SMU Community Chat
April 18, 2020
SMU Community Chat: Ag Business Avoids Worst of Pandemic, So Far
Written by Sandy Williams
Phil Raimondo, President & CEO of Behlen Manufacturing in Columbus, Neb., counts his state lucky for having less than a 1,000 people test positive for COVID-19. “Sometimes, with our businesses, we are frustrated with being a fly-over state, but with this virus, we are happy to be a fly-over state,” said Raimondo. Nebraska is one of the states without a stay-at-home policy, but many people are being cautious anyway. Whether the full impact of the virus is delayed in Nebraska or whether the state will miss most of it is still an open question. “It has a lot do with being more rural and being lucky,” he added.
Raimondo was SMU’s featured speaker this week on the SMU Community Chat Webinar. Behlen Manufacturing has five plants in the U.S. The Raimondo family purchased the company in 1982 and in 2019 celebrated 35 years of return to local ownership. Behlen expects to ship $200 million of product in FY 2020.
