Business View Magazine | February 2018

108 109 ings, and established postal routes. A second wave of immigrants from Germany occurred in the 1890s. Today, Gratiot County contains three major cities, Alma, St. Louis, and Ithaca, three villages, and dozens of unincorporated communities and townships. A blend of commercial, industrial, rural, and recre- ational features, it’s home to many farms, as well as a diverse array of manufacturing companies. Prod- ucts made locally include pontoon boats,molded plastic parts, aircraft engine parts, auto parts, custom machines, and many fabricated and machined prod- ucts, large and small. “We’re primarily an agricultur- al economy here,” says Chris Yonker, CityManager of Ithaca,“but we have a good manufacturing base, which helps diversify the local economy.” Recently, the City of Ithaca - in close collabora- tion with Gratiot County; Greater Gratiot Develop- ment, Inc. (GGDI -a private, non-profit organization, formed in 1978 and devoted to the retention, ex- pansion, and attraction of business and industry in the county); the Michigan Economic Development Corporation; as well as various departments of Michigan state government - landed a major new agriculture-based industrial citizen–Zeeland Farm Services, Inc. (ZFS). Based in Zeeland,Michigan,ZFS is a fami- ly-owned, agribusiness and transportation company that serves the Midwest and Southeast. Its products and services include grain merchandising, feed in- gredients, vegetable oil refining, a full-service eleva- tor, soybean seeds, non-GMO soybean meal and oil, and Zoye branded soybean oils. The newZFS Ithaca ITHACA, MICHIGAN facility will be a large soybean crushing operation, four times larger than the company’s current plant in Zeeland.“We’re the geographic center of the Low- er Peninsula,” says James Wheeler, President of GGDI. “So, it made a lot of sense for them to move into this market to expand,where they can process the soybeans grown in proximity to here.” “A couple of years ago, they proposed the pur- chase of a 460-acre former development site that was going to be an ethanol plant,which, for various reasons, never got totally built, and the site sat there for quite a fewyears,”Yonker explains. But in order to make the project happen, Ithaca and ZFS had to come up with a financing plan that was beneficial We’re very progressive and are not afraid to be creative and take measured chances. I’ve been in local govern- ment for 37 years in three states, and Ithaca is right up there with some of the best communities with which I’ve worked. Its future is very bright. CHRIS YONKER CITY MANAGER