AgWest in Imperial is the Chamber Business of the Month for August. Employees include, from left, Ashley Eskew, Joel Gockley and Kale Gockley. (Courtesy photo)
AgWest Commodities earns Chamber honor for August
AgWest Commodities was founded in 1999 based on a CORE hedge plan to offer a simple approach to production marketing. This CORE plan addresses the most common mistake: trying to outguess the markets.
This plan provided the groundwork for all AgWest programs.
On June 21, 1999, Steve Knuth opened shop in the basement of his home in Alma with the goal of helping farmers with their marketing.
Twenty years later with its home office now located in Holdrege, AgWest also has branches in Sutton; Gretna; Beatrice; Yuma, Colorado; Paola, Kansas; Humboldt, Iowa; Adel, Iowa; and Beresford, South Dakota, in addition to its location in Imperial at 101 Holland Street.
The Imperial office opened in 2001, and moved to its current location in 2012.
Chase County native Joel Gockley serves as the Imperial location’s branch manager, as well as a hedge broker and cash advisor.
Gockley, a graduate of Wauneta—“before it was Wauneta-Palisade”—and his wife, Julie, moved back to Imperial in 1994 after college.
“She was hesitant to come back but she wouldn’t leave now,” Gockley said.
Gockley holds a bachelor’s degree in agronomy with a minor in crop production from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Other employees at the Imperial office include Gockley’s oldest son, Kale, Ashley Eskew and Todd Siverson, who is part of AgWest Land Brokers.
“He’s a different arm of the same company,” Gockley said of Siverson.