Robert Daugherty

   The year was 1946 and Robert B. Daugherty, an Omaha native and returning WWII Marine, was looking for a business opportunity.   Although not formally trained in agriculture, Daugherty had been exposed to the agricultural business helping his father with his work as a commission man at the Omaha Stockyards. Daugherty's uncle  advised him to investigate a small agricultural operation in Valley, Nebraska and its lone product, a crop elevator — a device farmers could use to lift crops into a corn crib or barn. Daugherty paid $5,000 for half interest in the operation, run by two to three employees depending on sales. The new partners renamed the operation Valley Manufacturing, and Daugherty set off promoting their product.
   The fledgling company’s big break was a contract with Sears and Roebuck Co. for 1,000 elevators.  By 1952 there were 100 employees and other agricultural products had joined the line. When a farm recession hit and sales slowed, Daugherty knew the company needed to diversify.  An employee told him about Nebraska inventor Frank Zybach, who was tinkering with a center pivot irrigation device.  Daugherty decided to pay him a visit.  The technology wasn’t proven, but he found it intriguing.  In 1954, Daugherty bought the patent rights from Zybach and his brother-in-law cum partner, A. E. Trowbrige, for 5 percent of future royalties.
   Daugherty now admits that the first systems were not reliable and farmers did not initially see their value, but he and his manufacturing team persevered and continued to make technical improvements to the system. Between 1962 and 1965 sales took off.  As Daugherty stated, “It was a matter of product emergence from the developmental state.”  In June 1976, Scientific American magazine called center pivot irrigation systems “perhaps the most significant mechanical innovation in agriculture since the replacement of draft animals by the tractor.”
   Today we know Bob Daugherty’s small start-up company as Valmont Industries, Inc., a combination of the names of the two towns (Valley and Fremont) closest to its original manufacturing facility.  The company is now headquartered in Omaha, but building irrigation systems still comprises a large portion of its operations.  And, in a nod to Daugherty’s business cornerstone of diversification, the company also produces pole structures, tubular products and metal coatings for steel products.

                                                                — Diane Snider
DCHS Board Member

Sources:
Vertical Files, Douglas County Historical Society Library Archives Center