What makes a company special isn’t just the products and services it offers. It’s the stories and company history. Stories about the vibrant, talented people who enrich the culture and embody the brand name. Stories about how certain product offerings were first innovated and later improved. Kinze is fortunate in that regard, for ours is a history with an abundance of great stories. We want to share as many of those stories as we can.
The Kinze Innovation Center was created with that purpose in mind. From the early stages of its development, one of our primary goals was developing fun ways for younger audiences to experience and enjoy the Kinze story. So naturally, a series of children’s books seemed like a cool way to engage the future generations of farmers.
The Kinzenbaw family enthusiastically embraced the idea. Our first story is based on the true story of what happened one day at the 1974 Farm Progress Show. We’ve taken a little liberty with the retelling, but it’s a story of true Kinze teamwork from beginning to end.
“Big Blue and Polly the plow have a huge job to do – they need to plow better and faster than anyone has before! Learn how these two good friends meet for the first time. See how they encourage one another to work hard and do their best. Smile as they have fun working together to show the world how to plow!”
We hope to produce more books in this series and introduce a whole cast of characters – we’re calling them “The Kinze Crew.” Kinze has such a rich heritage, which provides wonderful material to make into children’s stories.
The book is an All-Iowa production from beginning to end. From the Iowa company who sponsored it – to the Iowa company who printed it – this book was homegrown right here in Iowa. This was important to us because it’s a reflection of Kinze, an Iowa company from the very beginning. For that fact, we know it’s a gift you can proudly give to your children or grandchildren as a reminder that phenomenal things can happen right here in the heartland.
From all of us at Kinze – we hope you enjoy sharing the inspiring story of Big Blue and Polly with your little ones as much as we enjoyed preparing it for you. We’d be truly honored to have a little bit of our story be part of your story.
We’ll have plenty of books on hand for the Christmas giving season, both in the Kinze store in Williamsburg and online at http://bit.ly/1cmPI1y. We also invite you to attend the Kinze Innovation Center Christmas Open House on December 5 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. You’ll be able to have your book signed by Jon Kinzenbaw, Founder and President of Kinze, Tim Read, the story’s illustrator, and the author (that’s me!) Mike Dykstra.
Come on by! Click here for more information about the KIC.