Ballot measures, Who represents me? Rastetter has long been known in political circles for his annual summer party, an A-list Republican event complete with pork on a stick that sometimes attracts national conservative figures like Sarah Palin and Bobby Jindal. Agriculture and energy reporter Donnelle Eller (@DonnelleE) also will provide coverage. He said Rastetter held meetings that promised an increased tax base, productions with little smell and a rising price for local farmers' corn. School districts | Bruce Rastetter is the CEO and founder of the Summit Agricultural Group, an agribusiness based in Iowa. The National Journal recently wrote about him with the headline, "When This Man Calls, Republicans Come Running," accompanied by a photograph of a herd of elephants. But he does open up about two events that changed his life the death of a dear friend in a tragic accident in which he was involved, and a business deal that helped him earn enough money to start giving it away. The conventional spacing of corn rows has also largely persisted at 30 inches or more in modern agriculture, with narrower rows in use on less than 5% of corn acres in North America as of 2012, according to rival DuPont Pioneer. In response to several "no confidence" votes against the Iowa Board of Regents this week, board President Bruce Rastetter said Wednesday he was pleased backlash has been directed at the regents. BP Slows Pace of Share Buybacks as First-Quarter Profit Dips, Indias Imports of Russian Oil Dwarf Iraq, Saudi Flows: Chart, RBA Shock Hike Spurs Strategist Clash About Global Rate Bets, Weak Yen Pushes Japan Inflation Expectations to Four-Month High, Australia Signals More Tightening After Surprise Rate Hike, Snoop Dogg, Ryan Reynolds Spark Speculation of Bid toBuy OttawaHockey Team, FIFA Threatens to Pull Broadcast of Womens World Cup in Europe, CEOs Warning of ChatGPT Threat Sparks 38% Rout in Edtech Stock, Telecom Firms Face Refinancing Risks as Big-Spending Era Bites, Samsung Bans Staffs AI Use After Spotting ChatGPT Data Leak, Nigerian President-Elect Tinubus Family Bought Fraud-Linked London Mansion, Can Biden win again? "No matter what endeavors, Bruce always supports his friends.". He got help from Branstad, whom he recruited to run for governor in 2010 and was his top donor. Bruce Rastetter, an agribusiness mogul who's made a fortune in pork, ethanol and farm real estate, has long worked behind the scenes to help bankroll conservatives across the country, but. Hell get to ask Jeb Bush what exactly he thinks about ethanol, pepper Scott Walker with questions about EPA regulations and quiz Marco Rubio about where he stands on GMO labeling, if he wants. Bruce is the kind of person who never forgets a friend.. State and local courts | William Rastetter Net Worth (2022) | wallmine University of Iowa alum sells Telepharm to $103 billion firm Terry Branstad's election in 2010 and. And you sit next to me. And when we were after change in policy, he was a tiger.". Hog confinements and their smelly manure spread around Iowa while Rastetter built wealth, said Hugh Espey, executive director of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, which owes much of its growth as a nonprofit activist group to burgeoning opposition to hog confinements. And furthermore, how can this little farm kid out here be doing this?. Rastetters friends are quick to dismiss his critics, many of whom they argue are simply deeply and irrationally opposed to the kind of large-scale agriculture Iowa has mastered. Norm Coleman but no longer gives to the group. Stine Seed was first in line to get its top-performing varieties patented. Bruce Rastetter, the "philanthropist", has used money effectively to wield power in politics and the public realm. If you really want to be fair here, you need to go get two more [lawyers], he smirked. A friend once described a gathering for a well-known Texan who went bankrupt. A sense of dj vu with Rastetter's Iowa Ag Summit Bruce Rastetter - SourceWatch He started by selling seed, making cold calls, holding lunch and dinner meetings and riding on the tractor with older farmers who advised him to diversify investments. Also follow photographers Charlie Litchfield (@CharlieLitch), Kelsey Kremer (@Kelsey_Kremer) and Michael Zamora (@mzamoraphoto) to see photos and other updates from the event. But he saw his hard-charging brother, then 39, change after the accident, ease up on the little things. Stines savvy is homegrown. Kevin Kimle, who holds ISU's Bruce Rastetter Chair of Agricultural Entrepreneurship, said