Brady is a founding member of Firebird Artisan Mills and a veteran of the United States Navy. He has more than a decade of leadership experience. His background also includes technical expertise in a variety of areas such as packaging, project management and gluten-free milling.
Agspring Leadership
Agspring leadership, with decades of experience, understands the complexity of global agriculture production, distribution and marketing.
Executives
Mark Beemer, CEO
Mark Beemer
Chief Executive Officer
Beemer has more than 28 years of grain and agriculture processing industry experience and has built a reputation and track record as a senior executive providing strategic and operational leadership. Over this time, he has served on boards of directors of multiple companies, and managed more than $5 billion in manufacturing and agricultural industry assets while working with multiple private equity firms. Most recently he served as CEO of Aventine Renewable Energy, where he revitalized the company.
Mark started his career in commodity trading at the Chicago Board and joined Louis Dreyfus Corp. in 1988, moving to Archer Daniels Midland Co. through the company’s 1993 joint venture, where he managed the corn and soybean merchandising operations. During his 13-year tenure with Archer Daniels Midland Co, he served in various key management roles, including strategic planning, operations and corporate transportation. In the Kansas City community, Beemer serves as a member of the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame board of directors.
Brian Aust,VP, Merchandising
Brian Aust
Vice President, Merchandising
Aust’s broad and tangible experience as a merchandising lead aids Agspring merchandising operations both strategically and tactically. Aust has been engaged with commodities merchandising domestically across the United States. He has served in merchandising capacities for Scoular, Debruce, Lansing and others and has direct experience managing transportation including high-capacity rail and barge operations. He also developed a cross country business establishing strong relationships with producers and customers.
Bruce Chapin, CFO
Bruce Chapin
Chief Financial Officer
Chapin serves as chief financial officer of Agspring. His more than 20 years in the commodity and milling trade has included multiple positions at Louis Dreyfus Company including head of industry, chief operating officer, director of operations and interior chief financial officer—all for the North American region, as well as controller of the Kansas City office. Previously, Chapin was a controller and internal audit manager for Bartlett and an auditor for other firms in our region. He is a certified public accountant and holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics along with a master’s degree in accounting.
Mike Hallman, VP, Sales
Mike Hallman
Vice President, Sales
Hallman has more than 25 years of sales leadership and account management experience within the food and beverage industry, where he has built a proven track record in developing recognized value and positive year-over-year growth. Hallman has also built a diverse portfolio of experiences in selling specialty valued food ingredients such as: soy protein, food protection hydrocolloids, emulsifiers, systems, enzymes, high intensity sweeteners, flavors, probiotics, and fibers across broad food applications, which spans a variety of industry segments.
During his 18-year tenure with DuPont Nutrition and Health (Solae and Danisco), he served in several key sales leadership positions, including most recently, as the Director of Sales over the Meat and Culinary and Nutrition Segment, where he managed over $280 million dollars in sales.
Tim Lefman, Director of Information Technology
Timothy Lefman
Director of Information Technology
Lefman is responsible for IT systems and resources across the Agspring enterprise. Most recently, Lefman was the head of IT for Aratana Therapeutics, a life sciences company dedicated to pets. After spending the better part of a decade in the public sector, he started his own technology consulting firm in Kansas City and has served as virtual CTO/CIO for several small to midsize local companies. He brings Agspring experience with IT systems and practices stretching from the public to private sector and from small businesses to publicly traded companies. Lefman is also on the technology steering committee for The Grooming Project which focuses on ending cycles of poverty through job training and life skills. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Missouri.
Josh Skatvold, AVP, Transportation and Supply Chain
Josh Skatvold
Assistant Vice President of Transportation and Supply Chain
Skatvold is responsible for overseeing all rail and truck logistics at Big River Rice and Grain and for Thresher Artisan Wheat, Agspring. He enhances Agspring’s customer base by providing consistent just-in-time delivery by truck or railcar, and by managing the Thresher private railcar fleet. He also works to ensure that the increasingly stringent requirements for food safety and security are met for both truck and rail movements.
Bradford Warner, VP, Marketing, Customer Engagement and Sustainability
Bradford Warner
Vice President of Marketing, Customer Engagement and Sustainability
Warner brings Agspring more than two decades of diverse experience with both business and consumer markets through results-based market, product/service and channel development. Warner’s work with agricultural information systems, consumer packaged goods, and sustainable food ingredients has spanned market planning, product development, business development and marketing communications roles.
