Deere & Company

John Deere logo
Type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: DE S&P 500 Component
Industry	Heavy equipment
Founded	1837 (1837)
Founder(s)	John Deere
Headquarters	Moline, Illinois, United States
Area served	worldwide
Key people	Samuel R. Allen (Chairman and CEO)
Products	Agriculture, Construction, Forestry, Consumer & Commercial equipment, Diesel engines
Services	Financial services
Revenue	US$ 26.005 billion (2010)[1]
Operating income	US$ 3.025 billion (2010)[1]
Net income	US$ 3.874 billion (2010)[1]
Total assets	US$ 43.267 billion (2010)[1]
Total equity	US$ 6.303 billion (2010)[1]
Employees	55,700 (2010)[1]
Website	www.deere.com

Deere & Company, usually known by its brand name John Deere (NYSE: DE), is an American corporation based in Moline, Illinois, and the leading manufacturer of agricultural machinery in the world. In 2010, it was listed as 107th in the Fortune 500 ranking. Deere and Company agricultural products, sold under the John Deere name, include tractors, combine harvesters, cotton harvesters, balers, planters/seeders, sprayers, and UTVs. The company is also a leading manufacturer of construction equipment and forestry equipment, as well as a supplier of diesel engines and drivetrains (axles, transmissions, gearboxes) used in heavy equipment. Additionally, John Deere manufactures equipment used in lawn, grounds, and turf care, such as walk-behind lawn mowers, zero-turn lawn mowers, lawn tractors, and snowthrowers. To support the core businesses, John Deere also provides financial services and other related activities.

The company's slogan is "Nothing Runs Like a Deere" and has a picture of a leaping deer as a logo,^[2] a word play pun on "nothing runs like a deer". Carl Westby is known as the person who coined the phrase "Nothing Runs Like a Deere" for a marketing campaign to sell snowmobiles. The company's products are also easily identifiable by its distinct shade of green paint, usually augmented by yellow trim.

Products[link]

John Deere manufactures a wide range of products, with several models of each in many cases. Northern wire LLC of Merrill WI Manufactures many parts for john deere

Agricultural equipment[link]

Agricultural products include, amongst others, tractors, combine harvesters, cotton harvesters, balers, planters/seeders, sillage machines, and sprayers.

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  Tractor

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  Tracked tractor (9630T)

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  FEL attachment

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  Combine harvester

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  Forage harvester

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  Cotton harvester

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  Sugarcane harvester

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  Seed drill

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  Field sprayer

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  Telescopic handler

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  Horse drawn manure spreader

Construction equipment[link]

The company is also a leading manufacturer of heavy equipment.

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  Excavator

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  Loader

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  Tracked loader

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  Backhoe loader

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  Skid-steer loader

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  Bulldozer

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  Grader

Forestry equipment[link]

John Deere manufactures a range of forestry machinery, amongst others, harvesters, forwarders, and skidders. Timberjack is a subsidiary of John Deere since 2000.

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  Harvester

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  Forwarder

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  Skidder

Other products[link]

The company is also a manufacturer of consumer and commercial equipment (used in lawn, grounds, and turf care, such as lawn mowers, and snow throwers), as well as a supplier of diesel engines and powertrains (axles, transmissions, etc.) used especially in heavy equipment. Other mentionable products were/are snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles, and StarFire (a wide-area differential GPS).

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  Lawn mower

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  UTV (Gator)

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  Diesel engine

Factories[link]

The John Deere Pavilion in Moline, Illinois

John Deere factory in Mannheim, Germany

New John Deere tractors on a barge, Mannheim Harbour

Major North American factories include:

• Waterloo Works (foundry, engines, large agricultural tractors, drive trains, service parts, product engineering center) Waterloo, Iowa
• Harvester Works (large combine harvesters) East Moline, Illinois
• Cylinder Division (hydraulic cylinders) Moline, Illinois
• Seeding Group (planting equipment) Moline, Illinois and Valley City, North Dakota
• Davenport Works (wheel loaders, motor graders, articulated dump trucks, forestry equipment) Davenport, Iowa
• Dubuque Works (backhoes, crawlers, skid-steer loaders, forestry equipment) Dubuque, Iowa
• Des Moines Works (tillage equipment, cotton harvesters, sprayers) Ankeny, Iowa
• Ottumwa Works (hay and forage equipment) Ottumwa, Iowa
• Thibodaux Works (cane harvesting equipment, scrapers) Thibodaux, Louisiana
• Horicon Works (lawn & garden and turf care) Horicon, Wisconsin
• Augusta Works (small commercial and agricultural tractors) Augusta, Georgia
• Turf Care (Specialty golf equipment and commercial mowing) Fuquay Varina, North Carolina
• Industrias John Deere (agricultural tractors; construction equipment) (Saltillo, Mexico)
• Motores John Deere (Power Systems; 6- and 4-cylinder engines) Torreon, Mexico.

