Marvin Lynch and Kenny Smail have worked together 38 years at the Piqua Cooperative. After 42 years, Lynch is preparing to step down in February when Smail, who has taken over the title of co-op manager, will start running things on his own.
Lynch started working at the co-op not long after graduating from Kansas State University in 1969. Coming back to Piqua was a pretty easy choice.
“I needed to eat,” Lynch said. “I needed a job and I had worked out here a few summers while I was going to school so I knew everyone. I ended up never leaving.”
Smail’s story is similar. In need of a job, Smail turned to the co-op to keep him going.
“I thought it would be a good place to work and it has been,” Smail said. “All the guys have been here a pretty long time so that tells you the kind of people we hire here, people you can rely on.”
In fact, the combined service of the employees totals just a little more than 192 years.
For 28 of Smail’s 38 years at the co-op, he worked under Lynch who was promoted to manager in 1984. Along the way both have seen a variety of changes that have illustrated how agriculture has evolved over the years.
“You know when we started out here, farmers used to come by with pickup trucks full of grain,” Lynch said. “Now they come with semitrailers. The amount of usable ground they have now is pretty impressive.”
Smail attributes the science of farming as one of the more dramatic changes he has seen in his time.
“I think the way that science has and really continues to change everything is one of the more impressive things for me,” Smail said. “The amount of bushels that you can get out of a field now is so much more than what it was when Marvin or I first started. It really has been a revolution.”
The two also agree that “red tape” is the one thing that not only has changed, but has grown at an almost seemingly exponential rate.
“Government regulations are the thing that always are moving on us,” Lynch said. “Every year they’re coming up with something new for us to have a report on or test for. Don’t get me wrong, the amount of grain we grow now feeds a lot of people around the world. We have to be safe.”
“That’s why Marvin is staying around for a little bit,” Smail added. “He’s been helping me get into understanding what all I need to do with all that.”
Lynch will retire as just the second co-op manager since it was established in Piqua in 1956.
Lynch plans to spend the additional free time he is acquiring with his family initially.
