Randy Heitz retires after 30 years as Farm Bureau regional manager

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Randy Heitz can probably change his cellphone setting to vibrate.

Now that’s he’s officially retired, he’ll likely be getting fewer calls from the 1,200 or so names he has programmed into his contacts.

Heitz, the longtime regional manager at Iowa Farm Bureau, is calling it a career after 30 years of helping out farmers in northern Iowa. Now he can look back on the memories created and savor the friendships forged after three decades of helping sustain agriculture in America’s Heartland.

“A lot of people thought I sold insurance,” chuckled Heitz. “I did not sell insurance.”

What Heitz, age 62, did do since 1989 at Iowa Farm Bureau was work to help improve the chance for success for thousands of Iowa farmers.

The hundreds of thousands of miles driven across six counties in this part of the state is testament to that accomplishment.

Heitz said he relished the opportunity to build relationships with a wide variety of people who make up rural Iowa.

“In the nature of the position that I have, I love the roots and heritage of Charles City. But my position as regional manager has provided me the opportunity to get a bigger picture of how all of the counties of north central Iowa are connected,” said Heitz. “We all depend on each other.”

What was Heitz’s job overseeing Floyd, Bremer, Butler, Franklin, Grundy and Mitchell counties for the Iowa Farm Bureau?

“It’s a tough one to explain, that’s for sure,” he said.

Heitz was essentially a liaison between the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and the volunteer farmer leaders in each county Farm Bureau. Advice was often given to each respective Farm Bureau in those counties.

The goal was to foster an environment to help farmers make sound financial decisions so they can achieve success.

Heitz was one of 17 regional managers throughout Iowa who worked for the not-for-profit, grassroots advocacy organization.

In Heitz’s six-county region there are more than 9,000 Farm Bureau members.

“I challenged the board members to represent agriculture in a professional way to tell the story of farming,” he said.

Heitz worked to come up with programs and policies that could benefit everyone, he said. That meant coming up with plans and working with business leaders to create solutions and solve problems.

“One of the things that I think we really valued out of that is just to see people having the bigger picture that it’s not us and them – we need each other,” said Heitz. “That’s the same attitude I try to instill in our board of directors to work together so that they understand that agriculture needs city people – city people need agriculture.”

Making a difference for an individual or for the community means stepping up when called upon.

“It was a real honor to serve agriculture the way that I did for those 30 years, but it was the people that made the difference. It was a great set of Farm Bureau members who believed and were passionate about agriculture and knew that they could contribute if they got involved,” Heitz added. “If you don’t get involved, you can’t contribute.”

Charles Grassley, Iowa’s senior U.S. senator, attended Heitz’s retirement ceremony this past Sunday at the Greene Community Center. Heitz’s 93-year-old mother was also there.

“I told my supervisor this morning it was like what goes on at a funeral, only I got to be there to experience it,” Heitz jokingly said about the retirement party.

Heitz said more than 200 attended the party, including family members and his wife, Marilyn. She is the on-site coordinator for the Charles City Learning Connection. They have two daughters and a son.

“My family was still No. 1 through it all. My wife was an important part of my success,” said Heitz.

Heitz said he attended 10 meetings a month at the six counties he oversaw with Farm Bureau.

“I want to give my wife a lot of credit for allowing me to be gone,” he said.

Heitz also thanked Farm Bureau leaders and staff for making his job as enjoyable as it was and for the many successes achieved in the region.

Heitz was a Charles City Board of Education member for seven years. He and his wife are members of the Bethany Alliance Church in Charles City. Heitz is also a member of the local Rotary Club where he is a past-president, is involved with Charles City Area Development Corp. and was recently named a member of the Floyd County Medical Center Board of Trustees.

The 1975 Charles City High School graduate was an ag teacher for two years in northwest Iowa in Sac City in the late 70s and early 80s. He continued teaching students about the benefits of agriculture and how to better understand farming as instructor at North Iowa Area Community College (NIACC) for eight years prior to working at Iowa Farm Bureau.

“Iowa Farm Bureau is a little bit more than 100 years old. For me to have a direct impact on a third of its life – it’s wonderful to be able to turn it to somebody else now,” said Heitz.

Now that he’s officially retired, Heitz said he will spend plenty of quality time on his Century Farm that he resides on just west of the Floyd County Fairgrounds.

He’ll also continue to make a difference, like he has before, all over the world.

Heitz went on a mission trip to Uganda in east central Africa with his son, Alex, to help construct buildings at a Christian camp. The work was done overlooking Lake Victoria, one of Africa’s Great Lakes and the world’s largest tropical lake.

“It’s the Hawaii of Africa,” he said.

Another flight overseas to visit Nepal, where his son and daughter-in-law were married, might also be on the horizon, or a second mission trip to Uganda.

Heitz and another Iowa Farm Bureau representative also visited southern Russia after that region gained independence from the communist Soviet Union, to help establish a new organization with roots similar to Farm Bureau.

“I’m happy that we’re healthy enough that we can look forward to doing those types of things,” said Heitz. “I don’t know what the future holds, but that’s the trust that we have.”