Other important factories:

• John Deere Usine Saran (Power Systems) Fleury-les-Aubrais, France
• John Deere Equipment Pvt Ltd (5000-series tractors) Pune, India
• John Deere Werke Mannheim (6000-series tractors) Mannheim, Germany
• John Deere Werke Zweibrücken (harvesting equipment) Zweibrücken, Germany
• John Deere Fabriek Horst (pulled & self-propelled agricultural sprayers) Horst, The Netherlands
• John Deere Forestry Oy (forwarders, wheeled harvesters) Joensuu, Finland
• John Deere Reman^[3] remanufacturing components for off-highway vehicles: facilities in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada (cylinders, axles, transmissions, pumps, hydraulic and powertrain components) and Springfield, Missouri, USA (engines, fuel systems, turbochargers).
• Sabo (consumer and commercial lawn equipment) Gummersbach, Germany

Subsidiaries and affiliates[link]

• AGRIS Corporation (John Deere Agri Services)
• John Deere Ag Management Solutions (intelligent mobile equipment technologies) Urbandale, Iowa
• John Deere Capital Corporation
• John Deere Credit^[4] (John Deere Credit and Finance) Johnston, Iowa.
• John Deere Landscapes (landscaping plants, materials, and irrigation equipment)
• Kemper (row tolerant headers for forage harvesters and combines) Stadtlohn, Germany
• Waratah Forestry Attachments (forestry harvesting heads) Tokoroa, New Zealand
• Agreentech
• NavCom Technology, Inc. (precision positioning systems, see also StarFire) Torrance, California
• Phoenix International Corporation (ruggedized electronics) Fargo, North Dakota
• Ningbo Benye Tractor & Automobile Manufacture Co. Ltd. (low HP tractors) Ningbo, China
• Machinefinder (used equipment division and marketplace)

John Deere Renewables, LLC, a wind energy plant manufacturing arm which represented John Deere's extension into the renewable energy industry - under which it had successfully completed 36 projects in eight US states - was sold to Exelon Energy in August 2010.^[5]

Collaborations and partnerships[link]

A Tata John Deere backhoe loader

• Hitachi Mining Division is the Deere company that sells and services Hitachi Mining Equipment in the Americas.
• Deere-Hitachi Construction Machinery, located in Kernersville, NC, is jointly owned by Deere & Company and Hitachi Construction Machinery Co., and manufactures hydraulic excavators for the North and South American markets.
• Deere-Hitachi Specialty Products, located in Langley, British Columbia, Canada, is a joint venture between Deere and HCM that manufactures hydraulic excavator based forestry swing machines for worldwide distribution.
• Partnership with Bell Equipment of South Africa provides Deere with articulated dump truck technology. In exchange, Bell Equipment manufactures Deere backhoe loaders in South Africa for distribution internationally. Additionally, Bell distributes Deere wheel loaders, crawler dozers, motor graders, and skidders in the South African market.^[6]
• Partnership with Telco Construction Equipment Company, a subsidiary of Tata group in India, to provide backhoe loader technology.
• Nortrax, Inc. is subsidiary of Deere & Co. and also the largest distributor of John Deere heavy construction equipment in US and Canada.
• Ashok Leyland John Deere Construction Equipment Private Ltd. is an India-based joint venture with Ashok Leyland to manufacture backhoe loaders for the Indian market.^[7]
• Xuzhou XCG John Deere Machinery Manufacturing Company Limited (Deere-XCG) is a China-based joint venture with Xuzhou Bohui Science and Technology Development Co. Ltd. to manufacture hydraulic excavators for the Chinese market.

Sponsorships[link]

• John Deere Classic is an American professional golf tournament sponsored by the company.
• While involved in NASCAR, John Deere sponsored the #23 & #97 for former driver Chad Little.

See also[link]

Companies portal

• John Deere World Headquarters
• List of John Deere tractors
• John Deere Buck

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Deere

• Official website

Joe Diffie
Joe Diffie performing in 2007.
Background information
Birth name	Joe Logan Diffie[1]
Born	(1958-12-28) December 28, 1958 (age 53)[2] Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
Origin	Velma, Oklahoma, U.S.
Genres	Country
Occupations	Singer-songwriter
Instruments	Vocals, guitar
Years active	1989–present
Labels	Epic Nashville Monument Nashville Broken Bow Rounder
Associated acts	Mary Chapin Carpenter Holly Dunn Lonnie Wilson
Website	www.joediffie.com

Joe Logan Diffie (born December 28, 1958) is an American country music singer known for his ballads and novelty songs. After working as a demo singer in the 1980s, he signed with Epic Records' Nashville division in 1990. Between then and 2004, Diffie charted 35 cuts on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, including five number one singles: his debut release "Home", "If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets)", "Third Rock from the Sun", "Pickup Man" (his longest-lasting number one, at four weeks) and "Bigger Than the Beatles". In addition to these cuts, he has 12 other top ten singles and ten other top 40 hits on the same chart. He also co-wrote singles for Holly Dunn, Tim McGraw and Jo Dee Messina, and has recorded with Mary Chapin Carpenter, George Jones and Marty Stuart.

