OSMOND — After many years of service to the community, and with the changes in ownership, the Osmond location of Summit Contracting is going to be closed at the end of this year.
In 1965, Loyal (L. F.) Petersen and son Jerry formed a partnership they named L. F. Petersen & Son, which later became Petersen Ag. Last year, the business was sold to Summit Contracting.
John Halsey, a long- time employee, explained, “The Petersens sold out to Jim Fritz, Jim Schmit, and Bob Steele. They had it for about 10- 12 years, then they sold to the Aschoff brothers – Henry and Walt, and a brother-in-law, Keith Wiehn. They had it from about 2000 to December of 2023, when Henry sold to Summit Contracting.”
According to John, Summit is moving their base of operations for this group to Norfolk. All of their stores are about two hours apart, which is the set-up they prefer, and this one is too close to the Norfolk location, so this one will close and be combined with the Norfolk location.
The business is mostly in service, now, John said, and not really in sales anymore — not like it was.
The last five employees of the busi ness at the Osmond location include John, who has been employed here 45 years; Joe Schmit, 24 years; Jared Halsey, 20 years; Kristie Schultze, 14½ years, and Jakob Meier, 4 years.
Four of the remaining five employ ees from the Osmond location will now be working out of the Norfolk office, with Kristie Schultze working from home here in Osmond a couple of days each week.
Joe Schmit will be retiring from Summit Contracting, Inc.
The five remaining employees sat down to share their thoughts on the closing, and the changes through the years.
John, who worked for the original owners, Jerry and L. F. (Loyal) Petersen, commented, “We feel it kinda tugs at our hearts a little bit, to have this place close down.”
They chuckled about the fact that his son, Jared, has been around the business since he was a baby.
Jared commented that everybody’s business takes care of everyone else: Buchanan Well does the wells, Lind-Gubbels does the legwork, Petersen & Son/Petersen Ag/Summit did the pivot work. “We all felt like we were part of farmers’ success – we’re part of their business as well as running our own business.”
Jared said, “The thing that I get a lot – are we still going to be here? Yes, we’re still going to be here, but we’re going to come to see you this time instead of you coming to see us. Like we said, the ag world is changing, and this is what we believe is our next step. Our next step is to be under one roof and be on the same team. We’re a half hour away, we’re kind of competing with each other’s store now. Things are starting to get more aggressive, as far as sales and service. There isn’t so much in sales now, we’re focused on what we can get out of the land now vs. making new developments.”
John noted the way things have changed over the years, “L. F. lived out in the front house out here, and his son Jerry came back and got the fertilizer going. We used to have 50-60-some employees here at one time. Several businesses have sprung off of this one — Lind-Gubbels got started through here. Jerry got Ray Gubbels and Rich Lind out here and had them build bins until they got big enough and started their own company. Walter Aschoff, he started out here. Bob Steele set him up in the
