Chester has had a busy 2017, full of designing, planning and making buildings and dreams come to fruition. They’ve seen expansions in IT, Agriculture, and in their Architectural and Construction sectors as they move into the new year. Looking back, it’s hard to pick just one area that has seen growth at Chester, Inc., with innovations and expansions in every sector of the company.
Pictured above are Pete, Tony and Drew Peuquet; not pictured Adam Peuquet
“In the Ag sector, we’re more into the grain handling and grain storage facility now due to our expertise in the business, in 2018 we’re expecting more growth in that end of the business,” said Pete Peuquet, President and CEO of Chester, Inc.
Recognizing the necessity of grain storage and irrigation systems and the newest technologies in those fields is what has given Chester a sharper edge.
“Farming is the key element to the world. If you step back and look at it, we don’t eat without farmers. It’s something as human beings we need to have and the tech upgrades happening in farming are just amazing,” said Rich Shields, Director of Marketing & Business Development at Chester.
Some of those innovations include irrigation systems that farmers can maintain from their smart phone or tablet and know exactly how much water is going into their fields.
Showing their ongoing dedication to the community, they have also been looking at constructing a grain storage building as an educational facility so their agricultural team can help schools learn more about what goes into the agriculture business.
Chester has been around for over 70 years and seen the monumental changes in agriculture, and knowing they have to keep abreast of the latest changes has helped them stay competitive in this and other fields as well- technology chief among them.
In IT, it has been a successful year which has seen expansion for their highly trained technical team and the implementation of many projects for enterprise businesses and more.
“There have been tremendous changes and it will continue to change, but it forces us, from our IT end of the business, to have our technicians and engineers have new training throughout the year. It’s an expense you have to incur, but it has to happen to maintain IT standards for the clients and stay ahead of the rest,” said Peuquet.
This forward looking attitude has given Chester success in 2017 and is sure to carry them, and the customers they serve, into a very successful 2018.
In food service, their products, including their very successful chorizo products, Chester is now moving further south in South Carolina on the east coast, and Texas in the west. This will be a big expansion, but not one taken lightly, as they wanted to be sure they had the right distributor for their product beforehand.
“Finding the right distributor to handle our product is important, it is a refrigerated product and very high quality, so it takes a very special distributor. Many can ship some inexpensive products in the market, but that’s not what we do,” explained Peuquet.
In architecture and construction, Chester has had a lot of projects that have been completed and moved forward from conceptual design to groundbreaking. Through their marketing in billboards in Illinois and elsewhere, Chester as generated a lot of leads as well.
“We’ve been doing that for 30 years or more, it’s just the brand recognition of Chester Inc., with our construction services and architectural entity,” said Shields.
They have become particularly well known for their expertise on building veterinary complexes, a very complex and precise process from design to completion, having done five in the last year and 70 or 80 total. Chester was behind the designing and building of the McAfee Animal Hospital and Purdue Northwest Westville Veterinary complex as well. This is what sets Chester apart from the rest- the ability to handle so many diverse aspects of a building project.
“I think this is our key differentiator. We have the on-staff architects, we are a general contractor, we can help with finance, and then we have IT that we can incorporate. It’s a one stop shop. The owner feels like they have more control in sitting down with Pete, the architects, and the IT division. All at once, we’re their one stop shop,” said Shields.
Behind their all-inclusive services are a dedicated and educate staff of technicians, engineers, and salesmen that Chester invests in.
“Our employees have been here a long time and a couple reasons why is that we have a good family owned background, ownership is very innovative and knows and understands we have to do these upgrades. Also, individuals like it because it's personal development for them and they stay educated and in turn, the services we provide our clients are top notch,” said Shields.
As far as projects they are particularly proud of, some of the charitable organizations they were involved with stand out, even if they were not the largest projects of 2017.
“We really liked when we did the PCACS renovations. It’s not the largest, but it was really neat to be able to give back to a nonprofit. They have windows, and they never had them before. They felt better, and they could work better,” said Shields.
“It actually made them feel good, and we’re pleased that we had the opportunity to design and do that for them. It makes your employees feel better,” added Peuquet.
They have also been involved in the local community by sponsoring the Opportunity Enterprises gala, improving the technical equipment at Andrean High School, working with Valpo Parks on a proposed new education facility, and much, much more. Chester, Inc.’s Corporate division has also seen a 100% contribution for the last 20 years to the United Way.
“I think like any other person, you develop kind of a family and some of these organizations have done an exceptional job in the community and we feel we’d like to be part of the family,” said Peuquet.
With accomplishments and progress across the board as well as ongoing and proven dedication to staff and clients, Chester Inc., is sure to see a prosperous and innovative new year.