Diffie released seven studio albums, a Christmas album and a greatest hits package under the Epic label. He also released one studio album each through Monument Records, Broken Bow Records and Rounder Records. Among his albums, 1993's Honky Tonk Attitude and 1994's Third Rock from the Sun are certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America; 1992's Regular Joe and 1996's Life's So Funny are both certified gold. His most recent album, Homecoming: The Bluegrass Album, was released in late 2010 through Rounder.

Early life[link]

Joe Diffie was born into a musical family in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1958.^[1] His first musical performance came at age four, when he performed in his aunt's country music band.^[1] Diffie's father played guitar and banjo, and his mother sang. Following in his mother's footsteps, Diffie began to sing at an early age, often listening to the albums in his father's record collection. Diffie has said that his "Mom and Dad claimed that [he] could sing harmony when [he] was three years old."^[3] His family moved to San Antonio, Texas while he was in the first grade, and subsequently to Washington state where he attended fourth and fifth grades. Later, he moved to Wisconsin for the years he was in sixth grade through his second year of high school, and back to Oklahoma where he attended high school in the town of Velma. In his last two years in high school, Diffie played football, baseball and golf in addition to running track; in his senior year he was recognized as Best All-Around Male Athlete.^[3]

After graduating, he attended Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma. Although he initially earned credits toward medical school, he decided against a medical profession after marrying for the first time in 1977, and ultimately dropped out before graduation.^[3] Diffie first worked in oil fields, then drove a truck that pumped cement out of oil wells in Alice, Texas, before he moved back to Duncan to work in a foundry. During this period, he worked as a musician on the side, first in a gospel group called Higher Purpose, and then in a bluegrass band called Special Edition.^[3] Diffie then built a recording studio, began touring with Special Edition in adjacent states, and sent demo recordings to publishers in Nashville. Hank Thompson recorded Diffie's "Love on the Rocks", and Randy Travis put one of Diffie's songs on hold but ultimately did not record it.^[1][3]

After the foundry closed in 1986, Diffie declared bankruptcy and sold the studio out of financial necessity. He also divorced his wife, who left with their two children. Diffie spent several months in a state of depression before deciding to move to Nashville, Tennessee.^[3] There, he took a job at Gibson Guitar Corporation.^[4] While at Gibson, he contacted a songwriter and recorded more demos, including songs that would later be recorded by Ricky Van Shelton, Billy Dean, Alabama and The Forester Sisters.^[5] By mid-1989, he quit working at the company in order to record demos full-time. Diffie also met Debbie, who would later become his second wife. That same year, Diffie was contacted by Bob Montgomery, a songwriter and record producer known for working with Buddy Holly.^[6] Montgomery, who was then the vice president of A&R at Epic Records, said that he wanted to sign Diffie to a contract with the label, but had to put the singer on hold for a year.^[3] In the meantime, Holly Dunn released "There Goes My Heart Again", which Diffie co-wrote and sang the backing vocals.^[1][7] Following this song's chart success, Diffie signed with Epic in early 1990.^[2]

Professional music career[link]

[edit] 1990–1991: A Thousand Winding Roads

The label released Diffie's debut album, A Thousand Winding Roads, at the end of 1990.^[1] Montgomery and Johnny Slate co-produced the album.^[6] Its first single, "Home", reached the top of the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. The song was also rated number one on the country music charts published by Radio & Records and Gavin Report, making him the first country music artist to have a number one debut single on all three charts,^[8] as well as the first country music artist to have a debut single spend more than one week in the number one position at the latter two publications.^[9] Diffie co-wrote the album's second and fourth releases, "If You Want Me To" and "New Way (To Light Up an Old Flame)";^[3] both peaked at number two on Billboard,^[2] and the former reached number one on the RPM country music charts in Canada.^[10] Between these two songs, "If the Devil Danced (In Empty Pockets)" became Diffie's second Billboard number one.^[1] The album itself peaked at number 23 on Top Country Albums.^[11] Diffie also performed his first concerts in late 1990, touring with George Strait and Steve Wariner.^[3] In that same year, Cash Box magazine named him Male Vocalist of the year.^[12] In 1991, Diffie co-wrote the tracks "Livin' on What's Left of Your Love" and "Memory Lane" on labelmate Keith Palmer's debut album.^[13]

[edit] 1992: Regular Joe

Diffie's second album, titled Regular Joe, was released in 1992 and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America.^[14] The first two singles from the album both peaked at number five on Billboard: "Is It Cold in Here" and "Ships That Don't Come In",^[1] the latter of which went to number one on Radio & Records.^[3] The album's third single, "Next Thing Smokin'", made its chart debut one month before "Not Too Much to Ask", a duet that Diffie recorded with Mary Chapin Carpenter for her album Come On Come On.^[15] Both of these songs made the country Top 20, respectively reaching sixteen and fifteen, and the duet was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration with Vocals at the 35th Grammy Awards in 1993.^[16] The final single from Regular Joe was "Startin' Over Blues" (originally the b-side to "Ships That Don't Come In"), which peaked at number 41.^[2]