By ANN HINCH
Associate Editor

ATLANTA, Ind. — A $24.5 million expansion in the next four years will be keeping the owning family of Beck’s Hybrids busy at company headquarters near Atlanta, Ind.

This year alone the Becks hope to complete nearly half of that work by doubling dock and shipping facilities, adding three more warehouses, expanding the south processing tower for the company’s Escalate seed treatment and – notably – constructing a new two-story research building.

Last week, Beck’s welcomed state and Hamilton County officials to a groundbreaking on the building, which consists so far of a foundation pad next to its biotech research lab.

“We’ve already somewhat broken ground,” Scott Beck, vice president, said before the formal photo. “Now we’re just waiting for the ground to dry out” to finish construction.

But the research expansion almost didn’t happen here. Gina Sheets, director of Economic Development for the Indiana State Department of Agriculture (ISDA), explained the Becks originally considered this for another state.

“This project was ready to come to Illinois,” she said. The ISDA took that news to the Indiana Economic Development Corp., which Beck said then offered the company financial incentives to keep the investment in Indiana, and Hamilton County.

Sheets said the incentives come with specific riders; for one, the local community has to support the expansion. This was apparently not a problem; Hamilton County Council member Brad Beaver was overheard telling someone at the groundbreaking, “We’ve been dealing with Beck’s for several years, and they always follow up on their promises.”

Sheets also said the incentives – which Beck’s won’t see for at least two to three years – are dependent on new employees hired in-state and their salary average. “The kicker is that these jobs have to be high-paying wages,” she explained.

Earlier, Beck had mentioned the company will be adding 72 new jobs (not all research) as a result of the expansion; it already employs about 250 people. “We did not want to see that go to Illinois,” Sheets pointed out.

Sonny Beck, Beck’s president and the third generation to run the business, said the family did consider placing the new research facility with its Bloomington, Ill., research lab, but decided to stay in Indiana and instead ship seed to Illinois. It was noted that earlier this year, the Illinois legislature and governor raised the corporate tax 45 percent, but this didn’t play into the Becks’ decision.

“We didn’t know that at the time,” Beck said of the choice to keep the new lab in the Hoosier State.

Sonny Beck said the company just added its biotech lab facility – which will be less than one-third the size of the new research building, when completed – eight years ago, and has already outgrown it. He said Beck’s has seen a 20 percent annual growth in sales performance since 1990, and doubled its workforce between 2007 and now.

“We believe that the reason … for the expansion are the choices we offer. Farmers like choices,” Scott Beck said, adding the company searches the world and tests for the best seed germplasm for customers, in addition to its 16-year-old corn breeding program.

The Beck’s research team consists of 23 employees, including Dr. Kevin Cavanaugh, research director, who started with Beck’s 18 years ago as its first full-time researcher. In addition to lab research in the United States and in the southern hemisphere, he oversees six greenhouses of a corn nursery attached to the Atlanta biotech facility.

But the new research building won’t be entirely laboratory. It will have a large office area, two-story warehouse, climate-controlled seed storage and processing rooms and meeting rooms on the second floor, including a 400-person-capacity meeting room the company intends to use for its own sales meetings as well as other educational purposes.

More than half of Beck’s expansion will take place in 2012-14; this will consist of additional work on its processing towers, expansion of facilities for production, grain storage and chemicals and more warehouse and cold storage space. Scott Beck pointed out all this expansion is spreading outward on the Atlanta campus, in a sort of wheel-spoke fashion.

“That way, we kind of keep the different things from running into each other,” he said. “A lot of the decisions we make here are very much long term.”
CSO Architects, which is the new lab’s lead and interior designer, also designed Beck’s headquarters building 10 years ago.