DEI Celebrates 25 Years with New ‘Seeding Success’ Initiative
Working in a cramped garage and selling out of an empty wagon. That’s how the founders of Direct Enterprises, Inc. (DEI) describe their humble business beginnings. Those stories and others were told as the team, family, friends and founders of DEI gathered recently at their plant in Westfield, IN, to celebrate their 25th Anniversary.
For one night of celebration, the pallets of products were moved to space in the adjacent warehouse and the spacious shipping department held prime rib, roasted potatoes, cake, and champagne. DEI Founders Dennis Tauchen and Bill Haubner took turns toasting the group and reminiscing.
“You, our employees made this day possible,” said Tauchen. “Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”
“In the late 90’s, staying connected with seed dealers and farmers meant knowing where all the pay phones were located out across the Corn Belt,” joked Haubner. “Technology has brought more ways to communicate, big yield increases and more consolidation, but the most important things about serving farmers haven’t changed.”
That’s because, said Tauchen, seed dealers and farmers are looking for the best ways to grow their crops and care for their families and land season after season. “And we are redoubling our efforts to come alongside them to help,” he added.
“We can’t stand still,” said Haubner. “That’s why we are announcing our Seeding Success Initiative, to better serve seed dealers and farmers all across the Corn Belt.” DEI, said Haubner, is gearing the new customer service initiative to drive further improvements on in-field crop production results for farmers in year 26 and beyond.
The DEI leaders describe the initiative has having four pillars of activity:
- Bringing more new seed enhancement solutions to market.
- Adding uniformity to in-house laboratory testing of new offerings.
- Increasing in-field research and more uniformly sharing results.
- Cementing leadership as expert integrators of proprietary products, custom-blends and seed treating equipment.
“We’ve built our reputation on high-quality products and great customer service over the past 25 years,” said Haubner in announcing the initiative. “We want to take steps now to assure that we will continue to improve in these coming years.”
Tauchen points to their efforts in bringing CeraMax, a natural solution for the problem of Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS) in soybeans as a bellwether for this initiative. “We’d seen the need for a natural solution to SDS and we were the first to bring it to American farmers. We intend to do more of that kind of innovation in the weeks, months and years to come.”
In addition, said Haubner, they will be sharing stories from their customers as a salute to the seed industry. “We serve so many great family businesses,” he said, “we’d like to be able to see them gain more of the recognition they deserve.”
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