NCGA
Past President Marion Hartmann Dies After Lengthy Illness
(5-23-03)
National Corn
Growers Association (NCGA) Past President Marion Hartmann died last
week after a lengthy illness. He was 73 years old.
Hartmann served
on the National Corn Growers Board of Directors and as the organization's
vice president of research. He was chairman of the board of the National
Corn Development Foundation and also traveled to Russia and Venezuela
to study grain quality issues.
He joined NCGA
in 1973 after attending the organization's annual convention, a forerunner
of today's Commodity Classic, in Des Moines, Iowa. "It wasn't
anything like NCGA has now," said Hartmann in an interview in
2002. "Back then, there were maybe 50, 75 people attending. There
would be a seed-corn man and he'd have a few bags of seed-corn there
as a display and that was about it as far as displays."
Hartmann is best
known for his visionary leadership in starting the Ohio Corn Growers
Association and for his involvement with NCGA. He was a member of
the original Ohio Corn Growers Association board of directors and
served as association president and was the first chairman of the
Ohio Corn Marketing Program. He represented Ohio Corn Growers on the
Ohio Entomology Advisory Council and was a co-leader of the Ohio Trade
Mission to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan in 1983.