it would be problem to do outreach to Tanzanians because they would all be shipped away. U.S. Congress | Please only use it for a guidance and Bruce Rastetter's actual income may vary a lot from the dollar amount shown above. "Dollars you contributed help those people get elected, which is what our system is. Its an unusually public gig for a donor: Rastetter will chat with each candidate on-stage for 20 minutes before 1,000 Iowans and dozens of media outlets. The would-be candidates and people in their orbit have been calling Rastetter and his team asking for help as they mull their positions on the issues. RT @JennUWinn84: @SiegelScribe Sounds like a conflict that would have @IAGovernor Kim Reynolds shaking in her corporate puppet strin https://t.co/FcMCag6iME, @SiegelScribe Sounds like a conflict that would have @IAGovernor Kim Reynolds shaking in her corporate puppet strin https://t.co/FcMCag6iME. I think I try to make a difference with what I do and what candidates I support, but I would consider myself more [an influencer] than a kingmaker, Rastetter said. Hawkeye went on to build two more plants in Menlo and Shell Rock, and Rastetter maintained his management team. A graduate of the University of Iowa, Rastetter holds a bachelor's degree in political science. After dropping out of law school, he returned to his roots and launched a feed business that in 1994 morphed into Heartland Pork, a company he aggressively expanded to become one of the states largest pork producers. He is a very caring, sincere individual who doesnt ever forget somebody, he said, noting that Rastetter invites a broad range of people, from folks he went to Sunday school with all the way through the people on Wall Street. Rastetter "destroyed the confidence in the corporate pork industry among Davis County residents," said Francis Thicke, a former candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture and a longtime advocate for sustainable farming practices. Hes upped his disclosed political and philanthropic giving, including more than $2 million to Iowa State University to found an eponymous professorship and entrepreneurship center, $1 million to the state fairgrounds to land his name on the 4-H building and $5 million to the University of Iowas football facilities. While rivals scoff, he now thinks he can double the worlds output of corn, the most popular crop on Earth. podcast episodes, Brokers, Bagmen, & Moles podcast episodes, Connections with BCD Travel podcast episodes, Cyber Security & Cloud Podcast podcast episodes, Coinbase Institutional Market Call podcast episodes, South Side Rules: A Shameless Podcast podcast episodes. Rastetter's name is synonymous with fights as a leader in three tender subject areas in Iowa large-scale agriculture, ethanol production and education funding. With more than 900 patents, Stine sells his coveted soybean and corn seed genetics to agri-giants like Monsanto and Syngenta, nabbing estimated annual sales of more than$1 billion with margins in excess of 10%. He floated the concept to Rastetter last fall when the two were at a Hawkeye football game: We were tailgating and talking politics, he recalls, pointing out that Iowa hosts lots of forums for presidential candidates, but theres never been one focused on agriculture despite the sector representing a third of the states economy. Schlieman Operating Partner. And then well negotiate.. The seed marketa $44 billion worldwide industry that supplies crop growers with the essential element they use to plant, harvest and sustain the worlds food supplyis expected to double in the next five years as crops fortified with more resilient genetics improve yield and efficiency. He's clearing the air a bit on a cold February day in his CEO offices of Summit Group, his multinational agriculture, investment and energy corporation near Alden. His disabilities were actually advantages that let him see things in ways others did not. It is a good reminder to those tempted to confine innovation solely to the world of Silicon Valley that some of the most impressive and fundamentally important advances on Earth are occurring today in agriculture, and the global epicenter is Americas heartland. But at the very bottom of it all, he has made a huge difference in the industry and hes done it in his very unique and special way., As we stand high atop his tower, the wind streaking into us, unique and special seems a vast understatement. Clearly not everyone I have backed has won.. According to internet, Bruce Rastetter's height is 1.75m. Your email address