Milling & Baking News - September 27, 2016 - 16

Industry Activities X

Pride in milling and agriculture
drives new NAMA chairman
Continued from Page 1

a river terminal elevator on the Illinois river for a couple years before moving to ADM headquarters
in Decatur, Ill., and merchandising
rail grain to the poultry sector in the
Southeast. In the early 1990s, Mr.
Kolkhorst moved to ADM's Tabor
Grain unit, heading Tabor 's country
elevator division as general manager and then as a vice-president.
Mr. Kolkhorst moved away from
the grain business in 1999 when he
was named North American sales
manager of ADM Bio Products, the
global amino acid business that was
part of the specialty feed sector. Mr.
Kolkhorst later was promoted to
vice-president and then president of
the specialty business worldwide.
In 2007, Mr. Kolkhorst was named
to succeed Craig A. Fischer as president of ADM Milling Co., and while
he has had oversight of the business ever since, ADM has tapped
him from time to time with significant further responsibilities. For
instance, he returned to the company's North American headquarters in Decatur to oversee ADM's
cocoa business (see related story
on Page 19).
"I still oversaw flour milling, but
my ADM colleague, Kris Lutt, was
president of ADM Milling at the
time," he said. "I did that from 2010
to 2012. Then we reorganized and
subsequently sold our cocoa business, and Milling became a part of
our Ag Services unit."
Shortly after Mr. Kolkhorst returned to Overland Park (Mr. Lutt
became president of ADM's Golden
Peanut and Tree Nuts business), he
was given responsibility for ADM
Alliance Nutrition, based in Quincy,
Ill. That division, a commercial feed
and premix business, has plants in
the United States, the Caribbean,
Canada and China.
Following some organizational
shifts and divestitures, ADM is now
organized around four more clearly
delineated business segments, Mr.
Kolkhorst said - Corn Processing,
Oilseeds Processing, Agricultural
Services and Wild Flavors and Specialty Ingredients (W.F.S.I.).
"Milling is part of our Ag Services division," Mr. Kolkhorst
said. "It also includes our global
grain and trading businesses and
16 / September 27, 2016 XMilling & Baking News

global transportation network."
While Mr. Kolkhorst's experiences have given him exposure to
many parts of ADM, before taking
the helm of ADM Milling, the flour
milling business and NAMA were
something of a revelation, he said.
"From the perspective of a 30-year

Kolkhorst

ADM employee, and now almost a
9-year milling employee, I recognize, frankly, I wasn't very familiar with the milling division when
I first arrived," he said. "It was in
Kansas City. It was very much a
part of ADM but also ran as a kind
of separate entity.
"As I look back, NAMA's been in
place since 1998, and Craig Hamlin
was the one who helped put this
organization together. I look back
to Joe Hale and Craig Hamlin (Mr.
Hamlin and Mr. Hale were ADM
Milling presidents who also served
as NAMA chairmen). The assets that
I have the privilege of running today are predominantly assets that
they acquired and put together
over the years and gave us a good
footprint in the milling business to
build upon and continually serve
our customers."
ADM Milling is the second largest milling company in the United
States, operating 23 flour mills, in
addition to 7 in Canada and 4 in
the Caribbean. ADM also operates 7
flour mills in the United Kingdom.
With 288,400 cwts of daily milling

capacity, ADM accounts for about
19% of the milling capacity in the
United States.
Mr. Kolkhorst described his background in grain trading, grain
transportation, basic processing
and operations as indispensable
preparation for leading the milling
business. Still, there was a learning
curve.
"One thing I found when I came to
milling is it's a lot more complicated
a business than many people recognize," he said. "With wheat milling,
you are taking different classes of
wheat, many different qualities of
wheat and finding the combinations
that provide the right functionality for your customer. I think that
was the biggest difference. You can
mill flour that meets a customer 's
specification, but if it doesn't work
for your customers and their products, you've got to find something
that will work. I found the process
simple - a gradual reduction of
the wheat kernel into the starch and
feed - but the complexity of all the
functionality features of our product is amazing to me. And every
year you start again. There's still a
lot of art in this business."
The distinctive nature of milling
within the broader universe of grain
processing is mirrored in the wheat,
corn and oat milling members of
NAMA, Mr. Kolkhorst said.
"I've been involved in several industries at ADM, and I've enjoyed
all the different things I've had the
opportunity to do," he said. "But
when I came to the milling division,
and especially when I got involved
in NAMA and the industry, the passion in this business is something
I've not seen in other places. I like
that passion. Obviously, everyone's
there competing and doing the best
they can to serve their customers,
but I think true passion drives people to do things that are right for the
industry, too. That's something that
struck me when I first arrived.
"If you look at NAMA compared
to a lot of associations, more than
90% of U.S. flour milling capacity
is represented in NAMA. The corn
milling and oat milling industries
are well represented, too. NAMA
has a wide array of millers. You have
some very large millers - from the
size of Ardent Mills to some smaller
family regional millers and everything in between. I think the whole
Continued on Page 19
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Milling & Baking News - September 27, 2016

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