Editor's Note: FEMA is collaborating with Lessiter Media, publisher of Farm Equipment magazine, to commemorate their 75-year history. As part of the FEMA anniversary, we're asking the question: "What would be the industry impact had FEMA never come to exist or perhaps failed to find traction and permanence?" Send your answer to this question to mlessiter@lessitermedia.com and your response may appear on Farm-Equipment.com.

I’ve been with GBGI for almost 13 years. I started on the assembly line and now I am the Vice President of sales. But I still remember my first memories of agriculture as a kid growing up in a small farm town in Louisville, Ohio, just east of Canton where the Football Hall of Fame is. 

We grew up with farms behind us, so I have a lot of memories of those farms and being around the equipment and the animals. When I went to school, I had three major things that I was looking at.

Number one, I’m a big outdoorsman. So hunting and fishing was always number one, but there’s not very many jobs in that industry. Number two was agriculture, and if I had to fall back on it, number three was going to be automotive. But I just so happened to have a buddy that worked at GBGI already. He told me they were looking for a guy in sales. I walked in, applied, and the rest is history. I’ve been here ever since.

As anyone might guess, the first six months or so I was unprepared for it. Pete Casamento, the owner of the company, started me off on the assembly line, and I went home every night just thinking “man I’m never going to be able to just go out and sell. I’m going to hate my life. This is awful.” But now, looking back on it, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I learned the products, the ins and outs, and what makes GBGI different and the value that we can add to our products for our customers. 

So for those first six months I worked back on the line, learned everything from how to torque a lug nut, to grease intervals for bearings. That’s really what’s gotten me to where I’m at today. And I feel like it gave me a lot of knowledge to be able to better serve our customers.

Value from the Beginning

FEMA was part of the picture from the very beginning. When I started here, GBGI was already a member, and when I first came up to the front office roles, it was kind of thrown on me like, “hey, you’re going to manage this now.” 

We’re actually really unique, and FEMA has been very beneficial for us because not only are we a supplier, but we also buy a ton of component parts. So the FEMA relationship is great for us because there’s obviously our major OEM customers there and then the smaller customers as well. But we’ve met a lot of suppliers along the way at FEMA through this relationship. As far as fasteners go, stampings, seals, it’s been a really good relationship with FEMA.

The Million Dollar Question

What would my job and our company look like if FEMA didn’t exist at all? What would be different for my personal day-to-day job and what would be different for the company?

I’d be making a lot more calls to find suppliers, that’s for sure. 

I was talking to Joe Sampson the other day, the founder and CEO of Embo Sales and the host of The Germinate Podcast, but he is also a member with FEMA. And we were talking about just how much we’ve gained from that organization as far as suppliers go. 

You can’t even put into words how beneficial it has been because you have all the suppliers in one place that you can network with and set meetings with. And if you didn’t have that, I’d have a sourcing manager that’s out basically banging on doors trying to help us to be supplied with these parts that we need. Instead, when we go to the FEMA meetings you have all those people right there.

From Napkin to Reality

When Joe Sampson was at Osmundson, and initially when I started with the company, we were only supplying short line OEMs. So it was hub and spindle assemblies, we do all the engineering in-house, we would work with those companies directly, and then we kind of hit a

Downturn — I think it was around 2011 or 2012. Right then and there we knew we were going to have to do something a little different. 

We wanted to go to the aftermarket, we wanted to supply parts, but we didn’t want to do what everybody else was doing and just distribute.

So, we kind of connected with Osmundson there, and we developed disc openers with them. What we did that was unique was we made a cast-housing, used a premium bearing, and increased rivet size.

Essentially, we listened to customers and tried to cater to what they were saying were the major problems with the existing product, and Osmundson was integral in that. That relationship kicked off what is now probably 50-60% of our company revenue. 

In the midst of celebrating its 75th Anniversary, the Farm Equipment Manufacturers Association (FEMA) has partnered with Lessiter Media to chronicle the Association’s past through an in-depth multimedia project that will culminate at FEMA’s Marketing & Distribution Convention in Las Vegas, NV., on Oct. 27-30, 2025. Key pieces of this special collaboration include a comprehensive history book (pictured right) on the association that highlights the significance of the organization and its independent shortline members and their innovations. The media group will also film, edit and produce a video documentary that will entertain, educate and inspire the industry about the accomplishments and mission of FEMA. Both projects will debut to attendees at the 2025 Fall Convention, and later to the entire industry through Lessiter Media’s ag division properties.

And it literally started with a sketch on the back of a napkin. At first we thought it was crazy and that this little sketch we had would never actually work out, but it ended up blowing up into this massive success. 

It took a few years to be able to zoom out and see that success because that’s a price-sensitive market, so you don’t really realize your ROI right away. But once we got in with our dealer

network and we started realizing not only what we had gained from bringing this disc opener to market, but there were all kinds of other shortcomings for planter row units. 

We’re a machine shop and a major machining operation. So, when customers were showing us, “hey, this is what’s wrong with the parallel linkage, this is what’s causing the row unit not to ride right,” we were able to take care of a lot of those issues. And that all started from that conversation, and that came from listening to our dealers and our customers.

But then when you sit back two or three years later and you start to look at the numbers, you realize just how well we’ve grown this into something bigger and successful.

Initial Roadblocks

The number one roadblock was price. Everything was sourced globally, and everybody can

see the competitors pricing. And we knew GBGI only sources our castings and our steel here in the United States. So we were trying to deal with that along with the fact that we only use name brand bearings. 

But once we got through that and we actually got in front of the customer and we were selling a solution, and not trying to compete on price, that’s when we realized that we really had something.

There were multiple times, especially when we started this aftermarket division, that I was on a farm in front of the customer and they brought up a few points to me of how we could make a product better. At that point I realized, if I take this back and we can do this and make this work, we’re solving a problem for the end user. We’re going to solve a problem and headaches for the dealer, and in turn we’re going to reap the benefits. And I feel like for all of us, a company as a whole, not just myself, that’s really what helped me to grow into my role and helped us to build GBGI to what it is today.

FEMA’s True Value

I think that getting involved with FEMA is very important. The first 3 or 4 years or so that I was involved with the company and we were a FEMA member, we made the relationships and it was very beneficial. But once I started to get involved and met up with the group of guys and girls that I’m with now on the board, and then in turn got to meet more with the regular members, it took off in a big way from there. 

Now it’s more like a brotherhood, as cheesy as that may sound. But it’s true. You meet with those people and every single time you go down there, you’re going to catch up. And it’s not just all about work, it’s about family and everything. You could talk with those folks about anything.

I think getting to see everybody grow together has been the most rewarding part for me. Right now with the current state of the Ag economy we’re all in this together. We’re all in similar situations, and whether it’s suppliers or our customers or even our competitors, you can connect with all those people in one setting. And to me, that’s rewarding to be able to sit down and have those conversations. It’s invaluable.