Edney Distributing Co.
Headquarters: Lakeville
Inception: 1951
Family name: Edney
What the company does: A wholesale distributor of high-quality equipment and OEM parts focusing on the following markets: agriculture, lawn and turf maintenance, forestry, and light industrial.
Type of ownership: C corp.
Principal owners: Doug Edney, Lynn Edney, Jennifer Edney
Employees: 25
Family members in the business: 4
Family members on the board: 3
Success can be defined by high profit margins, company expansion, or low employee turnover. Edney Distributing Co. adds another measure to that list: confidence in the next generation. Former CEO Doug Edney is the first leader in the company’s 72 years to retire by choice. His predecessors worked until their last breath, but Doug Edney says he has full faith that his daughter, Jennifer, can lead without him.
Lakeville-based Edney Distributing is a wholesale distributor of high-quality equipment and original equipment manufacturing (OEM) parts focusing on the agricultural, lawn and turf maintenance, forestry, and light industries. Edney Distributing currently has more than 1,000 dealers, a network that spans the Midwest, including Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Michigan. The company hit a new sales record for its 2022-2023 fiscal year and expects that trend to continue in 2024.
But when the business started in Huron, South Dakota, in 1951, it was small and modest in its aspirations—a means of survival for co-founders and spouses, Fred and Ferne Edney, who were retired at the time. “They were just trying to get by,” says Doug, their grandson. “My dad, who had a very dry sense of humor, said, ‘Well, they were hungry.’ And I think that’s a simple way of putting that.”
After Fred’s passing, Ferne continued to manage the company’s finances. During this time, sons Milton (Doug’s father) and Dale came into the business to help with sales and operations, respectively. In the 1960s, Edney Distributing transitioned to a larger facility and built supplementary warehouse and office spaces in South Dakota; it also was able to hire a small staff. Ferne continued to work until her passing in 1974. “I remember my dad saying, right on the day before she passed away, she was reminding him of what needed to be paid,” Doug says with a laugh.
At this time, Milton was president, and Doug, a recent college grad, joined the company. He managed the Bismarck, North Dakota, branch office and warehouse for about four years and was promoted to territory manager in North Dakota before he got a call from his father to move to Minnesota in the early ‘80s and reorganize operations in Lakeville, which serves as company headquarters today. Although Edney distributed equipment for a variety of industries, its emphasis is agriculture. The move to Minnesota, which had more agricultural variety, allowed Edney Distributing to diversify the products it markets and grow its footprint. Plus, the proximity to Wisconsin laid the groundwork to expand operations there, Doug says.
“We’ve been gradually taking bites here and there when we get opportunities that will lead, in the future, to a larger footprint, a larger company, hopefully a more successful company,” he says. When they reached the 2000s, they had built four distribution centers: Huron, Lakeville, Fargo, and Portage, Wisconsin.
Milton was the heart of the company until his death in 2007. That’s when Jennifer (Jenni) Edney, current CEO and president, jumped in to help.
“I just felt pulled in my heart to support my dad and our family,” Jenni says—so much so that she even created her own position as organizational development manager, handling logistics such as the electronic timekeeping system, updates to the employee handbook, and the performance management software. “I felt like I put my ‘bossy pants’ on and kind of barged in,” she says with a laugh.
Jenni later took on the role of vice president of Edney, then president, and transitioned to the role of president and CEO in April following Doug’s retirement.
Although Jenni grew up seeing multiple generations of her family manage and run the business, she says she still had to fight to be heard in rooms filled with predominantly men, she says. “I was almost always the only woman in the room when we were meeting with suppliers or distributors or going to equipment shows. Now there are more women, but we’re still a minority compared to the men in the industry.”
For his part, Doug says that he took to heart the notion of transition after attending a seminar hosted by the Prairie Family Business Association. “The time to retire is not when you’re ready, but when the next generation is ready,” he notes. “That’s when I first started seriously considering that that would be the appropriate thing to do.”
As chairperson, Doug still has a toe in the family business. He and Jenni still meet monthly to discuss metrics and strategic items. Edney recently established an independent board of directors to assist and evaluate the senior leadership team and serve as a balance point for the family board made up of Jenni, Doug, and his wife and board secretary Lynn.
Innovation is top of mind for the next 10 years, Jenni says, with the company expanding into rechargeable electrical equipment and autonomous robotic equipment. However, she emphasizes that Edney’s growth wouldn’t have been possible without the team members and multigenerational partnerships with both dealers and manufacturers.
“When I first joined the company, my purpose was to help my dad. And, over time, I had to figure out: What is the meaning of what I am doing here?” she says. “The answer could have just been, ‘Well, I sell manure spreaders.’ But it morphed into the vision I tried to create for our team members: How do we have an impact? And as we think about the future, what could be more important than helping to feed a hungry world, helping to care for animals, helping to make the world more beautiful, and making work safer for growers? It’s a beautiful thing to be involved with.”
