What It's Like to Work for Valmont Middle East | by Adrian Cliffe

Established in January 2001, Valmont_® Middle East (VME) has grown into a leader in safety, quality, delivery and cost. VME has matured from a Valmont Industries Inc. toddler into one of the key manufacturing plants for the Global Irrigation Division.

Pilot production began in March 2002, providing customers with cheap shipping and excellent financial trade services. VME significantly expanded the scope of its capabilities through the years, primarily focusing on efficient customer services and lean manufacturing. Its work has fostered deep and healthy relationships with key customers and dealers, helping them grow.

Ever true to its humble origins, the staff at VME bases its reputation on passion, integrity, continuous improvement and delivering results. This year, 11 of our 80 dedicated employees are celebrating 10 years of service with the company. All of them believe that VME is a great company to work for and continually strive to meet the wants and needs of our customers. 

We asked these dedicated employees for honest feedback on their experience with VME and gathered their answers into word clouds to share with you.

What makes Valmont so enjoyable to work for?

What’s the biggest change you've seen in VME since starting?

Tell me about the best events or moment you had as a Valmont employee.

Congratulations to our team of employees, who are listed below. We know they - and the entire VME team -  will continuously strive to reach its goals by doing business the Valmont Way. With employees who are keen on the Valmont Core Values, we are excited to grow from a good company into a great company.

From Left : Ricardo, Aslam, Khalid, Nestor, Prakash, Wenny, Reme, Cristy, Arnel

NAME	JOB TITLE	YEARS OF SERVICE
Chakkungal Prabhakaran Prakash	Finance Manager	14.4
Nestor Sorita Deloso	Production Supervisor	14.2
Ricardo Barroza Lizardo	Maintenance Incharge	14.1
Cristy Monteiro	Driver/Admin. Helper	13.5
Muhammad Aslam Konimmal	Hr Coordination	13.5
Wenny Cantoria Bartolay	Inventory Control Aministrator	13.3
Maemoun Sabet Alani	Tsm	13.0
Mirza Khalid	Service And Installation Supervisor	12.8
Tom D'cruz Norban D'cruz	Service Technician	11.6
Remegious Praveen Pinto	Warehouse Keeper	11.6
Arnel Marcelo Gutierrez	Senior Welder	11.0

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Adrian Cliffe Territory Sales Manager for Egypt, Turkey, Oman, and UAE Adrian has been working for Valmont® Irrigation for more than 3 years. He is an agricultural engineer and has worked for the largest suppliers of machinery in Ireland. He enjoys designing and manufacturing farm machinery. Adrian was a member of the Middle East hurling team that won the international championship last year. He also plays soccer and likes going to the movies and relaxing at the pool.

Training Time for Middle East Valley Dealers | by Adrian Cliffe

Recently, Valmont_® Middle East hosted its annual dealership sales and training meeting in Jebel Ali Dubai. Representatives from dealerships across the Middle East, including India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Turkey, gathered for five days of in-depth training. 

Participants completed software training, honed their sales skills and learned about Valley_® Authorized Providers Senninger and Nelson. New products such as BaseStation3™, AgSense^®, AquaDock™ and Pump Connect^® were introduced and demonstrated.

The feedback we got from the dealerships was great, and they reported gaining great knowledge from the training.

With five days packed with detailed instruction, the group took time to enjoy a Dhow dinner cruise to relax a bit and enjoy Dubai.

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Adrian Cliffe Territory Sales Manager for Egypt, Turkey, Oman, and UAE Adrian has been working for Valmont® Irrigation for more than 3 years. He is an agricultural engineer and has worked for the largest suppliers of machinery in Ireland. He enjoys designing and manufacturing farm machinery. Adrian was a member of the Middle East hurling team that won the international championship last year. He also plays soccer and likes going to the movies and relaxing at the pool.

Valley U Bringing Passion and Education to Valley Dealers | by Kelly Schultze

Continuous improvement is one of the Valmont_® cornerstone values, and it is something we at Valley_® University strive for every day. Valley University is Valley Irrigation’s go-to resource for dealership training and development.

We are constantly looking for ways to improve our courses and make them more engaging. Each team member has a passion for learning and teaching new things, and it is our goal to bring that passion to each person who uses our Valley University site. 

