PELLA, Iowa — The Vermeer Global Pavilion houses a museum that shares the story of Gary Vermeer, and his inventions. The company began by manufacturing a mechanical hoist for grain wagons. Today they are a global company that manufactures industrial equipment for a multitude of industries, including biomass, construction, surface mining and organic recycling. 

The Vermeer story began with a farmer looking for a better way to do things! The Global Pavilion includes an amazing museum profiling this unique history. Antique tractor and machinery collectors will be interested in Vermeer’s story and how farming is involved at the very beginning and at many junctures in between!

Brenda Kelderman, the Corporate Event and Global Pavilion Manager, took my husband Keith and I on a tour of the museum that is undergoing renovation.  “Vermeer was founded in 1948,” Brenda said.  “It is privately, and family owned.  Gary Vermeer, the founder has been gone for 13 years now.  Two of his three children are involved and three of many grandchildren.  The CEO is Jason Andrigna.  He shares a birthday with his grandfather.”

The company is more than just a place to work for Brenda.  “I’ve been here for 40 years.  My father worked here, and Gary Vermeer taught me to waterski, Vermeer was so small back then he invited his employees to BBQ’s.”

Near the end of his life, Gary Vermeer was the subject of a book “In Search of a Better Way, The Lives and Legacies of Gary and Matilda Vermeer.”

Despite a tornado in 2018 that destroyed two plants, and COVID-19, the company is going strong.  In fact, the museum even has a directional drill that was destroyed and twisted in the tornado.  It is now being included in the museum as part of the company history. “The directional drill was invented in 1991 by Gary,” Brenda said.  “The museum opened in 1998, so now this one (that was in the tornado) is just staged until the next remodel.”

Starting on Gary’s story, Brenda said, “Gary was a farmer, an early inventor in search of a better way.  His first invention was a wagon hoist in 1943.”

At the Pavilion they have one of the first three wagons with Gary’s famous hoist.  His second invention was a hammer mill.  “Conner Flynn a good friend tried to get Gary to advertise in the 1948 November issue of the Wallace Farmer.”

Brenda said that Gary resisted, and finally gave in.  When he went to the mailbox it was empty, but the postman said to wait a minute, the cards wouldn’t fit, they were all out back.  After receiving over 1,000 cards ordering the hammer mill Gary was a convert to advertising after all.

Keeping to the fact that farmers were the base of his business, there is a display in the museum that shares, “Patterned after the old Pioneer Seed distribution system, Vermeer’s first agricultural dealers were working farmers. They were also trained as Vermeer Servicemen, and often displayed signs on their fenceposts.”

After buying land by the River, Brenda said that Gary invented a trencher in 1951 that helped run water off the land by tiling it.  Soon others wanted Gary to come and tile their land.  Rather than keep working for others, Gary began manufacturing the trencher so others could do the job themselves.  “Now it is used to bore under highways and more!”

In 1975 Brenda said that Gary invented a way to create round bales when a farmer friend was planning to sell his cows because he couldn’t get help during baling time.  Need was usually the drive behind Gary’s inventions.

These are only a few of the innovations.  They also have a wall of inventions that didn’t work as well.  “Gary invented an excavator,” Brenda said, but added that it had the unfortunate name of Dinky Digger.

Gary’s dad thought that Gary had better keep the inventing as a side job only.  “His father said if he didn’t stay in farming, he wouldn’t make any money,” Brenda said, “We are glad he didn’t listen.”

Gary was a farmer first though and inventor second.  When he built his first plant it was not on family farmland.  “He didn’t start on the farmland and never borrowed any money.  He was 50 years old when we opened the museum and he was still using the same lunch box he started out with, “Brenda said.

Gary Vermeer was even more than an inventor; he and his family are invested in charitable outreach.  “They do so much,” Brenda said highlighting a swimming pool Gary built and donated to the town and a trip that he took special needs children on to Disney World as a few examples.

The Founder’s House is also part of the tour.  As for the way they lived though, it was quite modest.  The house was built in 1953 for a frugal cost of $28,000. “Matilda’s dream was always to be a farmer’s wife.”