Worthington Ag Parts - President's Blog

Discount Used Tractor Parts - South Africa

Worthington Ag Parts - Tractor Parts, Combine Parts, Implement Parts providers to customers all over the world for 44 years!  Parts - Expect More From Us!

I'd like to introduce a special customer of ours Discount Used Tractor Parts of South Africa!  Worthington Ag Parts has been selling parts to them for over a decade!  Discount is truly a family business, the three brothers Evan, Ilan and Steven Rubin, their father Colin and uncle Les all have a hand in running the business!  They are located in the city of Delmas!  I visited their operations in 2005 and took the photo shown above of Evan, Ilan, Colin and Steven!  It was truly a unique experience to see their operations, while the culture is different the parts are the same! 

On Monday of this week at our Export Division in Sioux Falls, SD we had a strategic planning meeting with our good friends and customers!    The photo to the left show the six of us from left to right is Colin Taylor - International Sales Manager, myself, Steven Rubin, Randy Mittlestadt - Director of Operations, Carl Vande Weerd - Farm Show Manager, and Evan Rubin.      

The highlight of the day was when Evan asked to use the phone to call home to South Africa.  Our phone system requires that the user dial 9 to access an outside line and to call internationally in the United States you must dial the "011" prefix!  Well Evan dialed the 9 missed the zero and followed it up with 11 -- well we all know what happens when you dial "911"!!!  Well the sheriff's department were calling back within seconds and they demanded they come out and make sure everything was okay!  They were at the front door within five minutes, insuring everything was okay!  As you can see from the photo the handcuffs were almost used on Evan!  I think it was the first time the officers had met someone from South Africa!

It was a productive meeting and we look forward to expanding our relationship! We value their customer loyalty but more importantly we appreciate their friendship!  Thanks for taking the time to visit the Export Division and safe travels on your journey to our Sikeston, Missouri location!

That's all for today!

Cheers,

Mike Winter

Still Here!

Worthington Ag Parts - Tractor Parts, Combine Parts, Implement Parts providers to customers all over the world for 44 years!  Parts - Expect More From Us!

I've been waiting along time to dedicate the time to write my blog and let everyone know I'm still here!  Today I was motivated not only by the fact that I had the time and it's way over due but also by the fact there is a little rumor going around the industry.  The rumor is that I quit as President of Worthington Ag Parts.  Wow, that's an amazing rumor, I guess when you are the industry leader the competition will try anything to get a piece of your business!

I'd like to set the record straight, I am still the President of Worthington Ag Parts, and Director of Neil's Parts, a job for which I'm grateful for!  I have a great team of employees in three countries, United States, Canada and Australia.  I work for an owner that invests and believes in the business and we have the best customers in the world!  Our customers are honest people working hard to make a living and if they tell you I'll pay you in two months when the crops come in, you can take that to the bank! 

The last few months has been crazy, budgets, auditors, foreign subsidiary system integration, year-end with two new controllers and exponential sales growth!  We have survived and I hope to blog more often than in the last four months!  I have a lot of news to share!  Rest assured I'm not going anywhere because I have no intentions of letting my team down, the owner or our valued customers!  All I can say as I approach my 18 year anniversary with Worthington Ag Parts is watch out competition - I'm not going anywhere!

Cheers,

Mike Winter