SHARPSVILLE – Dave Simpson started his first straw-baling business when he was just 15 years old. Nearly 30 years later, he’s grown that business from scratch into one of the largest straw-baling operations in the state.
Today, Simpson and his wife, Lynda, run their operation from their farm located just south of Sharpsville. They employee around 10 full-time workers and up to 15 seasonal workers, who travel to Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and all over Indiana baling farmers’ straw.
Simpson said the idea behind his operation is simple: He buys the straw, sends out his crews to bale it, and then sells it off to whomever wants it. That includes large dairy farms, companies that make straw-based products and the Indiana Department of Transportation, which uses the straw to cover dirt after new road construction projects.
Last year, Simpson's crews harvested close to 10,000 acres of straw from farmers’ fields – an all-time record for the operation. This year, they’re set to bale up to 7,000 acres.
The 44-year-old said he always knew he wanted to work in the agriculture industry. That’s why he didn’t waste any time getting started.
When he was just 13 years old, he approached a local farmer in Greentown and asked for a job.
“We drove down the road two miles and pulled into this guy’s farm,” Simpson said. “I said, ‘You need any help?’ He said, ‘Come back in March.’ So I did, and he gave me a job. I’ve been helping him ever since.”
Simpson worked for the farmer for two years when he came up with the idea to start his own straw-baling business. The farmer loaned him a tractor, a baler and a hay wagon, and Simpson was on his way.
He landed his first contract selling straw to a landscaper in Noblesville. Simpson didn’t have a driver’s license, so he got his older brother to haul the straw for him.
“I was making good money, and I just kept growing from there,” he said. “Back in those days, I never had a new vehicle or wanted a new vehicle. That just wasn’t me. I’d rather buy a tractor or a baler or something I could make money with.”
Even though he already had started his own business, Simpson said, most of the people he knew didn’t think he would ever make it.
In fact, Simpson once told a teacher his dream of becoming a farmer, and the teacher told him he wasn’t smart enough to succeed.
“I’ll never forget that,” he said. “That drove me to push even harder. I wasn’t very book-smart. I’m good with numbers, but not with reading. But one thing I knew is that if I was working, I was making money.”
Simpson said he encountered that same doubt about his ability to start a business when he graduated from high school and decided to purchase his own equipment to expand his straw-baling operation. He said one dealer after another turned him down when he asked about financing for a tractor.
“I grew up as kind of nobody in the community,” Simpson said. “The local farm dealers told me I didn’t have enough money – that I was a nobody.”
Finally, a dealer in Rochester agreed to help him buy his first pieces of equipment.
Simpson jumped head first into his new operation, but making enough money to survive proved difficult. So when he was 20, he took on another job working second and third shifts at a factory in Tipton to help make ends meet.
For five years, Simpson worked non-stop trying to get his business off the ground, baling around 300 acres of land and selling it to buyers – all while putting in daily shifts at the factory.
“I did that for five years and thought, ‘Boy, I better take an early retirement,’” he said. “I quit the factory and started farming full time.”
Through sheer determination and good financial planning, Simpson slowly expanded his operation, bringing on new equipment and more workers along the way.
The business grew even more once his wife, Lynda, took over the books and helped him run the financial side of the operation.
Four years ago, they had saved enough money to fulfill one of Simpson’s life-long dreams – owning his own ground to farm. That year, they purchased around 30 acres of land. Now they have around 250 acres of farmland.
Running a straw-baling business and planting and harvesting their own crops keeps the Simpsons busy, but they both say they wouldn’t change a thing.
“This job here entails you have no life in the summer time,” Simpson said. “I’ve been doing this for 25 years, and I’ve never had a summer. Weather permitting, it’s seven days a week, 12 to 16 hours a day. But it’s been good to us.”
Simpson said his story goes to show that anyone who wants to make it in farming can do it. He said you just have to be willing to put in the work – a lot of work.
“As long as a person has a little common sense and they’re not afraid to work, he can make it,” he said.