Michael Rowan

SIDNEY, NEBRASKA, U.S. — Michael Rowan has been named president and chief executive officer of Crossroads Cooperative. He succeeds Deborah Brauer, who will continue with the cooperative throughout the summer to assist in the transition.

Rowan began his career in the cash grain market, working as a small country grain elevator owner and operator. In 1986, he joined DeBruce Grain Co., where he managed the origination, transportation and merchandising of grain. In 1991, he was instrumental in the formation of Wells Bowman Trading, a cross country grain merchandiser operating throughout the high plains. Farmland bought Wells Bowman Trading in 1993 and Rowan served as the director of regional management and business development, which included cross country grain merchandising, terminal origination, member services and new business development. During his tenure at Farmland, he served on the board of two sub terminal grain operations that he established.

In 1995, Rowan formed Centennial Trading, which specialized in risk management and logistics for end users. The introduction of Frontier to Centennial took place in 1997 to complete the union of services to the commercial grain clientele working with Centennial and open new arenas of information to Frontier’s clients interested in the grain markets. He was named vice-president following the merger of Centennial into West Plains. In 2007, he sold his interest in West Plains and formed a regional trading office for DeBruce Grain. After the sale of DeBruce to Gavilon he returned to West Plains as the director of merchandising and also served as president until 2017.

He received a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness from Chadron State College.