Family counts big with Dave Minich. That’s why he was so pleased when his daughter, Angie May, decided to return to the farm.

A banker by trade, with an MBA in business, she now handles most of the financial duties. Her husband, Steve May, who works in sales for a textbook publisher, spends much of his spare time working at the farm, as well.

In 1999, they moved to the farm and built a home near the farm’s current headquarters. Dave had the business perfectly positioned for Angie’s expertise.

“I learned early on that detailed records were the best way to communicate with my father and make informed joint decisions for the growth and success of the business. Planning is essential and having a handle on details allows us to base decisions on information critical to the financial future of the business,” he says.

Today, Angie tracks the small things that can make the difference between profit and loss. She shows computerized charts showing everything from field-by-field tillage practices and chemical usage to machinery purchase and payment schedules, and real estate and loan payment spreadsheets.

“Working at the farm is more flexible than working at the bank, though overall I’m probably working more hours. The things I learned in banking really help on the farm. It was really beneficial to get that other experience,” she says.

“In high school, I decided I needed to understand what’s going on on the farm because I’m going to do one of three things. I’d either be farming ground myself, or renting it out and managing it, or figuring out how to sell it. I might as well get an education to learn how to run the farm.”

She got her degrees from Butler University, where she met Steve. Dave describes them both as, “real go-getters. They don’t sit around and wait to be told what to do.”

After getting married, they moved around for nine months, spending two-thirds of the time in Seattle, where Steve worked at an Office Depot store and Angie worked in customer service for Microsoft. They spent the rest of the time in Mexico, Canada and Alaska. It was time well-spent, Angie says, expanding their world-view.

Several years later, they found themselves vacationing at a lake with Dave and Marilyn. Dave was in a philosophical mood. “I told them things in farming were getting tight. I was getting older. I asked them, what are you going to do? They made the commitment on their end that they really want to be involved in the farm.”

With Angie back hard at work in the farm office, it gives Dave time to concentrate on production.

“She’s using her talents, and that’s allowing me to do what I love to do, which is farm, think about agronomics, drive a combine and a tractor with a planter,” he says.

“My method for transferring the farm to the younger generation is to do it gently. Do things together. Get them involved, then give them room to operate.”

 

 

Hogs helped the Minichs build their farm. Getting out of the hog business was both a business and family-based decision.

“We were turning out 4,500 head a year. It kept us busy but the next generation didn’t want to get involved with it. They just didn’t want to have anything to do with it. So, on April 4, 2006, we sold our last hog,” Dave says.

“It was a hard decision to make. On that home farm when we got married, we spent half our money buying ten sows. There was a lot of history in that hog operation.”

 

Ernie Minich died a little over two years ago, but his work ethic still propels the farm business.

“Dad worked right up to his last day of life. He had a heart attack on my 60^th birthday. He was in the shop, working right beside us. He never wanted to stop working. That fall, he had harvested 3,200 acres of corn. Dad did not like to stop. He had to keep moving, keep involved with something,” Dave says.

“We moved into our new office April 7, 2006. He helped build it. He painted, he held boards. He enjoyed it and wanted to be around when things were going on. He always had ideas. It was his idea to use the old farrowing crates as bars in the windows of the office.”

 

Dave does his best to keep landlords happy.

“We’ve always tried to do a really good job of farming. We mow the roadsides five or six times a year. We take care of the brush and the ditching. People know that, and it works in our favor,” he says.

“We’ve been aggressive bidders on rented farms. That doesn’t mean we get them all or keep them all, though. We have farmed 10,000 acres that we don’t farm any more because those farms were sold or we were outbid.”

Steve May, his son-in-law, says paying attention to the details can help build relationships with landlords.

“We try our best to do the right thing by our landlords. They’re our neighbors and we do the most we can do for them. Hopefully, they’ll remember we’ve done them right,” Steve says.

“It makes me feel better, anyway. We’ve done right by them, and whatever else happens was meant to be.”

Angie says she responds fast when landlords call. “Getting more involved with landlords is important. Realizing that different people have different needs is important,” she says.

 

Dave Minich values education. He paid half the college costs for his own three children, letting them pay the other half with what they earned from the farm.

Now he’s putting that philosophy to work with other folks’ kids. Rita Moffitt has worked for the farm since 1992. Dave pledges to help her son Justin, a high school junior, pay for college while he works on the farm.

“Justin is from a family with a good work ethic. He seemed to have potential. I said, ‘Anytime you can work, you’ve got a job here.’ This was when he was in the seventh or eighth grade. He’s a good worker, and I’m helping him farm,” Dave says.

“Right now he farms only 34 acres. He’s gone through training and he’s learned things like how to run a planter. For the last two or three years, everything we put him on, he knows how to do now. We’re giving him a combination of an incentive of college and employment. He has a good work ethic.”

Justin appreciates the opportunity. “I grew up with pigs and a corn field right outside my window, and I’ve learned a lot here. It’s been very educational,” he says.

“I’d like to go to Purdue and major in ag systems management and then maybe go to work for a machinery company. I think the experience here is good preparation for that. I get to run top of the line equipment here.”

           

All the Minichs stay involved with community groups. Dave and Marilyn are very active in Calvary Presbyterian Church in Logansport, Ind. Dave served as an elder four times and also chaired several committees. He sometimes uses the farm’s equipment on church-related projects.

Dave served on the Carroll County Farm Bureau Cooperative Association board of directors from 1987 to 1995, and is active on the local soil and water board. He began participating in the 4H tractor driving contest at the state fair when he was ten years old, and has been the tractor maintenance leader for 15 years.

Marilyn also stays busy with community projects and works full-time as a licensed clinical social worker for the Salvation Army in Logansport.

 

Dave says his wife, Marilyn, patient, enduring, hard-working, inspires him to push onward.

“She supports me, brings meals to the field, takes care of things like doctor’s appointments, all those kinds of things that allow me to be more productive. The work she does contribute makes a big difference on how I am able to perform and operate my business,” he says.

“When you say, ‘OK, she doesn’t get out there and drive the tractor, or she doesn’t do the bookwork,’ that’s misleading. She does so many other things that make me feel supported so that I can do my best. It’s important not to take that for granted.”

She understands his makeup, she says, at least partly because she grew up on a dairy farm not far away. “My dad went to mechanical milkers, and I’d clean them. I strained milk for the house. I cultivated beans. I did what farm kids did then,” she says.

Her brother, Gary, got his Ph.D at Ohio State University and became a medical researcher. “He had a goal and wasn’t afraid to work for it,” she says. “He financed his undergraduate education working on the Purdue dairy farm.”

She met Dave at a Presbyterian church camp the summer between sixth and seventh grades. “He was the first boy I kissed. He had a girlfriend named Strawberry. She dumped him two days before camp started. We hit it right off, and he leaned over and kissed my cheek,” she recalls.

“I never talked to him again until our sophomore year at Purdue. We saw each other on a sidewalk and he knew me. I guess that first kiss made an impression on him. We started dating and dated two years, then got married. After graduation, he wanted to come back to the farm. His dad wasn’t sure it would work. There have been some lean times but it’s working out pretty well, I’d say.”

 

 

 

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