Dad's wisdom with Richard Seamans

Richard

Seamans: Your family's probably your most important.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm.

Richard

Seamans: It's not your God, it's your family. Yep. Family would be number 2. But the, uh, one thing we did do is we went to all their games, the sports, and which my parents didn't. My dad was out working. Yep. And I was pretty lucky I was able to go and play basketball and football and stuff like that. And then the girls all played volleyball and basketball. And we, that's one thing we did do was attend all their sports and back them and the things they did. And I think that's why we still have them. Yep.

Chris

Barron: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. And today we're having another Dad's Wisdom conversation. And I've got kind of a special guest here, uh, actually, uh, Richard Siemens, who is a farmer that is in our area. In fact, uh, the farm is about just a little ways away from, uh, from our place. It's about a half a mile away, right? So our— a lot of our land borders yours. And, uh, I, I caught you here at a plot tour day so we could have a little conversation. And, uh, Richard, go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us where you're located here in Iowa and a little bit about, about yourself.

Richard

Seamans: Okay, we do. We, we live just north of Chris here, about a half a mile, and which we are about 7 miles south of Independence, right on Highway 150. Uh, we lived there a long time, 40-some years, I think. So it's been a long time, and then Oh, in 2004 we moved to Independence.

Chris

Barron: So that's awesome. Well, basically what I want to do is, as I told you offline, is we want to, we want to dig some wisdom out of you here. So give everybody a little bit of background. So as a kid, I grew up watching Richard. I watched you keeping machinery running around the clock. I'd see the lights on at 4 o'clock in the morning and the steam blowing out of the dryer, and I'd ride on the school bus and think, I wish I could be doing farming right now and always envied, envied you. And, uh, your wife Shirley, she ran the combine a lot, didn't she?

Richard

Seamans: She did. That was her favorite thing to do was to run the combine. And the, um, I did work a lot of night hours that, uh, it was just her and I most of the time. We did have a We had one hired hand there later on in years that stayed with us for quite a while. But usually if we was able to get somebody young to come and help us in the fall, it was our labor anyway. But my wife was my best hired man. She was always there.

Chris

Barron: She knew what was going on.

Richard

Seamans: She was, right.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. So talk a little bit about that. Tell us a little bit about your family first, and then I'm going to get into some of the business side of things. But tell us about your family.

Richard

Seamans: We have 3 daughters at a— I guess all graduated from Independence High School. And they've gone on to— our oldest one is Dr. Sandell now, so a doctor in Cedar Falls. Nice., and we're glad to have her close to home because, uh, it's always nice to have a doctor close by, right? Mom and Dad, uh, we, uh, we call her quite often for medical advice. And we have two daughters in, uh, the Kansas City, Olathe, Kansas, that one's a schoolteacher and she's married to a schoolteacher, and they have a set of twins that graduated from high school this year. Finally did get to graduate late. Yeah, late July or early August, I guess it was, that they, uh, were able to graduate. And their college got messed up with the corona thing here, so they are— both of them are going to a junior college in Johnson County in, in Olathe, Kansas, which is really good.

And our other daughter Sarah is our youngest daughter. And she also has a set of twins, girls that are 13 now, and an 8-year-old.

Chris

Barron: Wow, you got a lot of twins in the family here.

Richard

Seamans: They all got a set of twins. Yes, Julie's got, Julie's got the identical twin boys, and she's probably a good one to have it because they tend to test her a lot.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's good. And, uh, Turnabout's fair play, right?

Richard

Seamans: Turnabout's fair play.

Chris

Barron: Exactly what I always tell our kids. I'm gonna come someday, I'm gonna go over to their house and I'm gonna jump from one couch to the other, back and forth. So, yeah, so awesome. Sounds good. Well, um, talk a little bit about your wife and, and so your farming career, uh, and a little bit about that. So, yeah, uh, talk about when you kind of got started, what the acres were, and, and how your wife kind of participated with you. She not only ran the combine, there was a few other activities she, she, uh, she We did.

Richard

Seamans: She was a city girl when I married her, so this was all new. All she told me was she wasn't going to marry a dairy farmer.

