Sunrise Cooperative employees

Sunrise Cooperative is a leading agricultural and energy cooperative with 32 locations, 400 full-time employees, and 50 to 150 part-time and seasonal employees throughout the state of Ohio.

Committed to bringing innovative choices and solutions to its customers, Sunrise strives to offer the best products across multiple divisions, including agronomy, grain, energy and feed. Sunrise also prides itself on providing the best team of experts in these fields, which makes education and training important to their success.

“In our company today we are bringing in a lot of people who you wouldn’t necessarily call farm kids,” said George Secor, president/CEO of Sunrise Cooperative. “When individuals join Sunrise, they are going to learn about our company, but my concern was where and how are they going to learn about Ohio agriculture?”

George Secor Sunrise Cooperative
George Secor, president/CEO of Sunrise Cooperative. participates in Farm Bureau group membership to help employees learn about Ohio agriculture.

It was this concern that led Secor and Sunrise to focus on employee education opportunities. One of those efforts includes a group membership with Ohio Farm Bureau.

“If you bring in an employee who has never been around agriculture, Ohio Farm Bureau’s Our Ohio magazine, the mailings and the emails break it down in a way that a beginner can understand,” Secor said. “You don’t have to have an agriculture background to understand Ohio agriculture if you start out small and basic.”

Sunrise became a group member of Ohio Farm Bureau in 2009 with employee education in mind.

Secor signed up for the group membership because he wanted Sunrise employees to receive the magazine, emails and mailings to learn about Ohio agriculture. Secor wanted a package program where he could take all 400-plus employees and make them Farm Bureau members.

“I think the Ohio Farm Bureau has done a good job of changing with the times,” Secor said. “They seem to understand that there are a lot of people in agriculture today who are first-time farmers, wanting to have 10 acres of peaches, or wanting to farm the way people used to do it — a couple of cows or hogs on pasture.”

RISE FFA Career Program

More recently, in 2019, Sunrise began participating in the RISE FFA Career Program, a partnership with Ohio FFA. As an extension of the RISE program, in 2021, Sunrise offered full-time positions through its Sunrise University program to nine individuals. The program allows Sunrise to grow its team of employees who learn from the start about Sunrise and its customer-owners. They build their career paths through first-hand experience.

“Students come out of their FFA program in high school and sign on with Sunrise,” Secor said. “We allow them to experience each department in various locations within Sunrise throughout four years, through something we call Sunrise University, an extension of the RISE Program. We then hope they’ll stay on with us, but if not, we’ve just offered them four years of education in agriculture.” 

According to Secor, by the end of the second year of Sunrise University, many participants will look for jobs within Sunrise and apply for a specific position, and leave the program early.

Through Ohio Farm Bureau and through its own initiatives, Sunrise invests in educating its employees, which allows the cooperative to provide the best service and solutions for their member-owners, which is key to their continued success.

“Other than one job in this company, which is the CFO, not CEO, there is no required college education,” Secor said. “And while the board supports college education through 50 –  $1,000 scholarships to dependents of stockholders and employees, for those not wanting to attend college, we want them to come in right after high school and receive on-the-job training and start their career.”

The issue of property taxation remains as one of the biggest challenges our members face today. Ensuring agricultural property is valued for its agricultural potential and not development is critical to the continued success of Ohio agriculture.
Matt Aultman's avatar
Matt Aultman

Darke County Farm Bureau

Giving farmers a voice
The plan we are on is great. It’s comparable to my previous job's plan, and we are a sole proprietor.
Kevin Holy's avatar
Kevin Holy

Geauga County Farm Bureau

Ohio Farm Bureau Health Benefits Plan
I could not have done it without the resources I have found through Farm Bureau.
Gretchan Francis's avatar
Gretchan Francis

Trumbull County Farm Bureau

Bringing the farm back to life
We really appreciate what Farm Bureau has done to get people interested in this line of work and workforce development and getting people interested in this industry.
Jody Brown Boyd's avatar
Jody Brown Boyd

Brown's Family Farm Market

Finding farm labor
We work terrifically with the Ashtabula County Farm Bureau, hosting at least one to two outreach town hall events every year to educate new farmers and existing farmers on traditional CAUV and woodlands.
David Thomas's avatar
David Thomas

Ashtabula County Auditor

CAUV: Past, present and future
Because we are younger farmers just starting out, Farm Bureau has a lot of good opportunities and resources to help us grow in the future.
Hannah Kiser's avatar
Hannah Kiser

Sandusky County Farm Bureau

Farm Bureau involvement
Through the Select Partner program, we became educated in farm insurance and weren't just selling policies. It became more and more clear why farmers need an advocate like Ohio Farm Bureau.
Chad Ruhl's avatar
Chad Ruhl

Farm manager, CSI Insurance

Select Partner Program
So many of the issues that OFBF and its members are advocating for are important to all Ohioans. I look at OFBF as an agricultural watchdog advocating for farmers and rural communities across Ohio.
Mary Smallsreed's avatar
Mary Smallsreed

Trumbull County Farm Bureau

Advocacy
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