deere Archives - AGD Consulting

Vets In Ag Podcast

#28 Kurt Krumm (ARNG) - John Deere

00:00 / 00:42:55

We had to do a lot of things at the lower level, if we wanted to be fast and make a bigger impact

Kurt Krumm is an active-duty Army National Guardsman and the Aftermarket Product Manager for Precision Ag at John Deere.

Kurt’s early life led to a career like many others within ag and the military. He grew up on a farm, surrounded by heavy equipment and veteran family members, instilling in him this need to serve. In this episode, Kurt shares how his experiences as a Battalion Logistics Officer offer him a unique perspective on precision ag adoption and logistics management at John Deere. His time in Kabul, Afghanistan from 2016 to 2017 also instilled in him a sense of what can be accomplished at the lowest levels of leadership, if you empower and trust them. It’s such a timely perspective given what’s happening there today.

Kurt also shares his perspective on just how far precision ag has come in the last 20 years since he joined the industry, Deere’s acquisition of Bear Flag Robotics, and stepping stones necessary as we move to fully autonomous and AI-enabled equipment operation.

Vets In Ag Podcast

#27 Ben Alfi (Israeli Air Force) - Blue White Robotics

00:00 / 00:47:38

I understood that I needed to create a company that is dealing with how to be part of the revolution of unmanned systems in the ag industry.

Ben Alfi is a veteran of the Israel Air Force and Managing Founder for Blue White Robotics -an Israeli-based agtech company providing what they call Robots-as-a-Service. Blue White’s software platform plans and operates multiple tasks for autonomous air and ground fleets, integrating aftermarket autonomous capabilities into a variety of OEM ag equipment.

Over the course of his military career, Ben spent 25 years in the Israeli Air Force, flying a variety of F16s and unmanned systems. The last 10 years of his service were spent developing and managing the Israel Air Force’s unmanned systems, anything from two pounds to six tons. You’ll hear throughout this episode how influential this time was to the founding of Blue White Robotics and their decision to tackle the agricultural space first. This conversation comes at a great time as much of the talk today in autonomous vehicle operations is around John Deere’s recent acquisition of Bear Flag Robotics and what it means for the industry. We get into Ben thoughts on this as well and how they’re differentiated.

We begin our conversation with Ben at a diner in California as Blue White is currently seeking to build out a footprint in the US. We’ll go anywhere to get our listeners a great story, including a restaurant with some background noise. Our apologies for that, but I think you’ll find this conversation so fascinating that it won’t be an issue.