These days it seems like every week brings a new gadget or feature that affects our daily lives, regardless of what industry we work in or where we live. In an environment that is constantly changing, it is important to stay up-to-date not only for our personal development, but also our professional development.

Technology is making it easier than ever to improve business through more efficient operation. From our end, being able to share information with every Valley dealership employee at the same time is incredible.

We have some really great developments coming soon that will benefit our dealerships. One of these developments is the creation of more service courses. From programming panels to proper wiring techniques, we will be improving our support for the service technicians at each dealership.

Recently we’ve been adding gamification to our courses. We’ve created quiz games such as Don’t Break the Pivot, Pivot Racing and Bird’s Eye View. We have more coming soon, as well. 

If you’ve taken our courses and enjoyed the games, or if you have ideas for courses or games you’d like to see, we would love to hear about it! You can contact us at valleyuniversity@valmont.com or (402) 359-6500.

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Kelly Schultze E-Learning Instructional Designer Kelly joined Valley Irrigation in early 2014 as an E-Learning Instructional Designer. When she isn’t at work, she is typically creating replica costumes and props from films, comics, and television shows. Kelly also enjoys learning languages and is conversational in French and Korean. She loves to travel, and has lived abroad while studying in South Africa and South Korea.

What it Means to be a Valley Dealer | by Patrick Scates

What does it mean to be a Valley_® dealer? To me, it means you belong to this large interconnected family!

“So, what do you do for a living?” It’s one of the first questions a person asks when you meet a new person or see an old friend.

“I sell irrigation center pivots,” just doesn’t do it justice. For me, it’s much, much more than that. This dealership is something I have been around since I was 6 years old. It’s a family business that my father and uncles started in 1983. So the dealership feels like part of the family. I have watched it grow over the years, through good times and rough times. Just like a family member facing difficulties, the dealership always made it through the rough times with the help of family. 

As I got older, my cousins and I started taking on bigger roles. We became the ones guiding the dealership in the direction that we thought was best for it. When you take on those roles, you start to see the bigger picture of what you’re involved in. That bigger picture is that we are a part of a greater family, the Agriculture Family of America.

We don’t just sell Valley pivots to farmers; it feels like we have a partnership with each one of the farmers we sell to. Some people sell things and that’s it. They sell it and don’t care if it actually works or if it’s even what the customer needs. It’s not like that as a Valley dealer. If it were, why would we answer the phone at 5 a.m. or 10 p.m. when a customer needs help? We answer the phone because we care, because our customers are a part of the agriculture family, and because we want to help our family. The business continues to grow, which means our agriculture family only gets bigger – just like a real family grows as the years go by.

Another important family member is the team we gain by becoming a Valley dealer; the Valley employees that we rely on every day for support. They aren’t just co-workers, they become our friends. We might only see once them a year, but it feels like we have known them a lifetime because we talk on such a regular basis to ensure our customers are getting what they need. You will not find better or harder working people in the Ag Family. To me, there really is no other company that comes close to the Valley family when you try to compare genuinely caring people who want to help their dealers.

Each year at the annual sales meetings, I’m reminded that we aren’t just selling pivots; we are helping feed the ever-expanding population of the world. With each new pivot we sell an extra bushel per acre can be raised to help feed that hungry child down the street or on the other side of the globe. My own children remind me why it’s important to get up every day and strive to make our dealership better, which in turn makes a better, healthier world. I also hope that my children will grow up around the dealership and come to love and care for it just as I have, by watching me just like I watched my own father. If they do, I’m hopeful they will have as much passion as I have for the dealership and will keep growing it to the next level.

So know that if you ask me the question, “what do you do for a living?”; and I only say, “I sell Valley irrigation center pivots,” it actually has a much deeper meaning to me.

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Patrick Scates General Manager Scates Valley Inc. in Carmi, IL Patrick enjoys anything to do with agriculture and politics. When he isn't at work he loves spending time with his four children, Zoey, Maggie, and twin boys, Thomas and Henry. Any free time is enjoyed playing golf or spending time with the family at a cabin on a small lake in southern Illinois.

