The Wood River Area Economic Development Corporation is funded by grants over time from the City of Wood River and those funds were used to purchase 20 lots in the southern part of town for industrial lots, one of which MISS is now located on.
MISS has locations in Hutchinson, Minnesota, Calumet, Iowa, Jewell, Iowa and now Wood River, NE. Hofman said that MISS has six full time employees in Nebraska and in its busier seasons they hire seasonal employees throughout the state. “Wood River is a good central location in the state for our company,” he said.
The community is encouraged to stop by the Midwest Independent Soil Samplers office on Wednesday, February 8th from 4-7 to learn more about what they do. Western Regional Manager Jake Hofman, Area Manager Tim Friedel, Area Manager Clark Plihal and Shop Manager Bob Blacketer will be giving tours of their new facility and explanations of the cutting edge technology they employ to help ag producers.