"Bruce is a brilliant guy. He is always ready for a good fight," said Craig Lang, his friend, fellow agribusinessman and former regents president. "In the farm crisis days in Iowa, it was almost life-threatening for some people because they took it so hard that they didn't have success.". In early 2015, Rastetter brought a number of 2016 Republican presidential candidates to his Iowa Agriculture Summit for face-to-face public interviews. "We had just come down river, goofing around, running up a ways and down a ways," Brent Rastetter said. Ryan said the agriculture summit was his idea. The Ryans consulting and lobbying firm Concordia Group is organizing the agriculture summit. That lead was solidified in 2013, when the protections of patented seeds like Roundup Ready withstood a challenge in the U.S. Supreme Court. It was around this time that Stine recognized the necessity of protecting his valuable genetics. Critics slammed Branstad for appointing Rastetter after he gave more than $160,000 to the governors 2010 campaign. Hes waving several reams of paper, filled with three years of yield results that drive Stines corn euphoria. Terry Branstad was a decade removed from a record 16 years as governor. [1] Career [ edit] When a battalion of Monsanto lawyers and dealmakers descended on Stine Seed to finalize the deal, they found Stine alone in the companys conference room at a Ping-Pong table (Stine still rarely loses). In 2015, Ballotpedia identified Bruce Rastetter as a top influencer by state. Please only use it for a guidance and Bruce Rastetter's actual income may vary a lot from the dollar amount shown above. Small farmers and environmental groups led fights against hog confinements, saying they fouled the air and land and made parts of rural Iowa uninhabitable. Hes loathed by liberal community activists who believe hes leveraged his money into political power for personal gain. While rivals scoff, he now thinks he can double the worlds output of corn, the most popular crop on Earth. Connecting decision makers to a dynamic network of information, people and ideas, Bloomberg quickly and accurately delivers business and financial information, news and insight around the world. Bruce Rastetter got $480,000 in loans from ISU Ryan J. Foley Associated Press View Comments 0:05 0:56 The agribusiness owned by Board of Regents President Bruce Rastetter was awarded. YOU HAVE 10,000 FOLLOWERS: "But the more I thought about it Bruce was one of those people who encouraged and supported me." Along the way, hes tried his hand at investing, including helping build and sell a craft beer-company. 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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 is blunt but can be prickly at perceived slights. Click here to contact us for media inquiries, and please donate here to support our continued expansion. Rastetter says the media treats people with a double standard. 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. The contracts Stine drew up prohibited this. "I kept thinking, there's got to be somebody else," Branstad said. [2] Rastetter created Hawkeye Energy Holdings in 2003, now one of the nation's largest pure-play ethanol producers. Hes been diagnosed with environmentally-induced asthma and since moved to Colorado, he said. 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. According to Politico, between 2003 and 2015, Rastetter spent $500K on federal campaigns and $1.1 million on state-level politics. This story appears in the April 13, 2014 issue of Forbes. Nonetheless, we hop into the elevator cab, he flips the switch to get it moving, and up we go as the wind rips into us at 40mph. "Bruce does a good job of staying in touch, at least once a week. "The market was right, and he took advantage of it," said Walt Wendland, who founded Golden Grain Energy in Mason City. Bruce Rastetter talks about why he is hosting the Agriculture Summit among presidential hopefuls. Wanna follow Bruce Rastetter's net worth? About the time Heartland was sold, investors at Whitney called to ask him if he wanted to work with ethanol. [5], Rastetter is a well-known Republican donor, donating more than $1.5 million to state and federal political campaigns since 2003. J.D. Bruce who brought in $3 million and $5 million Networth Bruce collected most of his earnings from his Yeezy sneakers While he had exaggerated over the years about the size of his business, the money he pulled in from his profession real-enough to rank as one of the biggest celebrity cashouts of all time. I understand how folks could look at him that way, he said. A dozen potential Republican presidential candidates are about to sit down, one by one, with the biggest GOP donor in Iowa a multimillionaire few people outside the state have ever heard of. He also has given money to the University of Iowa and University of Northern Iowa, and has an exhibit building named after him after a $1 million contribution to the Iowa State Fair. Copyright 2023 Surperformance. Efficiency. 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. Previously only asexual plants like rosebushes or apple trees could be patented, not self-pollinating crops like corn and soybeans. He has also emerged as one of the leading Republican financial contributors in Iowa over the past decade and will stand in the national spotlight Saturday as organizer of the inaugural "Iowa Agricultural Summit" for presidential hopefuls. "I got really busy and pretty independent, and I kind of do what I want to do," he said. Rastetter was front and center of the fight. Hes already revolutionized agriculture. Rastetter also got plenty of help from Nick Ryan, a major Iowa operative, and his wife Jill Ryan, Santorums former deputy campaign manager. Branstad worked the phones with several of the GOP presidential candidates. Rastetter knew all along that their plans would displace 160,000 people, despite repeated insistence that the refugee camps in the affected area were abandoned. 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. 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 attended the University of Iowa, studying political science. 