PROGRESS 2019
CEDAR VALLEY STRONG
Sunday, March 3, 2019 | wcfcourier.com | SECTION H
KELLY WENZEL PHOTOS, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
LeRoy Gray puts together the pump on top of a transmission at the John Deere Drivetrain Operations facility Jan. 25.
Deere ‘drives’ company, community growth PAT KINNEY | For the Courier
T WATERLOO
o see the future of John Deere and Waterloo, walk inside the big L-shaped building at 300 Westfield Ave. That’s the home of John Deere’s Drivetrain operations … just a long baseball line drive from where Deere began doing business in Waterloo when it bought the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Co. 101 years ago. It’s where employees work who are the future of John Deere — employees like Katie Harn. The 1997 East High School graduate spent six years in the U.S. Army as a military police officer. It’s a job that took her all over the United States, and overseas, to Korea. She found her future right back here in Waterloo. She’s been at Deere about seven years — first, as a contract employee and then on the Deere payroll, about five years ago. She at-
KELLY WENZEL, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Assembler, Travis Stoner builds the power takeoff for the 6000 series at the John Deere Drivetrain Operations facility.
tended school while working and obtained bachelor’s and master’s degrees through night classes at Upper Iowa University’s Waterloo campus. She’s a production supervisor, overseeing two departments of 15 employees in the Drivetrain plant. “Every day is different,” she said. She has a good crew. She plans to make Deere a career — for the congenial work environment as much as the compensation and benefits. “I really like it … . It’s a very ‘small’ big company, “ she said. “It really is. Especially in Waterloo.” It’s where Deere builds transmissions for its Waterloo-built large row-crop tractors. It’s just one plant within Deere’s Waterloo operations, the company’s largest manufacturing complex in all of North America. Assembler Travis Stoner of Independence, an employee in Katie Harms’ department, said he can see the wide-ranging Please see DEERE, Page H2
Worker looks back on 52-year career at Deere PAT KINNEY
For the Courier
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WATERLOO — After 52 years working for John Deere, Gaylord Converse was ready to turn over the keys to his boss. “Gaylord stopped me last week and said. ‘It’s all yours after next week, Dave!’” said Dave DeVault, general manager of John Deere’s Waterloo operations. Converse, of Frederika, retired at the end of January. He was one of just three employees in the company’s entire 5,400-worker Waterloo operations with 50 years or more with the company. He’s spent that entire time at the company’s complex on Westfield Avenue and Commercial Street
near downtown. The 1965 graduate of Sumner High School began working at Deere Jan. 23, 1967. Then, the company’s entire manufacturing operations — then the John Deere Waterloo Tractor Works — were all on Westfield. Since then the company has expanded to various large plants throughout the Cedar Valley — together, the company’s largest manufacturing complex in North America. “He bleeds green,” said Kelly Henderson, communications and visitor services manager in Waterloo. He and his wife Vicky farm near Frederika. “His wife’s comment was he builds for John Deere all day long and he goes home and
drives a John Deere all night.” Downtown, Converse was as much an institution as some of the buildings and a mentor to many, DeVault indicated “He’s trained so many people in the component shop,” DeVault said. “It’s interesting. When many people meet Gaylord, they think he’s a salaried person,” a supervisor. “He’s a production employee that just knows the machine shop like the back of his hand, been through all the changes we’ve done. Just crazy.” Ninety days after he was hired at Deere, he was called into the military and enlisted in the Air Please see CONVERSE, Page H2
BRANDON POLLOCK, COURIER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Gaylord Converse