Randy Varilek works.
He starts his day at 4 a.m., an early wakeup to feed the cows on the cattle operation he shares with his brother, before heading to POET Bioprocessing - Bingham Lake. After a 12-hour shift as Plant Tech II at the facility, he goes back to check in again on the 30-40 head of cattle before going home for the night.
And that’s not counting the late-night calls during calving season. Or the summer baling of ditch hay.
“I’m not afraid of some hard work,” Varilek said, unnecessarily.
That work ethic has defined Varilek’s 16-year career with POET. Starting at the Mitchell facility in August 2009, he spent his first decade as a maintenance tech before transferring to Bingham Lake in 2015 to be closer to his and his brother’s cattle operation. Two years ago, he transitioned to plant operations, though he can “still turn wrenches with the best of them.”
Growing up on a farm in southeast South Dakota, Varilek lived through the 1980s farm crisis and watched his father sell their farm due to low commodity prices. That experience gave him a unique perspective on POET’s mission.
“Bioethanol alone has been the single biggest savior of the American farm. Before bioethanol, there was no corn market,” Varilek said. “Even in the 90s, I watched farmers sell corn for a buck-thirty a bushel, LDPs (Loan Deficiency Payments) coming from the government, and everything else. Bioethanol is the single thing that’s turned that around. It’s not the export market or anything else. It’s strictly been bioethanol.”
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With his cattle business, Varilek isn’t just a POET team member; he’s also a customer. He feeds distillers grain produced at Bingham Lake directly to his own cattle.
“I buy bulk DDGS right off the floor,” he said. “I line up with my little wagon right in the truck lane, and the guys fill me up with my four or five tons that I need for the next couple of months.”
POET’s DDGS have been a steady performer for Varilek’s operation.
“I have to worry about their nutrition levels during the winter, especially on the cows that are nursing calves right now that I’ve got at home,” he said. “I’m not just meeting the nutrition level for the cows, I’m meeting it for the calves. I’m trusting that our product that we’re making here is going to do that for me, and it has done it year after year.”
His practical farming background has helped him build a reputation for creative problem-solving. His most famous “farmer fix” came when a pump’s casing gasket failed, and no replacement was available. Varilek fashioned a new gasket from a Mountain Dew 12-pack box. It lasted seven years.
“Don’t tell me we can’t fix it,” Varilek said. “It’s just a matter of what we’re going to have to do. … Sometimes those temporary patch jobs are a lifesaver to get us to a point where we’re not going to be down for two, three days.”
Varilek has watched Bingham Lake transform from “the old plant” to a leader in the group, recently setting a corn oil production record. He credits the team approach.
He values the mix on the Bingham Lake team of people who have years of experience, along with others who are newer to the industry but offer fresh ideas.
He loves learning from young people even as he embraces his role as the “old man” of the team and a mentor they can turn to when things go south.
“Those are the people I’m showing up every day for,” he said. “You have to lead by example. You have to show them that it’s okay to go charge into the trenches. It’s okay to fail, too.”