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. "One of the things the chairman of Whitney investments told me, 'No one has done anything without someone helping them.' [1], In 1994, three years after the birth of his first company, he consolidated his feed management, construction, and swine projects into Heartland Pork Enterprises. Bruce Rastetter, chief executive officer of Summit Agricultural Group, based in north-central Iowa, said this week his ethanol plant in Mato Grosso, Brazil's largest agricultural region, is. He said Rastetter held meetings that promised an increased tax base, productions with little smell and a rising price for local farmers' corn. I dont understand how peoples brains work and why they do what they do, says Stine. From media and technology to finance and real estate, leagues and. Monsanto is doing similar work, and hell have to battle with it for market share should crop growers flock en masse to high-density planting. Rastetters also been stepping more into the public sphere the past couple of years, most notably in 2011 by joining the Iowa Board of Regents, where hes been the subject of almost constant controversy. [1], Bruce Rastetter began his career in 1990 with Summit Farms, then, four years later, he established Heartland Pork, a pork farm, which, by 2004 was a $1.2 million pig operation. He isnt bashful about what his small-town company has accomplished. His disabilities were actually advantages that let him see things in ways others did not. At the time Monsantowith Fraley, then president of the companys genomics group, leading the chargehad developed the biotechnology to insert genes into crop seeds, making them resistant to glyphosate, the plant-killing herbicide in the companys dominant weed killer, Roundup. He has faced other questions about the ties between businesses under the Summit Group's umbrella and university research on his farm, and about no-interest loans from ISU's Iowa Energy Center for wind turbines. He started feeding hogs on contract in 1984, and within two years, 500 head grew to 100,000. Jon Probst Managing Director. Now 35,000 plants and 150 bushels per acre is commonnearly five times the yieldthanks to modern tractors, fertilizers, pesticides and seeds genetically modified to resist insects and herbicides. It's what our country and our economic system allows," he said. Some students said they felt the full weight of pressure for criticizing an influential donor. Rastetter took all the business leaders out to dinner at the country club in Bloomfield, Iowa, to help sell pork expansion as a great thing for the community, he said, but Davis County remains among the poorest in the state. Number one, we contained the manure, and two, we used it as a nutrient (spreading it on fields for fertilizer). A highly-courted donor, Rastetter has steadily and strategically built his personal and political brand over the past several years. But they always encouraged him to work hard toward a better life. Brent maintains relationships with many people -- family, friends, associates, & neighbors -- including Karli Rastetter, Zachariah Rastetter, Bruce Rastetter, Julie Rastetter and Clifford Gryte. Growing up on a 300-acre family farm near Alden, Iowa, Rastetter started his career with his own feed management business. It takes a minute and a half to learn what there is to learn about plant breeding., At the time public universities dominated breeding, and for good reason: Profits were limited, since intellectual property rights for soybean plants didnt existand wouldnt for another 30 years. Abby Blome "He is a mentor in terms of business, but also how you play to win. [4] He serves on governing and advisory boards of a variety of organizations, including Cultivation Corridor, AltEnergy LLC, Rural American Fund, American Agriculture and Energy Council, Iowa Renewable Fuels Association, and the college of agriculture at Iowa State. Kevin Bogenreif Managing Director. "Dollars you contributed help those people get elected, which is what our system is. He managed additional start-up companies that merged into Heartland Pork, a Midwestern pork production company acquired by Christensen Farms that has since become one of the largest pork producers in America. "Professors even discouraged us from talking about it because it was too sensitive," said Angie Carter, a graduate student in sustainable agriculture. With Hawkeye, that was 2006. Jimmy Buffett is an American singer-songwriter, author, and businessman who was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi. His rise to the status of one of the worlds wealthiest people is a direct result of this success. ", "It was about Bruce supporting a friend he saw work hard," Sweeney said. @MarcoBattaglia Everyone needs to start refusing to use ethanol blends. When you put him in the room with a bunch of people, hes going to outpace everybody intellectually.. Monitor your investments 24 hours a day, around the clock from around the globe. He declined to discuss undisclosed giving to other political causes. State executives | Type your email address below. If it works out, it wont be the first time this farm kid, unknown outside his industry, has changed the world. But this cycle, hes taking a different approach. I OWA CITY, Iowa (AP) Iowa Regent Bruce Rastetter on Thursday defended working with Iowa State University to pursue a large-scale land development in Africa that could . School districts | Are public universities being used by corporate interests or are they for the benefit of the people?". After earning a political science degree at the University of Iowa, he quit Drake University Law School and returned home to his love of farming. Long before that, Rastetter had already had a very good day. He said he ended up with 20,000 hogs within four miles of his house and its made him sick literally. You work around good people, and it's not work. Just how much pull does Rastetter have? Rastetter defends his charitable donations, noting, for starters, that he's given $3.1 million to the University of Iowa, $2.3 million to Iowa State University, and $50,150 to University of . Whitney and other investors, Heartland Pork Enterprises Inc. became the fastest-growing hog operation in Iowa and the United States and the 12th-largest pork producer.