GROWMARK gifts honor CEO, Illinois College Trustee Jim Spradlin ’82
The company recently announced that the GROWMARK Foundation would make gifts to the College totaling $75,000 in honor of Spradlin’s retirement in February. Spradlin’s four-decade career with GROWMARK began after his graduation from Illinois College.
Illinois College President Barbara A. Farley praised Spradlin’s leadership and vision as a member of the Illinois College Board of Trustees, and congratulated him on his retirement. Through the generosity of the foundation’s gifts, GROWMARK is extending Spradlin’s legacy in the ag community, she added.
“This gift will be used to provide dynamic and meaningful hands-on learning experiences for future students who one day may follow in Jim Spradlin’s footsteps. We are honored to be able to provide these opportunities for Illinois College students, and are thrilled to convey something of who Jim is through these awards: his integrity, innovative spirit, and enduring dedication to the ag community,” Farley said.
The foundation is establishing the Jim W. Spradlin Endowed Scholarship Fund with an extraordinary gift of $50,000 that will support students majoring in agribusiness or a similar field each year. The foundation is further providing $25,000 to support life-changing experiential learning opportunities, like internships, global study, student-faculty research, community engagement and more, for students in agribusiness and other business-related fields.
Spradlin began his career in the agriculture industry with GROWMARK as an accounting trainee and rose through the ranks within the GROWMARK System, ultimately assuming the role of CEO in 2014.
“The GROWMARK System has seen remarkable growth and transformation under Jim’s leadership and vision as CEO, and Illinois College provided the backbone of his successful career,” said GROWMARK Foundation Executive Amy Bradford. “Jim is very appreciative of these gifts to his alma mater to help further educational opportunities for future leaders in agribusiness.”
I’m very grateful to the GROWMARK Foundation and GROWMARK for funding a scholarship that’s targeted toward agribusiness — the profession that we’re in, that has been so good to me and my family, and that is so important to the world. I’m just thrilled that this scholarship is going to be available to students who can take advantage of it.
GROWMARK is an agricultural cooperative serving almost 400,000 customers across North America, providing agronomy, energy, facility engineering and construction, and logistics products and services, as well as grain marketing and risk management services. Headquartered in Bloomington, Illinois, GROWMARK owns the FS trademarks, which are used by licensed member cooperatives. Learn more at growmark.com. To learn more about how you can change the lives of students for generations to come by establishing an endowed scholarship, visit ic.edu/campaign/scholarships.