Valley University Wins National Recognition | by Kelly Schultze

In August, we announced that the Valley_® University team was named as a finalist in the Chief Learning Officer^® 2014 Learning in Practice awards. We are proud to announce that at the recent Chief Learning Officer Symposium, the Valley University team received an award for Global Learning. Other winners in the in our category included Western Union and the U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Institute.

We are excited to receive industry recognition for our efforts to expand and improve the training we provide our stakeholders. And, although we are pleased, we are in no way satisfied. Going forward we will continue to create courses that will serve both our international and domestic dealership networks, as well as expand our internal employee development opportunities.

Here are some reflections from our team:

“I think back to when I was first hired and how we started with literally nothing, and I can’t help but be proud of where we’re at today. Our team has put in a lot of hard work to get to this point, and it has been rewarding to see how actively our dealers are utilizing the system. I’m extremely grateful that Chief Learning Officer magazine has recognized our efforts, and I know that the Valley U team is committed to meeting and exceeding expectations moving forward!” - Billy Grenfell, Sr. E-Learning Instructional Designer

“Building Valley University from the ground up, including the architecture, set up, and launch of a global Learning Management System has been such an exciting and rewarding experience in itself. To be able to reach and educate people all over the world with valuable content in their own language is an amazing thing and something we take a lot of pride in. It is awesome to look back two years ago and see how far we have come, and this award from Chief Learning Officer magazine reaffirms we are headed in the right direction.” – Jenna Olmer, Sr. E-Learning Instructional Designer

“The award and recognition are great for Valley Irrigation and Valmont_® Industries. I am proud to be part of an organization that has received industry-leading reviews, and we will continue to work hard so that this won’t be the last award we are recognized for. Our team is full of driven and devoted individuals that are continually pushing the limits of our learning system. Congratulations to everyone in the Valley Irrigation and Valmont family for painstakingly contributing the content and reviewing the courses with us. Let’s keep the momentum going forward.” – Dan Gage, E-Learning Instructional Designer

“Receiving this award has been exciting and encouraging. We at Valmont are definitely on the right path to enhancing the company’s training around the world, and it’s a very rewarding feeling to be involved in something that helps to develop people’s expertise and careers while improving our business results and shareholder value. I’m excited to continue working with the skilled and knowledgeable people in our organization to creatively, through cutting-edge technology and media-rich content, produce training courses and materials that will further assist our internal and external learners.” – Kelly Schultze, E-Learning Instructional Designer

“This award is a huge honor and further validation that our work has a positive effect on the lives and career development of our dealerships and our Valley Irrigation and Valmont team members.” – Tyler Bertsch, Training and Development Specialist

“This independent, industry-leading validation that we are moving the needle with global training and development is a good indicator we are doing the right things here at Valley Irrigation and Valmont Industries. Our leadership’s commitment to excellence, innovation, human talent development, and continuous improvement is further proven by the Valmont Welcome and Learning Center, a state-of-the-art $14.5 million facility serving Valmont learning and innovation. We at Valley University are pleased to serve in the continuous improvement process to which we all aspire.” – Patrick Angel, Director, Global Learning

The Valley Univeristy team, from left, Kelly Schultze, Tyler Bertsch, Billy Grenfell, Jenna Olmer, Patrick Angel, Dan Gage and recent intern Paige Jones.

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Kelly Schultze E-Learning Instructional Designer Kelly joined Valley Irrigation in early 2014 as an E-Learning Instructional Designer. When she isn’t at work, she is typically creating replica costumes and props from films, comics, and television shows. Kelly also enjoys learning languages and is conversational in French and Korean. She loves to travel, and has lived abroad while studying in South Africa and South Korea.

Valley University Nominated for National Global Learning Award | by Kelly Schultze

Valley University is Valley_® Irrigation’s go-to resource for dealership training and development. Our goal is to gather and share knowledge of Valley products and practices to help dealerships around the world increase their expertise in sales, service, and aftermarket parts. 

Valley University has grown from serving domestic dealerships to serving dealerships in 34 countries, with training courses available in five different languages.

In the last six months, we have increased our international course availability and user growth exponentially. It is thanks to these efforts that the Valley University team has become a finalist in the Chief Learning Officer^® 2014 Learning in Practice awards in the Global Learning category.

