CHS : Former CHS President and CEO John Johnson to be...

The Cooperative Hall of Fame is the cooperative community's highest honor. Johnson will be inducted along with Rita L. Haynes, CEO emeritus, Faith Community United Credit Union; Richard Larochelle, retired senior vice president, National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation; and John and Carol Zippert, cooperative activists, Federation of Southern Cooperatives.

Johnson began his career as a feed salesman with GTA Feeds. During the mid-1970s, he worked his way up through the Minnesota-based cooperative, which merged with North Pacific Grain Growers in 1983 to form Harvest States Cooperative. By 1995, he was its president and CEO. In 1998, Harvest States and Cenex successfully merged under Johnson's guidance to create CHS. Two years later, Johnson became the new organization's president and CEO.

Under his leadership, CHS consistently outperformed most of its public-company competitors and secured its current status as the largest farmer-owned agricultural co-op in the U.S. The company's revenue grew from $8 billion to $40.6 billion during his tenure. At the time of Johnson's retirement in 2010, CHS was ranked a Fortune 100 company. Johnson was also a member of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) Board of Directors for more than a decade.

Past honorees from CHS and its predecessors include: Emil Syftestad, first general manager, Farmers Union Central Exchange (Cenex); M.W. Thatcher, first general manager, Farmers Union Grain Terminal Association (Harvest States); Noel Estenson, CEO, Cenex, and first CEO, CHS; Jean Jantzen, retired vice president, Cenex Human Resources and Public Affairs; and William Nelson, retired vice president, CHS Corporate Citizenship, and president, CHS Foundation.