Fortifying a farm for generations

How Purdue helped one Indiana farm family keep growing

When the crowd leaps to its feet in Mackey Arena, thousands cheer with one thunderous voice — farmers, engineers, scientists, alumni and first-years, families who drove in from rural counties and fans who simply love Boilermaker basketball. 

Bethany Gremel (BS organizational leadership and development ’06) is right there with them. She’s in the crowd often every season. Her story is packed with experiences that evoke loud, wholehearted cheers for Purdue: decades of Indiana farmland, seasons of uncertainty and the knowledge that research — practical, in-the-dirt Purdue research — helped six generations of her family’s farms survive when survival was never guaranteed. 

“I grew up knowing farmers are the ultimate risk-takers,” Gremel says. “You don’t survive unless you’re resilient. Risk and resilience go hand in hand.” 

Gremel was raised on a network of family farms in Howard and Grant counties — grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins; many acres planted in corn, soybeans and wheat; and a couple thousand hogs. Weather forecasts, commodity reports and faithful prayer were daily rituals. The future was always discussed in terms of decades, not seasons. 

Gremel watched her parents navigate growing a family business amid inflation, drought and debt pressures that blanketed the agriculture industry in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Raised by “truly remarkable” God-fearing parents who taught her strong values that she carries today, she also learned that the future of agriculture requires more than dogged determination. 

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevancy a lot less,” she says. “You’re either growing or dying. Staying stagnant is choosing death. So you might as well grow, and that takes research, innovation and being willing to adapt.” 

For Gremel, Purdue represented a tangible, high-impact path to success. Seeing how Purdue helped her family farm shaped her choices. When she left for college, she chose Purdue — but not agriculture. 

“I was very committed to not being in agriculture,” she says. “I’d seen how hard it was.” 

Yet choosing Purdue itself felt inevitable. “It was a no-brainer,” she says. “The reputation, the relationships — the people.” 

Gremel began in pharmacy, shifted to health sciences and eventually landed in Purdue’s College of Technology, earning a degree in organizational leadership and development. Advisors helped her pivot without losing momentum. 

“They worked together to help me figure out how I could graduate in four years and still enjoy what I was doing,” she says. “That’s Purdue.” 

Gremel came to believe that research equals sustenance. And connecting research to real life is exactly what Purdue does, says Samantha Shoaf Miller, director of corporate business development for Purdue’s College of Agriculture, who works to connect Purdue researchers with companies like Beck’s Hybrids, where Gremel works today.

If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevancy a lot less. You’re either growing or dying. Staying stagnant is choosing death.

Bethany Gremel (BS organizational leadership and development ’06)

Director of culture and brand experience at Beck’s Hybrids

“Our extension mission is baked into Purdue’s DNA,” Miller says. “We exist to make science usable for communities.” 

Miller points to decades-long relationships with farm families — from winter short courses to today’s student internships and industry-research collaborations. “The partnership with Beck’s isn’t one press release,” she says. “It shows up in lots of ways across campus.” 

After graduation, Gremel launched a successful corporate career in supply-chain leadership at Target, thriving a world away from tractors and grain bins. 

Then came the phone call. 

Sonny Beck, president of Beck’s Hybrids, left a voicemail while Gremel was living in Kansas. He wanted to talk about building an HR department at his growing family seed company. Her family had a long history with Beck’s, having established a Beck’s dealership in 1976.  
 
Even so, she admits that she nearly ignored the call. “I was young, single and doing well,” she says. “Target was so good to me.” 

She agreed to talk anyway, and once the phone conversation got underway, it felt familiar in all good ways. “It was like talking to my dad or my grandfather.” 

Next came an offer from Beck’s that carried some risk with the return to small-town living and a family-owned business. She accepted the job but immediately questioned her decision. 

“I hung up and thought, ‘I just threw away my youth,’” she laughs. 

Seventeen years later, Gremel remains happily at Beck’s, serving its leadership team as director of culture and brand experience — and she smiles, thinking back to that fateful decision she once questioned. “That quiet inner voice was louder than my head,” she says. “And it was right.”

Her life now sits at the intersection of multiple forces: her family farm, her faith, Purdue University and Beck’s. She has big hopes for the farm’s future as the family’s seventh generation starts to take on farm responsibilities. Her daughter, son, niece and nephews, whom she hopes will become Boilermakers when their time comes, are part of that next generation.  

Gremel believes Purdue helped redefine agriculture for her — not just as a struggle, but as a field driven by science, data and possibility. 

“Our farm built my values. My faith equips me to begin each day with a positive attitude and a strong work ethic. Purdue showed me what was possible and Beck’s lets me live that every day,” she says. “Fewer than 1% of people farm; and Purdue still invests in family farms through research, education and extension. That creates opportunity for the next generation.” 

Miller sees that same cycle at work. “Bethany reflects Beck’s values — teamwork, integrity, innovation,” she says. “She’s helped preserve that authenticity as the company grows.” 

Miller says she sees the same philosophy reinforced by Purdue research. 

Standing inside Mackey Arena, surrounded by fans whose lives have been shaped in countless invisible ways by Purdue discoveries, Gremel feels gratitude more than nostalgia. 

“I’m incredibly blessed,” she says. “Very grateful to Purdue.” She pauses. “And for the way I was raised on our family farm.” 

For Purdue, that is the measure of impact from Boilermaker research that continually leaps out of laboratories and journals and into Indiana corn and soybean fields. It’s present in generations of families determined to be farming decades from now. 

Everyday Boilermakers who cheer loudly benefit from giant leaps made close to home. 

Purdue tackles the world’s toughest challenges through timely research and innovation. Bethany’s story is just one of many incredible examples of how this pursuit continues to enhance the lives of people in our community and beyond.

Learn more https://www.purdue.edu/campaigns/next-giant-leap/

I grew up knowing farmers are the ultimate risk-takers. You don’t survive unless you’re resilient. Risk and resilience go hand in hand.

Bethany Gremel (BS organizational leadership and development ’06)
Director of culture and brand experience at Beck’s Hybrids