I love the future, but sometimes, it is important to recognize the past. More than most, I pay attention to company history. I love our origin story and the twists and turns along the way. Understanding our past can help us make sense of our present and realize our future.

CHS is a 95-year-old company. That history is filled with a lot of mergers. The most significant merger happened in 1998 when Cenex and Harvest States joined to form CHS. CHS’ predecessor, Cenex, did a nice job of documenting the first 50 years of our history in the book “To Gather Together: Cenex, the First 50 Years.”

In that book, the historian recorded a significant event: the year we went digital. “Accounting chores, once handled completely by a few employees, had become a labor-intensive, complicated process. A Univac computer was installed at the Cenex main office in 1964 to improve the speed and level of accounting services.”

“After the installation was complete, operations that had once taken weeks took hours. Six hundred lines of information could be computed in a minute. If they’d want to, operators could have converted the original Articles of Incorporation to punch cards that would have printed out in seconds.”

What do we know about this?

I don’t know for sure which model of Univac we purchased, but the Univac 1004 model, which was introduced in 1962, was capable of processing “600 lines per minute” per the description. You can read the original marketing brochure for the Univac 1004 model here.

Interestingly, when I looked at the associated picture (top of page) of the 1960’s Cenex data center, I discovered that it’s not a Univac. It’s an NCR Century 100. That didn’t come out until 1968. I’m only speculating here, but perhaps we outgrew the Univac after a few years and had to do a tech refresh to the NCR in the late 60’s. If so, that would have been an exciting start for the CHS IT department.

Legacy technology

I have a dual attitude towards legacy technology. On one hand, I loathe it. The word “legacy” as an adjective has a negative connotation. It means old, outdated, technical debt that is crumbling and weighing us down.

On the other hand, what is old now, was cutting-edge then. I think it’s fun to recognize the advanced technology that we adopted in the past. Legacy isn’t only an adjective, it’s also a noun. It also means something handed down from our predecessors. CHS has a legacy of adopting advanced technology to benefit our farmer-owners, and that’s a tradition that still runs strong.

A 60-year-old IT department

60 years is a long time. I’ll venture to say that few companies have an IT department this old. That’s plenty of time to establish a lot of habits, good, bad, or otherwise. Traditions sometimes hold us back, but more often, they remind us of who we are. Our most important tradition is embracing change. I’m always impressed by the resilience of our team to embrace change. It’s never easy, but somehow, we struggle through it.

I’m trying to imagine the Cenex board meeting that must have preceded the purchase of the Univac. Throughout our 95-year history, CHS has always been owned and controlled by farmers. In 1964, we lived in a very analog world. I credit those farmer board members who boldly approved the purchase of the Univac and the establishment of our first IT department. That couldn’t have been an easy decision. As with today, there are always plenty of great ways to allocate capital. It takes courage to invest in advanced technology.

Connecting the past to the future

60 years in technology change may as well be millennia. Technology changes so fast, it’s hard to think about how we relate to the IT team from 1964. I’m sure back then, they were thinking about the best methods for sorting punch cards. Today, we are building a digital ecosystem on a cloud-native technology stack. I’m really happy to say that CHS doesn’t run on punch cards anymore. We’ve successfully managed to purge that piece of legacy technology from our environment.

I think there are a few quotes from the past that still ring true for the future. We installed the Univac to “improve the speed and level of accounting services.” We continue to invest in technology to improve company performance and our level of maturity. Our IT team does a lot of system implementations. After our next big upgrade, we always want to hear: “Operations that had once taken weeks now take hours.” That’s music to every IT professional’s ears.

Here’s another quote that inspires me: “The computer was a slave for farmers, a hired hand that brought greater sophistication to the wholesale supply operation they owned and relied upon.”

This reminds me of who it’s for, and who owns it all. At CHS, we keep a very close eye on that. We’re lucky because there’s no split loyalty. Because of our cooperative business model, our shareholders and our customers are one in the same.

95 years ago, farmers pooled their resources to build a wholesale supply chain. 60 years ago, they pooled their resources to begin the journey of digitizing it. Today, the next generation of farmers invests in the digitalization of the wholesale supply operation they own and rely upon.

I love CHS. I love our history. I love that we’ve been putting advanced technology to work for farmers for 60 years straight. That tradition lives on.

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