Don Van Houweling, Farm Equipment Dealer Hall of Fame 2026

“I had this huge facility, so I had a place for people to work. And even though farmers weren’t buying any equipment, they were getting their equipment worked on,” he says.

“I was able to hire good technicians from these various stores. And there I was with 10 technicians, taking care of this bigger area. That’s how I got through it, and the banker told me, he said, ‘If you’ll pay the interest, I won’t call the note. Just pay me the interest.’”

The banker told Van Houweling they’d get through it together. “I loaned you the money because I knew you could do it,” he recalls the banker telling him. “I was able to pay the interest and keep the note, in his words, current, and that’s how I got through that.”

Before the 1980s, Van Houweling says there was a John Deere dealership every 15 miles, and by 1985 there was just Van Wall within a 35-40 mile radius.

“I can remember as a boy growing up in his house, we had the motto at Van Wall, ‘Where service is the other half of the great product,’” says Mike Van Houweling, Don’s son and the CFO of Van Wall.

“That would’ve been in the ’70s and early ’80s or so. At that time, there were a lot of dealers who were pretty focused on the thrill of selling the tractor, selling the combine, selling the whole unit, and maybe not as focused on the importance and the value both to the dealership and to the customer of the parts and service process.”

Mike Van Houweling says that focus on the parts and service side of the business was instilled in him at an early age.

“I’d say he is a pioneer in that thinking a little bit. Today, when we think about being the clear first choice, that translates into really helping the customer with their business, helping the customer be more profitable and more competitive. But then beyond that, it’s making the customer's life easier and lowering their risk,” he says.

Innovative Mind

While Van Wall survived the 1980s as many of the surrounding dealerships closed up, it wasn’t without some innovative thinking and hard work. Mike Van Houweling recalls as a kid in the early 1980shis dad having discussions saying, “How do we continue to operate a healthy business.”

In response to the challenge, Van Houweling developed a tool to adapt tillage implements to enhance their performance.

When a manufacturing company in north central Iowa went out of business, Van Houweling bought the company’s press equipment. “I had this idea that our field cultivators weren’t doing a good job in the soil where the tractor tires ran because it was 2-3 inches lower all the time,” he recalls. “We weren’t tilling the soil where the tires were running.”

It would show in the fields when the crops came up, he says. Always the entrepreneur, Van Houweling came up with the idea for The Extender — putting an extension on the shanks that would allow the field cultivator shank to be deeper in the ground and do the same job in the tire tracks as it was doing everywhere else.

Van Houweling figured out how to make the tool work for both John Deere and CNH field cultivators. “I put them in my briefcase and got on an airplane to Corpus Christi, Texas, in January,” he recalls. “I worked with another dealer and tested them to make sure they worked.”

Having been a John Deere factory guy, Van Houweling made a die and got to work on his press to create the new product. “When my kids got out of school in the afternoon, they’d come in and run the press,” he says. “My wife Terry did all the boxing. We created a box that held 16 of those.”

Van Houweling marketed The Extender across the U.S. and then he eventually sold it to John Deere after about 10 years. He also created a spray cart that would fit between the tractor and the field cultivator that could carry up to 750 gallons of water allowing farmers to spray a field in one trip, he says.

“One thing about manufacturing is it margin,” Van Houweling says. “If the idea works and you can market it, it has margin. So we had good margin on that stuff, and every dollar back then really counted.”

“That’s a memorable moment for me and the lesson of you have to be innovative,” says Mike Van Houweling. “It’s the spirit of innovation — be innovative and persevere. The motivation to do that was that the times were challenging, but then you had the innovative spirit and the enthusiasm to go figure out, ‘Well, now what?’

“And I would say he’s been more on the innovative side when it comes to what a dealership can do to deliver value to the customers. He was an early dealer that realized the value of some scale. We had a little more scale with more than a single location sooner than most everybody else. And so that was a bit of an early innovation.”

20 Group

In 2000, Gause and some other Deere branch managers decided they wanted to start a 20 group with dealers that had multi-store operations, Van Houweling says. The groups were ultimately managed by the late Bob Currie and Currie Management.

“They were made up of dealers like Don and could share there best ideas. It was a learning experience for all participants,” explains Gause.

Van Houweling credits that early 20 Group, which brought together John Deere dealers from across the country to share financials with each other in showing him and the others what a good business looked like.

“We all learned from each other,” he says. “Bob taught us the basic fundamentals of managing different budgets and setting benchmarks, goals and profitability.

He learned from the other dealers in the group, too, and says they would all challenge each other. “We’d meet 3 times a year, and there’s some competition there, wanting to compete with the best,” he says. “We were all mentors to each other.”

Whether through the 20 Group or not, Mike Van Houweling notes that his dad has always been willing to help other dealers out. “I’ve observed him over the years being open and enthusiastic and excited to help other people build their John Deere dealerships. That’s a quality you don't see necessarily in everybody, and it’s a part of his legacy,” he says.

Van Houweling also provides feedback and guidance as a member of Farm Equipment’s Dealer Advisory Board.

Tom Sloan, Sloan Implement, recognizes the influence Van Houweling has on Deere, noting his ability to challenge the OEM on several dealer policies over the years. He’s made a number of connections throughout the organization, and Sloan says they respect his input.

“He’s been a great intermediary between dealer and manufacturer to help shape a lot of decisions,” Sloan says.

Sloan admires Van Houweling’s relations with Deere. “Don is not afraid to challenge and ask the tough questions on policy. His input on dealer policy decisions has helped the dealer organization,” he says. “On several occasions he’s called me to lobby for changes. There aren’t many dealer principals in our industry who can have an impact on corporate decisions, but Don is in the group.”