WATERLOO — John Deere and the Cedar Valley have faced challenging times before.
They met them as a united front, and that commitment remains today.
That’s the message local Deere management wants to convey to the Cedar Valley — home of the company’s largest North American manufacturing complex and its hallmark line of large row-crop tractors.
Deere officials met with The Courier on Feb. 7 — the 221st birthday of the company’s namesake founder — at the John Deere Tractor and Engine Museum. It’s the birthplace of the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Co., maker of the “Waterloo Boy” tractor, which Deere purchased in 1918 when the company got into the tractor business.
“We really are on hallowed ground for agriculture and agriculture machinery,” said Fabio Castro, who took over as general manager of Deere’s Waterloo operations in July. “A lot of people still associate John Deere as a tractor even though we have a wide array of products and services we provide. The history is rich.”
His predecessor, Becky Guinn, the first female factory manager in the company’s 188-year history, is now vice president for global supply management and logistics at company headquarters in Moline, Illinois. She held the top spot in Waterloo for 5 1/2 years.
‘Symbiotic relationship’
“That symbiotic relationship between the company and the community in pursuit of what we try to deliver for our customers is critical,” Castro said. “In the United States, we operate in 16 states, we have 60 locations. We all know those stats. But we, right here in Waterloo, kind of have the additional responsibility by being the birthplace of tractor manufacturing — and growing alongside and with our community, and not separate from that community. ... We’re proud to be part of this community.”
Faced with a host of challenges, Castro and other managers said the company won’t back off its commitment to cultivate, recruit and retain a skilled work force for itself and other employers.
Deere continues to invest in Waterloo operations. In the past year the company reconfigured production lines for a new product, its 9RX large row-crop tractor.
The company is investing in new product research and development at its Product Engineering Center in Cedar Falls.
It is still field testing a new automated tractor and associated equipment.
Deere continues to work with local education institutions, from public schools to Hawkeye Community College and the University of Northern Iowa. It supports programs to expose young people to careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics — STEM — and as well as postsecondary training programs.
Deere remains committed to a safe work environment and ongoing safety improvements.
And the company and its employees invest roughly $2 million in money, labor and materials in a host of community activities ranging from the Northeast Iowa Food Bank to Iowa Heartland Habitat for Humanity.
Deere isn’t going anywhere.
So says Castro, a Quad Cities native and U.S. Army Iraq war veteran who became general manager of Deere’s Waterloo operations in mid-2024. A graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., he worked a previous stint in Waterloo in 2010, just a few years after his discharge from the Army serving as an officer in an armored unit.
History of growth
It’s a continuation of the growth Deere has undertaken in the Cedar Valley the past 50 years, Castro said, dating back to the many facilities Deere added then as it expanded out from its 500 Westfield Ave. site near downtown. The company added the Foundry at Westfield and Ansborough avenues, the Engine Works on West Ridgeway Avenue and the Product Engineering Center on Cedar Heights Drive in Cedar falls. That last tractors made downtown rolled off the assembly line in 1981 as Deere’s East Donald Street site, know locally as simply “the northeast site,” roared into full production.
“These centers are foundational and critical to what we do and have an immense amount of expertise” among the workforce in each of those plants, Castro said.
That time of great expansion was followed by the 1980s economic downturn when more than 9,000 employees were eliminated from Deere’s peak employment of more than 16,000. At the same time, Waterloo’s No. 2 manufacturing employer, the Rath Packing Co., ceased operations and was liquidated, essentially replaced by IBP inc., now Tyson Fresh Meats, a few years later.
“It was a pretty difficult time for the community, but you have a continuation of John Deere’s partnership with the community,” Castro said, “which is a theme that carries on to today. We still very much share that passion and commitment to our customers, but also to our community.”
The 1990s and 2000s saw a massive redevelopment of the Waterloo operations, expanding and renovating some facilities and demolishing others while also creating the Cedar Valley TechWorks campus out of renovated manufacturing buildings now used for local economic development and business offices, educational programs, the administrative offices of Lincoln Savings Bank and the present Courtyard by Marriott hotel.
From 2010 to 2020 massive investments were made in the Foundry.
“We’re super proud to have one the largest and fastest foundries in our backyard,” he said .
Investment continues
That investment continues today, Castro said — “products that mark not the end of the investment but the continuation of that trajectory for the next 50 years.”
The investment in infrastructure is more visible to the public than the long-term product research and development.
The three priorities, according to Castro: “How do we make work easier, better faster for our customers? How do we make the profession our employees have more meaningful, safer, more well regarded? And how do we make our communities we live in just a better place?”
The past year has been challenging, with company earnings off 30% for the fiscal year ending in October, and projected to be down another 30% for the current year. About 1,000 Waterloo workers were laid off, 3,100 companywide. The company’s total work force is still more than 75,000.
