Davin Peterson joined California-based Kern Machinery Inc. (KMI) in April 2015 in advance of the acquisition of Hollingsworth Inc., a 3-store John Deere dealer group with stores in Ontario and Burns, Ore., and Weiser, Idaho, that would be renamed Camp Equipment.

“I miss cotton,” says Larry Sitzman. “We really enjoyed serving the cotton industry for a lot of years.” But today, cotton, which was once called “white gold,” has become insignificant in California’s Central Valley, one of the most diverse agricultural regions in the U.S., if not the world. Kern Machinery, where Sitzman is the general sales manager, hasn’t sold a cotton picker in more than 10 years.