Chris

Barron: So you didn't have any cows?

Richard

Seamans: Didn't have any cows. So we took care of that. And the, um, she— we had to teach each other our hand signals back then, back in, uh, hopefully they were nice ones, early '70s. That's That's where— yeah, they were. And if they weren't, you learned real fast that they're supposed to be. Yep.

Chris

Barron: So that was your radio communication.

Richard

Seamans: That was our radio communication. And it was a tough go there for a little bit to get that all laid out to where it's supposed to be. But she was part of the farming operation because she was there and She knew what was going on and she was my bookkeeper too.

Chris

Barron: So that, uh, so what about marketing? Did she have any influence on your, on your marketing?

Richard

Seamans: She did. She, uh, she was really good with a budget. And, uh, and I guess if it wasn't for that budget, I probably wouldn't be farming today. But that, uh, she, and she was, she was real good with the books and that, uh, That kept things going.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, so talk a little bit more about that. You know, Shirley, she kept good track of the books and, and probably influenced your marketing decisions, right? She probably knew where the numbers were at, had a pretty good handle on cost of production. And what, what years were that when you were, when you were really actively engaged in farming?

Richard

Seamans: When we, we were married in '69. And we started farming and we bought this farm, the home place here in '72. And, uh, I'm guessing that a couple years before that is when we really was farming with my dad. And he was farming at that time probably 600, 700 acres. And then when we started, he was wanting to quit. And he was still wanting to be boss though. Yeah. But, uh, which I guess wasn't bad, but, uh, that was, um, and we started adding a little farm here and there. We didn't farm a whole lot of acres at the beginning with, uh, then we started renting ground. I raised hogs for a little while. And had a confinement, small confinement system, then went— my back couldn't take that anymore. So I quit hogs and started renting more ground. And we ended up farming as high as 2,500 acres.

Chris

Barron: So a pretty good size operation at that time, for sure.

Richard

Seamans: For that time it was. That's— and we was mostly between 1,500 and 1,800 acres normally. Yep. And it took a lot, it took planning and equipment to do that. And a lot of time behind the—

Chris

Barron: A lot of wheel time.

Richard

Seamans: A lot of wheel time. That's right.

Chris

Barron: Yep. That's probably why when I looked across the road and I'd see lights on at 4:00 AM and I'd look over there at midnight and there'd still be lights on.

Richard

Seamans: Lights on. You're right.

Chris

Barron: Yep. The one thing I always appreciated about you, and I want to get to some more stuff on your dad, but I always seen that on Sunday the lights were off though, didn't— weren't they?

Richard

Seamans: They, they were. And it took me a while to learn that I, uh, I needed to be a God-loving person and that Sunday was the day that you took off. And yep, and it was really surprising how things went, that when I started not working on Sunday, we got a lot more done.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. All of a sudden you got more energy on Monday, right?

Richard

Seamans: That's right. Well, usually what you made— Dad always says what you make on Sunday, you lose on Monday. So that's pretty much right.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. Yeah. I always appreciated that and noticed it. And that's really cool.

Richard

Seamans: It made me feel good when I had Andy come to work for us. And I told him, I said, well, we don't work on Sunday. And he says, I know.

Chris

Barron: Hm, nice.

Richard

Seamans: I thought that was—

Chris

Barron: That's really cool.

Richard

Seamans: That worked.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, yeah. People recognize and that means a lot. So you talked about your dad there a minute ago wanting to be the boss. This is something that as we work with a lot of clients across the country on transition collaboration, I always tell people that dad retires 3 times. Dad retires the first time when he announces that he's going to retire. The second time he retires after he walks away and then comes back and says, what are you doing? You're screwing this all up and tells you how to do it correctly. And then the third time he retires, he comes back and says, okay, which tractor you want me to drive? And I'm gonna stay out of the way. So it's kind of a three-step process. Talk about your process and any lessons that you can tell, you know, you can tell us about that.

Richard

Seamans: It was, well, it was his farm.

Chris

Barron: Have you get closer?

