March 29, 2024

Making the most of every kernel

Proud Adair County resident enjoys his role at Menlo ethanol plant

A lot can come from a kernel of corn. If you’re not sure, just ask Brett Stender of Greenfield.

A Fontanelle native and a proud Adair County resident, Stender has been employed by Flint Hills Resources at their Menlo facility since 2011.

Flint Hills produces ethanol but also makes syrup, corn oil, distiller grains and modified distiller grains.

The son of Rick and Janell Stender, Brett grew up northwest of Fontanelle and graduated from Nodaway Valley in 2009. He grew up around farming but not on a farm.

Currently, Stender and his wife, Katie, are raising their son, Oliver, in Greenfield, where he also serves his community and the surrounding areas as a member of the Greenfield Volunteer Fire Department.

“I grew up helping farmers, helping the neighbors, and I’ve been around farming all my life,” Stender said. “I loved it. I always wanted to be in agriculture of some sort, and my main goal was to be a farmer.”

With beginning a farm from scratch being unjustifiable, Stender went to Southwestern Community College after high school, where he earned an Agricultural Production degree, continuing to pursue his love for agriculture. During college, in 2010, Stender rented out 45 acres of farmland near Canby, and he describes that he was lucky that prices were as good as they were when he farmed that ground, though the deal only lasted one year.

Stender graduated and was looking for a place to start a career that carried benefits. Through a friend, he heard about Flint Hills Resources.

“Never being here before, I thought it was an interesting place. I applied for it, got the job as a Production Operator, and I started out on shift work as an operator, which is a swing shift, so you work four days, have four days off, work four nights and have four days off,” Stender said. “That’s the way the rotation works.”

From Production Operator, Stender later became what is known as a Board Operator, or someone who oversees the electronic control aspect of the plant. Stender then became Shift Supervisor and is now Day Operator, taking care of all the Standard Operating Procedures for the entire facility during the day, making sure they’re up to date.

Stender says that there are a few different aspects of his role that directly impact farmers, such as procedures he’s worked on that directly impacts the load-out of dried distiller grains, which is the dried down corn mash after the distillation process, that is used for livestock feed.

“Next to being a Shift Supervisor, I haven’t really had many roles where I work directly with the farmers themselves or the truck drivers bringing the corn in, however our focus is to always keep our equipment running and make sure, to the best of our ability, that people aren’t waiting to get their trailers emptied so they can get back to the field if it’s harvest or back to get another load to bring in,” Stender said. “Our main focus is the turnaround time for them coming in.”

The process of making ethanol or any of the products Flint Hills puts out is fascinating. For ethanol, as an example, corn is ground down to a flour-like substance when it is sent through a series of hammer mills, then the corn gets mixed with water and enzymes to prepare it for fermentation. From there, the alcohol is made and it goes through the distillation process, which Stender describes as, “like a brewery, except on a much, much larger scale.” Once the distillation has happened, co-products are produced.

“One of the coolest things is being able to see the corn come in and then seeing the end product of it leaving after it has gone through the whole process, and seeing all the things we can produce out of a kernel of corn,” Stender said. “It’s pretty cool.”