Still, even amid the current downturn, Deere is looking forward. The company projects it will post “strong results” for the year with projected earnings of $5 billion.
“We know we’ve gone through many of these cycles in the past. The 1980s was probably the most exaggerated cycle we went through. And we know that every time we’ve gone through those cycles, we’ve come out stronger.
“We expect to be able to navigate this cycle the same way,” Castro said.
New line
The most recent major development is the completion of the new assembly line for the company’s new 9RX tractor.
“We’re proud to call the Waterloo Works home for that tractor,” Castro said. “There was a tremendous amount of effort in order to get that tractor to production. And we’re happy to be able to start getting those tractors out to the fields this year so that it can help out in spring planting in a couple of months if the weather cooperates.”
The company also is moving ahead with autonomous tractor technology.
“I call it limited production at this point,” said Emily Priebe, product manager for row crop and heavy draft tractors. “They’re not quite commercially available yet, but they’re being piloted. We’ve had several ‘dealer demo days’ where customers all over the Corn Belt have been able to experience them, watch them in the field. It’s quite cool to have a cellphone where you swipe across, and the autonomous tractor takes off and is able to till with a variety of different implements.”
Deere continues to add autonomy capabilities across its fleet of Waterloo tractors. “We’re continuing to look at how do we make those tractors prepared for autonomy,” Priebe said.
“The beauty of our strategy is that it starts here in Waterloo with a tractor that’s capable to be able to drive the technology,” Priebe said.
Investment in employees
The investment in facilities and products requires a third element for success. “That doesn’t happen without our employees,” said Jackie Steffens with human resource operations in the Deere Waterloo Works. “We invest in them through continuous learning so they can come up with these great ideas. We offer an environment where our goal is they can thrive both personally as well as professionally.
“Our commitment to the employee is, first and foremost, their safety,” she said. “And secondly, we provide a unique blend of educational support through traditional means, formal learning programs all the way up to experiences on the job, online training programs, and exposure to our suppliers and the community. All of those relationships matter to the overall growth and development of our workforce.”
“Our employee safety and development is the core of our operations,” labor relations manager Randy Venzke said. “We have a lot of different programs, apprenticeship programs, tuition assistance programs to help our employees develop, be more engaged and more skilled. Within our current labor agreement (with the United Auto Workers) we have 15 different apprenticeship and training programs available to train people into skilled trades positions.
“And even though we’re at lower production levels, we continue to look four or five years out,” Venzke said. “Those apprenticeship programs are four- and five-year positions. So looking at potential retirements and attrition four to five years out, we are still involved in those apprenticeship programs — giving our employees the chance to develop those skills and fill those positions internally.” Which means there are “absolutely” future work opportunities with Deere in Waterloo.
Relationships with postsecondary institutions and local school districts are “very good,” Venzke said. “We have a really good tuition reimbursement program a lot of the employees take advantage of. Any of our employees — salaried, production, part-time students, after one year of service are eligible for that tuition reimbursement program. We also have school-to-work programs we partner with Hawkeye Community College on, to train people and get them prepared for skilled trades positions.”
Steffens said Deere also uses Grow Cedar Valley’s Cedar Valley Leadership Institute, “where we put our employees out in the field learning about the community. It provides professional development, and learning about the community and what the community offers, which in turn pays itself forward to other employees as they learn more about the Cedar Valley and what it has to offer.”
Castro added, “What I’m proud of about the workforce we have here in Waterloo is the multi-generational commitment we have over time. That’s something we want to perpetuate. We want to continue to have this work force that’s incredibly capable and dedicated.”
Volunteer efforts
Mindy Schmidt, community relations manager for Deere, said, “We are really committed to focusing and strengthening those communities we call home.”
“... We collaborate with nonprofits and other partner organizations in three capacities: Volunteerism is one capacity. A second one is representation,” serving on boards and in special projects.
The third way Deere helps is through grants.
“Knowing we have that triad, were pretty fortunate to be able to cooperate with all these partners to support our community.”
In fiscal year 2024 Deere employees served more than 700 nonprofit organizations with a record 51,000 volunteer hours.
‘Run for all’
Castro said the company values the Cedar Valley’s diversity. “Our goal is ‘we want to run for all,’ “ he said, playing off the company tagline, “Nothing Runs Like a Deere.”
“We want a totally engaged and inclusive workforce,” Castro said. “It helps us all in the most complex problems so our customers can benefit.”
In supporting Deere, the Cedar Valley has been “phenomenal,” Castro said. “We couldn’t have gone on that journey without the partnership that we have with the surrounding communities and its members and the support we’ve gotten from everyone involved.”