Richard

Seamans: It was his farm. And that was, it was tough to make changes. I remember when chisel plowing started to come in and I thought, man, that's what we need is a chisel plow. And we went and we bought one and I chiseled 40 acres and he made me hook onto the moldboard plow and plow it then after that.

Chris

Barron: So that's— He didn't like that. You're leaving way too much residue on top.

Richard

Seamans: That's right.

Chris

Barron: What's wrong with you?

Richard

Seamans: Yep. He wasn't for that at first, but then later on, then it was, uh, after we had equipment that could handle all the trash, it was a learning experience for both of us. And, and he found out then later that we, you know, he was farming more ground and it was a whole lot easier. We had a big tractor, four-wheel drive, and a, I don't know, 8, 9, 8 plow, I think it was, you know, so we could plow, but Man, he was plowing her all under too. So it, then he did just like you said that he came back and he says, I'll run the chisel plow for you or hauling corn or whatever. Back then we had wagons and before we went to semis and stuff. And the first day he come back in dragging parts.

Chris

Barron: Yeah.

Richard

Seamans: You know that. So that didn't work real good. But anyway, we made it through it.

Chris

Barron: So, uh, talk a little bit about, about that. You know, he— dad finally kind of started realizing that maybe the, the kid does know something a little bit. And, uh, one of the things I always noticed watching you is you did a good job. And this is something that we have a lot of conversations with, with producers, is when to trade equipment, when to update, how to make those decisions and how to manage that. What are some of the strategies you use? 'Cause I always noticed that you had a really clean, lean line of equipment, but it seemed like you did a good job of when it was time to update something, you did. So talk a little bit about that.

Richard

Seamans: Well, we used our equipment. It wasn't the biggest equipment, but we put the hours on it too. And we covered a lot of ground with it that if I wasn't in it, Shirley would be in it. Maybe the hired man would be in it.

Chris

Barron: So it was, uh, you kept things moving.

Richard

Seamans: We tried to keep things moving, right? So that was able to get a lot done that way. The aspect of trading equipment, I guess sometimes that was kind of my fault that I thought we needed something new and she didn't appreciate, you know, a new field cultivator for her anniversary present.

Chris

Barron: She didn't like that, huh?

Richard

Seamans: So, but I told her that was her spring equipment that she needed.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. Yeah.

Richard

Seamans: But anyway, that, and I guess it was just, we bought something when we needed it, you know, really needed it and can see that we had a need for it. Whether we went with another tractor or bigger piece of equipment or whatever it was, the, Then when she started running the combine, and we at that time, John Deere still had the old lever to engage the thresher, and she couldn't do it. She wasn't heavy enough to put enough weight on that lever, so we had to go red. Oh, they had a toggle switch. I see. That's why we had a red, red machine then. And that, and she could run that. Then, then when Deere's came out with their new series and 9000 series, and, and she was able to—

Chris

Barron: so that's a lesson to the manufacturers, make sure you have toggle switches.

Richard

Seamans: The, uh, you know, the John Deere dealer found out that the, the wife has a lot to say.

Chris

Barron: Exactly, exactly.

Richard

Seamans: And, uh, because they tended to At first they really didn't recognize them, but when they found out that she come after parts and she knew what she was coming after, it was different situation.

Chris

Barron: So one other thing that we've always observed over the years working with producers and even in our own operation is that every farm has a decision maker, but they also have an influencer. And that influencer is probably the most important person on the farm, right?

Richard

Seamans: That's right. That's— you're right.

Chris

Barron: And she might've been both.

Richard

Seamans: Did she buy the bad boat? I remember I bought a semi one time and forgot to tell her.

Chris

Barron: Oh geez. How'd that go?

Richard

Seamans: Not very well.

Chris

Barron: It didn't, huh? So how was the conversation?

Richard

Seamans: Well, it wasn't much of one. No?

Chris

Barron: It was real quiet for a long time.

Richard

Seamans: Real quiet, yes. But come harvest time, she changed her mind. So that—

Chris

Barron: Well, you were one that did go to semis pretty early because in this area, there was probably hardly anybody really, was there, that had a semi. And what, you know, and again, back to the machinery thing, what gave you the wisdom or the insight to see, you know, to have that vision to see kind of what was coming and probably a direction that makes sense to go?

