Siegers Celebrates A Century
February 17, 2012 
Siegers Seed Co. crossed a milestone this year in the business world, celebrating 100 years of operations. According to Rick Siegers, company president, the longevity of his family’s business is due to a focus on quality and providing customers with seed that will make them successful.
“Attitude and integrity are extremely important to us as a family and to all our employees,” he says. “If we can make our customers successful, they will come back to us year after year. As long as we continue to make that part of our goal, we will continue to be successful.”
Chicago Roots
Siegers Seed Co. origins date back to 1912 in Chicago when Rick Siegers’ great grandfather, Nanne Sluis, a Dutch immigrant, started N. Sluis & Sons. In 1957, the company was divided between Rick’s father Don Siegers and his uncle. Don moved the company to Michigan and later purchased his uncle’s share of the business and renamed the business Siegers Seed Co.
After his father’s sudden death, Rick took over management of the company in 1973 and has continued the family tradition ever since. At the time, he was only 25 and his other siblings were at points in their lives where they couldn’t take on management of the family business.
“When my father passed, we talked as a family about the future,” says Siegers. “You can always close a business, but once you do, it is pretty hard to reopen it. So, I decided that I’d give it a shot running the business.
“Part of our rationale was I was young and there would be time for me to do something else, if it failed. That was the gamble my wife and I took. We were married and had one young child at the time and we moved to Eastern Michigan where the business is headquartered.”
Focus On The Future
Since his move in 1973, Siegers says the rest is history and the company has continued to grow and evolve. The company now has a full team of sales people, yet remains a family owned and operated business. Siegers Seed now offers growers a product line of more than 1,000 varieties of fruits and vegetables and has branch facilities in Florida and Canada.
Siegers says the formula for continued growth and success is simple. “I tell our sales team what we sell is information and technology,” he says. “What we deliver is seed, but we offer a service of giving advice from our seasoned consultants that helps build strong relationships with our growers. Our customers trust us because we work hard to bring them the best products based on the information and technology that we’ve built over the years.”
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