Grain Journal - July/August 2008 - (Page 50) Handling the Volume ILLINOIS COOP TRIES TO ELIMINATE EMERGENCY PILES WITH 680,000-BUSHEL TANK Cullom ILLINOIS Alliance Grain Inc. Gibson City, IL • 217-784-4284 Founded: 1991 Storage capacity: 22 million bushels at 13 locations Annual volume: 30 million bushels Number of members: 2,000 Number of employees: 42 Crops handled: Corn, soybeans, soft red winter wheat Services: Grain handling and merchandising Key personnel: • Joe Thompson, general manager • Gary Allen, grain division manager • Brad Wallrich, Cullom plant manager • Susan Deany, office manager • Logan Spenard, outside foreman Newest addition at Alliance Grain Inc.’s branch elevator at Cullom, IL is a 680,000-bushel Brock corrugated steel tank shown in foreground. Photos by Ed Zdrojewski. Supplier List Aeration system .. Decatur Aeration Bin sweep Hutchinson/ Mayrath Division Catwalk LeMar Industries Inc. Concrete Craig’s Concrete Contractor Koehl Bros Inc. Conveyors The GSI Group Engineering SKS Engineers Inc. Grain temperature system Rolfes@Boone Millwright Koehl Bros. Inc. Motors Reliance Electric Speed reducers Dodge Steel storage Brock Grain Systems Steel tank erection Lowe Contracting Tower support system Koehl Bros. Inc. The K-12 school district that serves the town of Cullom, IL, a little less than 100 miles southwest of Chicago, operates a picturesque little football practice field next door to Alliance Grain Inc.’s branch elevator here (815-689-2782). For the last seven years, however, the field wasn’t available for football practice for at least part of the season. Instead, it was the Cullom Plant Manager Brad Wallrich (left) and Grain Manager Gary Allen. 50 GJ J/A home for tall piles of corn unloaded there during harvest, because the elevator had run out of space to store it. “Receipts have more than doubled during that time,” comments Gary Allen, grain division manager for the Gibson City, ILbased cooperative, with 2,000 members and 13 grain elevators. By 2006, the cooperative board had decided it was time to expand at Cullom. It wasn’t the first time. Plant Manager Brad Wallrich, who has been at the Cullom location since 1981, says the facility has gone from a wood house receiving grain at 5,000 bph to a concrete facility receiving at 15,000 bph. The elevator has a 45-car spot on the Bloomer Line short-line railroad and can load that many cars in about six hours. This time, considering cost per bushel for construction, the board decided to go steel and go big, with a new 680,000bushel Brock tank at the north end of the
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