The U.S. Custom Harvesters Hall of Fame

INDUCTEES OF USCHI HALL OF FAME

Charlie Gause, Overland Park, KS - (2002)

Charles Gause was involved in harvesting from an early age, growing up on a wheat farm in Frederick, Oklahoma. His father was the John Deere dealer in Frederick through the thirties and into the mid forties. Charlie’s early involvement in harvesting was operating the platform for a pull type combine. After World War II, he started operating propelled machines that replaced the pre-war combines. Since Frederick was at the beginning of harvest, Charlie was acquainted with many of the custom harvesters that traveled to that area each year. He worked for several harvesters and gained valuable insight into not only the harvesting business and that way of life, but also combines and machine requirements.

From his early experiences in harvesting, Charlie has always felt very close to custom harvesters. He realized the tremendous pressures and many challenges they experienced on the trail. Because of this, he has always had an open mind to the needs of custom harvesting.

Charlie left Frederick and went to Oklahoma State University. Upon graduation from OSU, he went to work for John Deere Company, Kansas City, Missouri. In his early career with Deere, he traveled Oklahoma and southern Kansas as a service representative. He was then moved to Iola, Kansas as a territory manager and later transferred back to Oklahoma as a TM until 1967 when he was moved to Wichita, Kansas as the manager of Western Implement Company.

Although Charlie had grown the combine business substantially while at Wichita, the company decided they needed him to promote the development of their tractor line. So, he was transferred to the John Deere Waterloo Tractor Works, Waterloo, Iowa, where he ultimately became the marketing manager for large tractors.

In 1974, Charlie left the factory and moved to Portland, Oregon as general sales manager for the western part of the U.S. After a couple of years there, he was appointed general manager of John Deere Company, Dallas, Texas. Early in his time in the Dallas branch, he noticed that many of his field staff were not well acquainted with combine harvesters. An infield-training program was developed for Dallas employees and they all went to the field and harvested west Texas milo. This was followed with training for dealers to emphasize the importance of customer service and develop a focus on the combine business in the Texas territory. During this period, Charlie became very active with the John Deere Harvester factory and its engineers, helping to define present and future requirements.

In 1979, Charlie was transferred to Kansas City as vice president and general manager of that branch. At that time, a large part of the crops were custom harvested and many of the harvesters lived in the branch territory. Charlie recognized that too many dealers and company employees were not well acquainted with the combine business and lacked the training necessary to grow that segment of the market. Thus, the Kansas City organization embarked on an extensive training program for company employees and dealers. Perhaps the most significant activity was the special pre-season training program for custom harvesters that was held in Wichita, Kansas.

Charlie was an early participant in the annual meeting for the U.S. Custom Harvesters. He promoted the organization to Deere and gained early involvement from the factory and general company. He made sure that Deere was well represented at the U.S. Custom Harvesters meetings and strongly supported the requirements of its members.

Being deeply involved as a member of the product council for Deere’s combine factory, Charlie served with several other John Deere managers as they made product decisions about current product improvements and future new combines and attachments. He visualized the need for larger capacity machines for custom harvesters and pushed hard to ensure their combine needs were fulfilled.

In 1998, Deere appointed Charlie Gause Vice President of North American Agricultural Marketing. He developed a product and market planning process that insured the close involvement of customers with the development of new and improved products and services.

Charlie retired in November, 2001 after 39 years with Deere. He had a great career but has not completely removed himself from farming or harvesting. He still has farmland in southwest Oklahoma and maintains contact with several custom harvesting friends. Last year was the first time in 40 years Charlie had seen his own wheat being harvested. Appropriately, he saw it from the seat of a new 9650 STS combine, owned and operated by the custom harvester cutting his crop. Charlie’s comment was “thank God for this wonderful way of life and the people in it”.