Gateway CEO was introduced to different types of business structures on Friday with an in-depth view at what a Co-op is and how it typically operates. Special thank you to David Wright, General Manager of M&M Service Company. He started his presentation with taking a look at Sole Proprietorship, Partnerships, Corporations, Non-pofit Corps and ultimately Co-ops. M&M Service Company is a locally owned agricultural cooperative serving the supply, marketing, and service needs of members since 1927. Their roots began with serving members with fuel needs many years ago when they were literally transitioning from horse power to tractors to farm their fields. Today, M&M serves from start to finish as a consultant/advisor to farming operations. While they didn’t have a site tour of the facility, they did get a high level view of what their current operations look like across the three counties of Madison, Mongomery and Macoupin.

The students walked away with much more in depth knowledge of inner workings and operations for serving those in agriculture. Highlights included:
- A local Co-op in today’s market still combines rural values and relationships with global access to information and resources.
- Farming business is impacted significantly by weather (get crops in and out), commodity pricing and government regulations
- New technology continues to drive efficiencies for growers and in turn for how a supplies business will support the farms
- The pandemic truly had impact on how they operated during this time. Also, have seen the highs and lows with pricing of commodities - but true view of health of business is related to profits and not just sales revenue. Can be very volatile when dealing with so many factors that can’t be controlled.

David’s biggest takeaway to students was the importance of communication. It will cause you to have success or problems. With communication, he emphasized how critical the listening portion is. As a leader, he may not have experience with all the jobs in his company, but he has the ability to listen and then assess to help meet the needs of his employees and drive better decision making. David also was able to present us with support as a sustaining investor for our program! We thank you and appreciate M&M Service as part of our CEO family.