Our team is dedicated to providing all of our dealerships with the most up-to-date information to assist them in their daily operation. From pivot construction to seasonal maintenance, from the United States to South Africa, it is our goal to educate and assist Valley dealerships around the world, so we continuously grow and improve together.

Other finalists in the 2014 Learning in Practice award for Global Learning include Hewlett-Packard, MetLife, Western Union, Marriott International, and the U.S. Department of State, Foreign Service Institute. 

The awards will be announced during the Chief Learning Officer Symposium, Oct. 6-8. Wish us luck!

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Kelly Schultze E-Learning Instructional Designer Kelly joined Valley Irrigation in early 2014 as an E-Learning Instructional Designer. When she isn’t at work, she is typically creating replica costumes and props from films, comics, and television shows. Kelly also enjoys learning languages and is conversational in French and Korean. She loves to travel, and has lived abroad while studying in South Africa and South Korea.

Middle East Dealerships Provide Unique Service Offerings | by Adrian Cliffe

In the Middle East market, we have a lot of large-scale projects with investors. Some of these investors have limited experience when it comes to managing large-scales farms. When that happens, the irrigation equipment is often overlooked and not correctly maintained. 

A large-scale farm project in the desert.

This type of equipment neglect can mean the return on investment is drawn-out and can lead to a lot of unhappy investors. 

To address this, a lot of Middle East Valley_® dealerships are offering 24-hour service contracts. The dealerships have full-time, trained employees based on the farms to respond quickly to any equipment issues that may arise.

The Middle East dealerships also offer support to all farmers. In the Middle East, flow meters are often not sold with systems. Therefore, customers don’t know if their pumps are applying the correct amount of water for the crops. 

Our dealers offer a solution using a digital flow meter. They visit the farmers monthly, quarterly, or even yearly to update the farmer on a pump's performance. 

This all leads to offering better support to the end user and making sure that Valley equipment is always working at its most efficient. It also creates a win-win partnership for everyone and happy investors.

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Adrian Cliffe Territory Sales Manager for Egypt, Turkey, Oman, and UAE Adrian has been working for Valmont® Irrigation for more than 3 years. He is an agricultural engineer and has worked for the largest suppliers of machinery in Ireland. He enjoys designing and manufacturing farm machinery. Adrian was a member of the Middle East hurling team that won the international championship last year. He also plays soccer and likes going to the movies and relaxing at the pool.

Congrats to the Best of the Best | by Brooke Stover

One thing has become very clear to me in the course of my (almost) three years of employment at Valley Irrigation: Valley dealers are the heart and soul of our company. That’s why we hold them to the highest standards in the industry. 

I know we have the hardest working dealers in the industry. They’re always doing what they can to ensure their customers’ success. While attending trade shows and Valley events, I have talked with many of these dealers and those instances have been highlights of my employment.

At Valley, we reward dealers for their hard work and recognize them for excellence in various areas of their operation through our Dealer Performance Program, which awards based on accomplishments. The most prestigious level a Valley dealer can reach is that of a Premier dealer.

I want to give a shout out to the special group of dealers who earned their place in the Valley Premier dealer category:

• Central Valley Irrigation, Holdrege, NE
• Lad Irrigation of George, Quincy, WA
• Lad Irrigation of Moses Lake, Moses Lake, WA
• MAISCO, Middlebury, IN.
• Mid-Continent Irrigation, Fremont, NE
• Tennessee Tractor, Brownsville, TN
• Valmont Northwest, Pasco, WA

If you know someone at these dealerships, then make sure to congratulate them – they definitely deserve it!

Central Valley Irrigation

Lad Irrigation of  Moses Lake 

Lad Irrigation of George 

MAISCO

Valmont Northwest

Tennessee Tractor

Mid-Continent Irrigation

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Brooke Stover Global Marketing Coordinator Brooke has been with the Valley Irrigation Global Marketing department since 2011. She spends her free time taking pottery classes; though she thoroughly enjoys this, most of her stuff is a bit lopsided. Brooke also loves to read and listen to Frank Sinatra. She enjoys traveling and has been to 19 countries with the goal to make it to six more in the next two years!