Last Thursday was our first guest-speaker appearance of the young semester. I think it safe to say that our guest–retired local grain storage services entrepreneur and philanthropist John Twomey–will be “hard to top” in many, many ways.

While all of our guest speakers could accurately be referred to as “role models,” John Twomey–now 93 years young–stands out as the quintessential example of a positive role model for the students; not only as an entrepreneur but as a passionate, caring, community-minded person living a long and meaningful life.

Today’s blog entry for this very special guest speaker is Midwest Entrepreneurs student Derrick Romano. Below, Derrick has done a fine job of capturing the essence of what was shared by John Twomey–and learned–in class last Thursday.  Enjoy…

Prof. Gabel

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A local retired entrepreneur—now 93 years of age—is arguably one of the most revolutionary icons in the U.S. grain storage industry of all time.

John Twomey started his entrepreneurial career following his service in the military during World War II.  Upon his return from India at the end of the War, he experienced his twenty second birthday amongst his crew mates. Just prior to John’s return from the military he received a letter from his father which explained his father’s feelings on the war. John’s father explained how he felt that there was no reason to celebrate for the end of the war because there was work to be done in the fields that said he was proud of his son for serving his country.

Following John’s return home to the area he decided to join his father in the family business and begin working on the fields. John returned home just in time to harvest the soybeans with his father. That was the beginning of what would be a more than 65-year-long career as an entrepreneur.

Throughout John’s career in the grain storage business he experienced both the highs and lows and the mediocre and the magnificent. When John first began helping his father in the business there was only enough room to hold a single barge full of grain. Within a short few years John’s family company moved onto the river and was able to fill 900 barges with grain.  John’s family business was primarily a storage for grain. So the Twomeys would purchase grain from other farmers or hold their grain and sell the product at a later date when the price was hopefully higher. In order to store this grain for long periods of time there were large tall cylindrical containers used to hold the grain.

In 1953 the Twomeys built a flat grain storage building. Three years later they received a loan to build another grain elevator. The company was building and building fast. They still suffered from the way they had to transport the grain from the containers to the barges. Then in 1973 a self-designed barge loader was built enabling the movement of more grain at more precise levels; therefore not losing out on extra expenditures.

Now at this point in the business things were moving way more smoothly, but they still had the issue of too much grain going bad prior to the selling days. When it comes to the taller cylindrical containers all the poor grain that is dropped in falls to the center and builds up and as John Twomey explained, it reacts the same way as a bad apple in a barrel the build-up begins to spread to the good grain soiling the whole batch. Mr. Twomey also explained that the most the grain could be damaged was seven percent or else it would not be sellable.

So in response to this issue John developed an innovative new way to store grain by using the flat storage buildings and making piles every six feet all the bad grain would be spread out and not spoil the remaining good grain. With this new method John was able to store grain in upwards of nine years, with very little spoilage.

Mr. Twomey claims that President Ronald Reagan was thought of as a business partner in his household. The reason being that right as John had begun expanding vastly by building 14 warehouses, President Reagan cut business taxes (to at a highest rate of 28 percent). This allowed for John to make roughly 70 cents on the dollar roughly rather than what would have been before around only 35 cents on the dollar at the previous tax rate. This allowed for more loans for buildings because all the bills could be paid off faster. John Twomey not only created jobs, which before his retirement was at around 85 employees, he also was able to better the lives of all the people he worked with and anyone who came to learn his model of grain storage. John Twomey was an outstanding entrepreneur and is a great man.

Derrick Romano