September 30, 2024

Iowa Corn Honors Curt Jones with the 2024 Iowa Corn Walter Goeppinger Lifetime Achievement Award

Iowa Corn is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 Iowa Corn Walter Goeppinger Lifetime Achievement Award. This annual recognition is presented to an individual who has been a friend and active leader of Iowa Corn. This year, we proudly honored Curt Jones with the 2024 Iowa Corn Walter Goeppinger Lifetime Achievement Award for his years of leadership to our organization and impact to Iowa Corn Promotion Board’s research efforts.

The beginning of Iowa Corn can be traced back to 1957 when founder Walter Goeppinger, of Boone, Iowa, had a vision for a grassroots-driven group to support corn farming and rallied his friends and neighbors together to create the National Corn Growers Association (NCGA). In 1967, Goeppinger helped create the Iowa Corn Growers Association, the first state corn group in the country. Then in 1977, he was instrumental in establishing the nation’s first corn checkoff program, the Iowa Corn Promotion Board (ICPB). To keep the story of Goeppinger’s contributions to our corn industry alive for generations to come, in 2016, Iowa Corn established the Walter Goeppinger Lifetime Achievement Award in his honor. Each year, the joint board of directors selects an individual with outstanding service and commitment to advancing the corn industry.

Those who have had the privilege to work with and serve beside Curt Jones know the dedicated and steadfast passion he has for the agriculture industry. As a leader Curt was an excellent listener and while not always the first to speak up, when he did choose to add to a conversation, he was very effective in communicating his ideas and thoughts. When Curt spoke, people listened.

Curt’s involvement with Iowa Corn started in the 1990s at the local level in Clay County. With the support of his wife, Mary Ellen, Curt quickly began rising through the ranks and got engaged in both NCGA and served as chair of the ICPB. He found his real passion for industry and farming coexisted through the research committee. His passion for research made him pivotal in identifying new opportunities to improve corn production and utilization. 

Curt was instrumental in transitioning the way ICPB does research from funding general projects to targeting specific markets that have a practical impact for corn farmers, this has helped to set the path for research projects we do today.  He was an advocate for using consultants with expertise in the field and saw an opportunity to work with start-up companies. Curt believed that NCGA and state corn organizations should work together to develop new uses for corn, something that we are doing today with the New Uses Consortium.

Curt’s contributions, including securing funding for sequencing the corn genome and advancing research in nitrogen use efficiency, as well as pioneering new uses for corn such as monoethylene glycol (MEG) and propylene glycol (PG), which have profoundly shaped the future of agriculture.

Curt’s visionary approach to research, characterized by his advocacy for practical applications and strategic partnerships, not only propelled Iowa Corn forward but also set new standards for research excellence and industry collaboration. We thank Curt for his years of dedication and appreciate all that he has helped us achieve on behalf of Iowa’s corn farmers.