Program: Judd Anderson - Muscatine High School Girls Swim Team
Invocation: Cristian Lopez
Recap from September 17, 2018 meeting:
Happy News: John Kuhl thanked Marv Krieger for arranging the program and the reunion club meeting. Holly Thomas-Koehler let us know that on October 1 - Unity Point us having a community health needs assessment at 6:00 pm at the Musser Public Library. And also an online vote to win $25,000 for a school. Keith Porter is happy that Marilyn Smith is his guest today and he also thanked Marv Krieger for putting today's meeting together. Keith was also happy that he got to babysit his grandchild on Saturday.
Club Business: Share Orr reminded us that the October 22, 2018 meeting will be off site. Contact Shane or John Kuhl if you would like to host the meeting that day.
Program: Gage A. Kent shared some history about GPC and Kent Feeds with us. This year marks the 90th Anniversary. It all started with Gage's grandfather, Gage Allison Kent back in the 1920's. He started out building and selling houses with lumber from his company. At age 26 he ran a grain elevator in Indianola, Iowa, where he took on Purina as a line of feed. In the 30's he started running barges out of Muscatine to ship product down steam. He ended up building a terminal in Tampa Bay, FL. In 1936 Gage Allison Kent started his own feed business in Muscatine, IA. He also had livestock and built a barge terminal in Missouri. In the 1940's the government was looking to build alcohol plants to help in the production of rubber for the war. 4 plants were built and the one in Muscatine, IA is the only one still remaining. The government owned the plant but Kent ran it. After the war, Kent bought the plant from the government. He then learned how to make high quality beverage alcohol. In the 1960's Kent got into wet milling. This is the process where the corn is soaked in water and then the parts of the kernel are separated for processing. This is still done today. 250 million pounds of industrial starch is sold annually. In 1985 Gage A. Kent joined the company. In 1992 Precision Foods Group was created. There are 5 manufacturing facilities making Sqwincher and many other food products. Gage announced that the head quarters will be moving from St. Louis to Muscatine! In 1998 the company started making cat litter. We got to hear many interesting stories about Gage's family and the creation of ideas - ranging from an idea about frog legs to....putting grapes into a washing machine! Gage pointed out that the core values of his company are very similar to those of Rotary - #1 - Tell the truth. #2 - Work Safely. #3 - Quality. #4 - Timeliness. #5 - Work for the Win Win.
Next Rotary meeting will be September 24, 2018 at the Rendezvous.