A Hawkeye-Cyzed Gift

Three years ago, when Bruce Rastetter was invited to an Iowa State University agriculture classroom to speak to students, the successful Alden, Iowa entrepreneur had no idea it would be the beginning of a rich and rewarding relationship. “I would talk to students about their life experiences and perspectives on how you go about starting a business,” he says, “and over a couple of years I became interested in helping the college reach its goals in both a personal and a monetary way.”

Last fall, Bruce made a $1.75 million commitment to the entrepreneurship program in Iowa State University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Since then, he has made a $500,000 commitment, so his total pledge of $2.25 million will enable the college to establish an endowed chair in entrepreneurship and renovate space in Curtiss Hall to house the program.

“Entrepreneurship is something that those of use who have been successful ought to encourage,” he says. “Even students with humble beginnings and backgrounds can work hard in life, accomplish things and have that feeling of success.”

He knows what he’s talking about. Raised on a farm near Iowa Falls, Bruce earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Iowa and then intended to work on a law degree. Instead, he returned to the field of agriculture and started several small businesses: feed management, building construction and swine production. In 1994, his businesses became Heartland Pork Enterprises and for 10 years Bruce served as Heartland’s CEO. He grew the company into the 13th largest pork producer in the United States before overseeing its acquisition by Christensen Farms.

In 2003, Bruce founded Hawkeye Renewables (now America’s third-largest pure play ethanol company) in Ames. “From my perspective, there’s probably never been a better time for agriculture in the history of our country than right now,” he says. “We ought to encourage agriculture students to get involved; there is significant profitability across the sectors of our economy to stimulate new and dramatic business opportunities that have never been there before.”

He believes entrepreneurship is more about living life to its fullest than about starting a business. “It isn’t something that only a few of us have the ability to do. It’s clearly a thought process and a willingness to learn new ways of doing things, to be creative, to gain problem-solving skills. We can be better employees, and we can be entrepreneurial for the people we work with as well.”

Bruce would like to see entrepreneurship carried throughout the university. “All the same types of skills that are taught in this program lend themselves to people’s life experiences, such as buying a house or car, using a checkbook, or negotiating interest rates. It’s about developing people who are better at the business of their own lives.”

Entrepreneurs believe they can make a difference, he says. “They see the glass half full rather than half empty. They can take ‘no’ for an answer and make that a positive; they can admit what they don’t know and then go find a network of people to help them.”

The College of Agriculture and Life Science’s Agricultural Entrepreneurship Initiative offers internships, fellowships, classroom activities, and professional development programs. It was established in 2005 on the premise that innovations and business creation are fundamental to long-term economic growth, and that helping Iowa State students and faculty strengthen their entrepreneurial skills will contribute to Iowa’s economy. Bruce encourages others in business to support this and other university programs. “If we believe in making a difference, then from both a business and personal perspective we ought to be willing to invest in the very universities that can provide the entrepreneurial leaders of the future.”