Richard

Seamans: Well, it made for us, it was when you got enough road use out here. And boy, I tell you what, out here on tractors on Highway 150 was—

Chris

Barron: Difficult.

Richard

Seamans: Really difficult. And it was, uh, to the point for safety, for one thing. And, and I was doing all the hauling in and she was doing the combining, so that, uh, made that trip a little faster and it helped. And of course, I started off with buying a wrecked trailer and cutting it in two and made a small one. And, and that was too small, and we started going bigger. But that's, uh, part of growth, you know, that, uh, and then finally the wagons left.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, well, I noticed one thing just as an observation watching you and seeing you as a kid growing up. You spent a lot of time in the shop, did a lot of welding, did a lot of fabrication that a lot of guys don't have the talent to do.

Richard

Seamans: That I— she said it cost me a lot to stay home in the wintertime because I was in the shop building machinery.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, yeah, that was always impressive.

Richard

Seamans: So I, and I enjoyed doing that. I still do.

Chris

Barron: Well, come on over. The shop's not too far away from you.

Richard

Seamans: I might do that.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, that sounds good. So talk a little bit about, you know, you have 3 daughters and when you're farming, one of the things that we see with multi-generational businesses is, okay, you got to start thinking about the next generation. You got to start thinking about transition. You got to start thinking about, okay, what are my next steps? You know, I can't farm forever, but I want to stay engaged in the farm and I want to, you know, pay attention to what's going on. And so talk a little bit about how you work through that, because some farm operations have kids on the farm that are going to come back and some don't. And so with the, with the girls, they didn't probably have a huge desire to farm, but on the same token, you had to make some decisions there. Talk about that.

Richard

Seamans: They, right, they really, I don't think really wanted to come back to the farm or had that desire for it. There was, I would say, two of them probably would have if they would have found the right person to marry. But they, that wasn't their choice. So that's, and You're right about thinking, you gotta think ahead on a deal like this. And 'cause you got, I got 3 daughters out there then that someday this land will be theirs.

Chris

Barron: Right.

Richard

Seamans: And we did work with a very good attorney to get things. And we did this quite a while ago to, uh, that the transfer will be fairly easy when it, when it does happen. And so they do have a part of it now. And that works out well for us. And they know what's going to happen down the road. So that's—

Chris

Barron: That's a key thing to talk about that for the dads that are listening, how important you think is it that, you know, number one, you put a transition plan together, but number two, you communicate it, right? You let the kids kind of know, okay, here's what's coming because your hope probably is that they continue to have Thanksgiving together, right? Someday down the road, you don't want them to, to be at each other. You want everybody to kind of get along. And the only one that can make that happen is mom and dad, yet when they can communicate that.

Richard

Seamans: And with the family all being together is really important, right? So you need everybody there and you want everybody there. And we do have a meeting every year to, uh, sit down and say, now this is what's happening, and then let them know what's going on out here and what you're going to have to be looking for down the road. And that's, uh, so, and, and you'll find out that there's going to be one in that family that's going to be better at it than the others, or whatever, maybe two out of the three. And, uh, then you'll be able to, uh address that and to give them the opportunity then to take care of it.

Chris

Barron: So. No, it's really good. One thing I heard you talking about offline, Alyssa was up here in the room and you were making a comment about the girls tell us that story about that it's okay to grow up in a cornfield.

Richard

Seamans: My youngest daughter was a social worker going through college and she was doing some work with the, uh, with her classes and stuff. And she was dealing with some 18-year-old prisoners and taking them home to their mother to see their mother and stuff. And, and this one day then that as they was leaving her mother, her mother was shot by her boyfriend. And, uh, when she came home that night, she said that, uh, she called us and said that I am sure glad I grew up in a cornfield because they, uh, she's like, you tell me what kind of drugs you want, I could get you anything, you know. And she says, it's really, really bad.

Chris

Barron: Yeah.

