In this episode of "How We Did It: Stories from Independent Farm Equipment Innovators," we hear from farmer, inventor and researcher, Marion Calmer from Calmer Corn Heads. In part 2 of this 3-part series, Marion talks about his early discussions with John Deere and Case IH, and what ultimately led him to manufacturing his own equipment. Watch it here >>
"I had contacts at both Deere and Case," says Calmer. "As soon as we had filed the patent, the very next call was to them and I showed them what we had done and had some field days for them, and they were both interested in sitting down and having some conversations."
Calmer was born and raised with red machinery, so he started his discussions with Case IH. Ultimately he realized his innovation was quite a ways ahead of what Case IH was looking at, so he moved on to work with John Deere.
"Case marketing people loved me, but their corn head people were kind of lukewarm," says Calmer. "And at Deere, it was kind of the other way around. The corn head people loved me, and the marketing people were kind of lukewarm. You need to have both groups at a 10 on the interest level to make it fly."
It was some words of wisdom that Calmer picked up from fellow shortline manufacturer, John Kinzebaw (Kinze Manufacturing), at a National No-Tillage Conference that led him to starting his own company and becoming a shortline manufacturer of corn heads and corn head parts.
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