will not be published. And, of ultimate importance, substantially increasing a farmers harvest. In 2004, Rastetter sold the company to Christensen Farms, making it the fourth largest pork player in the country. How to run for office | Harrys breeding for it, says Van Wiebe, an agronomist with Hefty Seed in Buhl, Idaho, who has seen a 30% difference between Stines seed and those of his rivals in his experimental fields. Hes currently the CEO of Summit Group, a diverse company that operates in corn, soy, cattle, international farm real estate and private equity. He launched Hawkeye Energy Holdings, rapidly growing it into the third-largest pure play ethanol company in the country helping to pump billions of gallons of corn-fuel into Americans gas tanks before selling to a Koch Industries subsidiary in 2011. ". Ill sit here, he says, perched on the top bar of the guardrail, unfazed by the steep plummet behind him or the violent gusts. A leaner, more efficient plant. The cables look awfully frayed. He isnt bashful about what his small-town company has accomplished. Along with his four children, Stine owns almost 100%. The agribusiness entrepreneur and president of the Iowa Board of Regents, who has given more than $1.1 million in state political contributions since 2003, is not the sort to chuckle. Election disclosures show Rastetter gave $25,000 to an AFF-affiliated super PAC in the 2014 cycle, but had not given to the PAC since donating $5,000 in 2009 a drop in the bucket for groups that have spent tens of millions in recent years. A highly-courted donor, Rastetter has steadily and strategically built his personal and political brand over the past several years. They dont like modern agriculture.. Number one, we contained the manure, and two, we used it as a nutrient (spreading it on fields for fertilizer). Today Summit Agricultural Group is an agriculture and renewable energy business with farmland holdings across in North and South America. You take good parents, and you make lots of offspring, says Stine, who learned the basics in under an hour from an Iowa State technician. "But the more I thought about it Bruce was one of those people who encouraged and supported me." Even if the process has grown more involved and advanced, the strategy behind breeding has changed little in ten millennia. Markets never sleep, and neither does Bloomberg News. Rastetter's work on the board cemented his opinion that it was unacceptable to have tuition continue to grow, doubling from 2001 to 2009 at the state's three public universities, which the regents oversee. It was around this time that Stine recognized the necessity of protecting his valuable genetics. Iowa CEO whose company has Brazil ethanol plants say they aren't [1] If you ask political observers in Iowa about Rastetter, the term kingmaker inevitably comes up, but Rastetter and his allies dispute the idea. Bruce Rastetter got $480,000 in loans from ISU William Rastetter Net Worth (2023) | wallmine July 19, 2012 04:53 PM. Bruce Rastetter: The quiet, fierce man behind ag summit I don't view it as being a kingmaker. [1] Rastetter was also helped by Nick and Jill Ryan, the former runs the American Future Fund, a 501(c)(4) that "pulled in more than $13 million from Koch-backed Freedom Partners in 2012. He began breeding corn to thrive at higher planting density: shorter plants with smaller tassels and more upright leaves that attract more sunlight. He also founded Hawkeye Renewables, which became one of the countrys largest pure-play corn-based ethanol producers, and FS Bioenergia, a Brazilian low-carbon biofuels and energy platform that owns the largest biofuels production plant in South America. We identified top influencers across the country through several means, including the following: The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms BruceRastetter. Neither party will disclose the agreements terms, but that deal contributed to the phenomenal success of the Roundup Ready soybean seed, a technology thats now used in 96% of the soybean acreage in the U.S., likely generating in excess of $10 billion for Monsanto since 1997. This day, he talks sparingly about his modest upbringing. A tall man partial to Levis and blue button-downs with pens in the pocket, Stine stands on the burnt-orange carpet in his officea little-changed artifact of the Reagan era littered with the nuts, berries and, especially, mushrooms he likes to forage for (he has a handwritten log detailing when and where hes found each of the 32,000 morel mushrooms hes nabbed in recent years).