Jim Steffen, President Massena Corporation
Mr. Steffen’s education is in the social sciences and business at the graduate levels. In addition to his life-long experience in organic agriculture, Mr. Steffen has direct experience in marketing products and services for large non-profit and for-profit organizations. He has also managed market research and cost analysis for a recognized environmental engineering firm. This work included public and investor information programs.
Jeff Durski, Principal AdVentures
Jeff Durski holds an MBA from Indiana University and possesses over 30 years of marketing and communications experience. He has held senior positions at both advertising agencies and Fortune 100 companies.
Jeff has experience growing some of the best-known brands in the US including Cracker Jack, Butterball turkey and Equal sweetener. The communication campaigns he created have won national recognition (e.g., American Medical Association, Best of Category, Best of Show, Microflex Medical, 1998) but more importantly generated incremental brand sales and profits. His new product experience includes successful launches for RJ Reynolds Tobacco, Owens Corning Fiberglass, Microflex Medical, Borden, Inc., and others.
Steffen Family History
The ideas on this website start with my parents, Robert and Clara (Sund) Steffen. Dad was the farm manager for Father Flanagan at Boys Town for thirty years and a leader in developing commercial-scale organic farming methods in the Midwest. For more information, readers are encouraged to search the Internet for “Bob Steffen and organic farming.”
My mother’s contribution to our farming history is just as important. She convinced my grandfather, Henry Sund, to invest in our farms. To help secure this investment, Mom taught school in Omaha.
Contributions from a third family have allowed us to continue our work. My wife, Karen (Holbach) Steffen is from a family of North Dakota wheat and dairy farmers. They were also partners in a livestock auction. Their home place just south of Minot was finally destroyed after a series of floods on the Souris River. Global warming and urban sprawl combined to wipe out over a hundred years of low-input crop and livestock production. Despite drought, depression, floods, and conventional agriculture, Frank and Ruth Holbach educated five strong women, all with college degrees.
For more information, please contact:
Jim Steffen
jim@massenafarms.com
402-317-2639
Reposted 04-20-2024