Richard

Seamans: So that was in the middle of Kansas City.

Chris

Barron: Wow. Yeah, I think there's just a lot of, uh, pretty wild and crazy things going on in this world right now that, uh, it really makes you wonder. It makes you feel blessed. It's kind of like the kids You know, with COVID this year, we had, uh, we had the kids here doing stuff that they probably wouldn't have done before, right, because they weren't in school. And I'm guessing they probably learned more while they were here at the farm than maybe they would have in school even.

Richard

Seamans: You're right, you're right.

Chris

Barron: So, so hey, Rich, is there anything else that I, I haven't brought up? You know what, a couple of key questions I have is, you know, if you were to give advice to say a young farmer in today's world trying to figure out how to grow, how to stay viable in farming and stay in business when these margins are as tight as they are, what advice would you give them? What couple of key things should they pay attention to and be aware of?

Richard

Seamans: Number one, I'd say a real good set of books. I mean, that's— you need to know your cost.

Chris

Barron: Anything else?

Richard

Seamans: Well, that, and get out of debt.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. Manage debt.

Richard

Seamans: Yep.

Chris

Barron: Gotcha. I like the books thing, 'cause that knowing your cost of production's a pretty key thing. It's pretty hard to market if you don't know your cost of production.

Richard

Seamans: You're right. And I tell you, there was a lot of years that before I really realized, you know, raised it and sold it and took what we— what you could get, what we could get, you know. That, uh, well, that's about what we still do today, but it's at a different level.

Chris

Barron: So you bet. So anything else, any other, any other wisdom? Uh, I'm going to ask you one other question here about mistakes. If— is there any— what, what's maybe one of the biggest mistakes you made in farming, but it actually turned out okay. Is there any, any, um, thing you can think of there? I'm kind of throwing that one at you too, because I didn't tell you I was going to ask.

Richard

Seamans: Well, yeah, that I could add some time on that one there. I guess probably between my dad and I, I was, I was the one that thought that we ought to be jumping in and doing some more and buying more land and stuff like that. And, um, he would buy a farm when he could pay for it. And of course I didn't have any money back then, so that was impossible for me to do. But, uh, I guess like, again, you say the wisdom of your dad, that, uh, how he did things and, and kind of look back on it that Not everything was right. Not everything was wrong either. So that, man, a mistake that I made, I really don't want to tell.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, well, that's the fun part, you know. But no.

Richard

Seamans: And that was back in marketing. I mean, you thought, boy, I'm going to cut a fat hog here. And then Manage greed.

Chris

Barron: You're right, you're right. Yeah, 'cause that's one of the key things for sure. So last question, anything that I didn't ask, is there anything you would throw out there to the family, to those listening, you know, what's important?

Richard

Seamans: Your family's probably your most important. Is not your God, it's your family. Yeah, family be number two. But the, uh, one thing we did do is we went to all their games and the sports, and which my parents didn't. My dad was out working.

Chris

Barron: Yeah.

Richard

Seamans: And I was pretty lucky I was able to go and play basketball and football and stuff like that. And then the girls all played volleyball and basketball. And we— that's one thing we did do was attend all their sports and back them and and the things they did. And I think that's why we still have them.

Chris

Barron: Yep. And that's— and you don't get that back, do you?

Richard

Seamans: No, you don't.

Chris

Barron: No. And that's the, that's the key thing. I don't think there's any better wisdom than that, Rich. That's awesome. So, so, well, hey, really appreciate the, the conversation. Any other thing else that I didn't get out of you? Last chance.

Richard

Seamans: Well, that's— I'd have to think about it now.

Chris

Barron: No, we're good. Hey, Rich, really appreciate this. This was a great conversation. You know, I think it's important that people understand there's a lot of intelligent people out there, but you can't buy wisdom. Wisdom comes in time. And we appreciate you sharing that today. And thanks, everybody, and appreciate your time. And we'll catch you next time on the Ag View Pitch. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Dad's Wisdom.

Richard

Seamans: Please make sure to leave us a rating on Apple Podcasts, and for any questions or ideas that you would like discussed, please email us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. Have a great day.