Previous to Agspring, Warner founded 4Comm Marketing Insights & Solutions, a market planning and operations consultancy. Warner has also served a Director of Marketing for On Demand Technologies and Embarq Logistics where he also led the corporation’s private-label manufacturer, Premier Telecom Products. Prior to that Warner held marketing, research and communications roles in the telecom, healthcare and entertainment industries.
Chris Stanger, Director of Corporate Safety
Chris Stanger
Director of Corporate Safety
Stanger is responsible for all safety management, training, compliance and reporting for the corporation and its subsidiaries. Stanger has been with Agspring since 2018 as a safety lead within operations. Previously, he was the North American Environmental Health and Safety Coordinator for ALLTECH based in Kentucky. Stanger managed a wide variety of safety programs for ALLTECH including OSHA training and reporting, CPR-first aid, AED and blood-borne pathogens, fall protection, confined space entry and rescue/hazard communication. Additionally, his experience with job hazard analysis in fermentation, beverage manufacturing, feed mill production and pharmaceutical manufacturing is a benefit to Agspring grain handling and light processing facilities.
Subsidiary Leadership
Brady Eckart, Plant Manager of Firebird Artisan Mills
Brady Eckart
Plant Manager of Firebird Artisan Mills
Michale Preisinger, Managing Director of Agforce Transport Services
Michael Presinger
Managing Director of Agforce Transport Services
Preisinger has more than 15 years combined experience working in the transportation industry, having experience in the areas of sales, operations, and management. Having been seasoned in both foreign and domestic transportation divisions, Michael has a well-rounded understanding of the whole transportation industry model. Michael previously served as the Senior Sales Manager at TSC Container Freight. As Managing Director at Agforce, Michael oversees operations and carrier relationships and works with the team daily with the goal to provide the most creative solutions to the unique customer needs while enhancing the customer experience.
Seth Post, General Manager, Big River
Seth Post
General Manager, Big River Rice and Grain
Post brings Big River a background in the agricultural commodity trade spanning merchandising; elevator, light processing, rail shuttle loading, truck logistics and grain quality and safety training operations. His experience with Scoular Co. and CGB Enterprises has included serving as regional facilities manager, group manager, facility manager and a merchandising manager.
Andy Tuley, VP, Business Development of Agforce Transport Services
Andy Tuley
Vice President, Business Development of Agforce Transport Services
Tuley brings more than 10 years of freight industry experience which includes positions at C.H. Robinson and TSC Container Freight with whom he helped initiate the domestic freight brokerage category. When the opportunity came to form Agforce Transport Services as a division of Agspring, Tuley’s background in sales made him the ideal candidate to spearhead the initiative. Along with overseeing transportation sales, business development and account management, Andy works with the team to grow the Agforce business portfolio. Additionally, Tuley’s goals focus on ways to enhance the customer experience while developing continual sales growth.
Brian Aust, General Manager, Thresher Artisan Wheat
Brian Aust
General Manager, Thresher Artisan Wheat
Aust’s broad and tangible experience as a merchandising lead aids Agspring merchandising operations both strategically and tactically. Aust has been engaged with commodities merchandising domestically across the United States. He has served in merchandising capacities for Scoular, Debruce, Lansing and others and has direct experience managing transportation including high-capacity rail and barge operations. He also developed a cross country business establishing strong relationships with producers and customers.
Advisory Circle
Craig Huss
Craig Huss
Huss brings a wealth of experience with a 40 year career in Senior Management roles at Archer Daniels Midland Company spanning merchandising and transportation areas of responsibility. Most recently, Huss was Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer at the company and has previously held the position of President of the company’s Agricultural Services and Transportation business units. Huss has a superior understanding of the U.S. grain supply chain including terminal operations as well as barge and rail logistics.
Larry Tubbs
Larry Tubbs
Tubbs has been in the agriculture business for more than 50 years, working in the grain elevator businesses well as farm production of corn, soybeans, wheat and rice. After merging his company, Tubbs Rice Dryers, Inc to become Big River Rice & Grain Company, Tubbs lead the new company as CEO until he retired in January, 2015. Tubbs now serves as director emeritus for Big River Rice and Grain.