By Taylor Norris, PCCA Member Communications
Boots on the ground—we have all heard this phrase, and PCCA practices it daily. One idea stood out when PCCA leadership considered how the cooperative could reach thousands of members across multiple states. What better way to reach growers and gins than putting actual PCCA boots in their backyards? That’s where the Member Communications team comes in.
The PCCA Member Communications staff covers specific regions; each assigned a particular area to serve and manage. While daily activities vary according to the season, our team has one common goal: to give our grower-owners and gins a personal relationship with PCCA.
Each Area Manager spends their days visiting gins and producers or following up on those visits in the office. While face-to-face interaction is the bulk of our daily mission, we take on many tasks to better serve our grower-owners. Whether attending industry or annual meetings or walking the fields, we are working hard to bring you the best service in the industry.
We spend much of our time during the growing season scouting fields and reporting on crop progress and conditions. PCCA needs to know what kind of crop to expect in the marketing year. This information helps our Sales team make decisions regarding marketing our members’ cotton. Each Area Manager also returns any information we gather from gin office staff and producers to the PCCA office. One example of this is collecting ginning estimates from each of the co-op gins in our respective areas. We work hard to keep a steady flow of information in and out of PCCA’s doors.
Once it’s harvest time, our jobs shift again. We keep track of the crop during this time (percent harvested and ginning progress), but we also put on our marketing hats. The Member Communications team works very closely with the Sales Department to help get our grower-owners’ open-market cotton sold. We are constantly sending out PCCA Direct® bids, assisting with Direct On-Call, and getting bids pushed out through The Seam®. We aim to ensure producers know we have a home for their cotton. If a gin or producer wants to know what we could give them for a specific lot of cotton at any given time, your Member Communications representative is only a call away.
After ginning has wrapped up, it’s usually time for our grower-owners to start making marketing decisions for the new crop year. We plan and execute many marketing meetings to give producers all the information they need to help them make these difficult decisions. At these meetings, the Member Communications and Sales staff present all our marketing tools and provide a market update – another example of how we work to be your boots on the ground and your trusted marketing co-op.
We take on many small tasks that might go unnoticed but genuinely are an added value to our grower-owners. The Member Communications team ensures every gin office has loan charts and marketing information for producers. We make sure at least one PCCA representative is at every meeting we get an invitation to. Each Member Communications representative tries to accompany our grower-owners for verifications for sustainability programs. We send out the monthly Market Summary to growers and gins, and of course, ensure we get any current news and information out as quickly as possible. We take the time to listen to and answer every question or concern and make sure that each grower feels heard. Each producer and gin must know we’ve got your back and are your friend in the fight.
Every day, we are fighting for our grower-owners. We are working to ensure they are informed and feel they have a relationship with and a voice at PCCA. The Member Communications team is constantly working to improve these relationships. Not only are these business relationships, but they are personal ones, too. We value your friendship, support, and business more than you know. Whether we deliver checks, bid on cotton, bring guests out to show off your farm and gins, or provide promotional information, you can bank on this – our boots are on your ground, and we are your support.
Member Communications Area Managers:
- Allen Hoelscher, Director of Member Communications – Texas Rolling Plains
- Taylor Norris – Texas South Plains
- Aubry Heinrich – Kansas & Texas Panhandle
- Matt Monroe – Oklahoma
- Toby Teichelman – Texas Rolling Plains
Our South Texas team is also instrumental in connecting PCCA with growers and gins.
- Cris Gwinn, South Texas Division Manager
- Andrew Sloan – South Texas
