THE PEOPLE, THE PASSION, THE PRODUCT
People, passion and products have made MacDon what it is today. Explore these stories, which highlight a small portion of the people who imagine, build and use our products, along with the relationships created along the way.
KEEP ‘EM RUNNING!
Despite COVID-19, the harvest clock kept ticking, so MacDon’s US custom harvest support team was there to help keep things running smoothly.
THE WINDROW OF CHANGE
With tightening restrictions on glyphosate use, Chris Barron took the leap and purchased a MacDon Windrower. He’s learning that the change was not only necessary, but comes with a load of advantages too.
CLASS OF MACDON 2020
Country boy Connor Fehr wanted his grad photos to be a tribute to his family’s farming history and his future.
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FIELD LEVEL DESIGN THINKING
MacDon Design Engineer and farm kid Andrew Bell has found a rewarding career in the customer focused process that MacDon brings to the field.
PROFESSIONAL STRENGTH HARVEST PERFORMANCE
When researching his decision to purchase a MacDon FlexDraper®, Eric Wright found out it is the header of choice among the Custom Cutter community.
YEAH, BUDDY!
Because of Keith Reeds’ rolling, rocky, and uneven terrain, he was happy to make friends with Contour Buddy!
JIM DEIBERT
Deibert’s work with MacDon had started the year before in 1988, when MacDon had asked John Deere if they knew of a custom cutter who could trial a header they were working on.
DON BOLES
“One of the kids that rents my land calls me the geekiest over 60 guy he knows,” says Alberta farmer Don Boles who ‘semi-retired’ four years ago, keeping his combine to cut for the people he rents to.
TOM DUGAN
The last time we checked in with Tom Dugan of T&K Red River Dairy [Big Cheese, Performance Magazine, Spring 2012], the large Arizona dairy was milking 9,600 cows daily, representing more than 1,000,000 lbs. of milk off to market every 24 hours. The impressive size of the operation led to Dugan being featured on the cover of Performance standing in one of T&K’s barns with the words “Big Cheese” next to him.
RON HANMER
The drought of 1988 reaped heartbreak across the Canadian Prairies. In many places, yields were cut in half, and some farmers were left with nothing to harvest at all. By the end of the year, total crop losses would top $4 billion, and one out of every ten producers would find themselves out of agriculture altogether. In central Saskatchewan near the town of Govan, Ron Hanmer and his dad had their backs to the wall trying to find a way to cut a crop too light to harvest using their usual methods.
BRUCE NELSON
Future ag historians seeking to chronicle the FlexDraper revolution can be forgiven if they begin with the launch of MacDon’s 974 FlexDraper in 2003. But the story really starts more than a decade earlier with the frustrations of Bruce Nelson, and his constant badgering of MacDon to develop a draper header that could harvest his soybeans. Nelson, a former custom cutter who currently farms about 7,500 acres near Clark, South Dakota, says he remembers back in the early 90s, how much he detested cutting soybeans with the flex auger platforms that were available at the time.
DUSTIN & TYLER BURNS
It’s the summer of 2012, and Kandahar, Saskatchewan farmer Dustin Burns is in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He, along with a handful of other producers, is a dinner guest of former MacDon owner Gary MacDonald, who has turned the evening’s conversation to one of his favorite topics. “Gary went around the table and wanted to hear from everybody in the group, not just those willing to speak up,” recalls Burns of the evening. “It was really important to him to understand how we used MacDon’s equipment, how it affected our lives, our businesses, and our families.”