About Us
The ProExporter Network® provides economic research and analysis to major agribusiness firms and investors. The firm’s research focuses on U.S. grain flows, transportation demand, and the impact of these items on cash grain markets.
The goal of the firm is not to forecast the futures market, but rather to provide new approaches to understanding world grain and energy markets for longer-term strategic planning, especially with respect to the transportation of grains in North America and the impact of geography on cash grain price patterns.
The firm’s unique strength is its understanding and ability to illustrate the link between geography, grain prices, and grain movements. PRX provides its clients with analysis that can include the world view or can be narrowed to the supply/demand situation for the corner of a county in the Grain Belt.
PRX was the pioneer in using satellite-based mapping technology to understand grain movements. The firm developed its Commodity Market Zone Analysis (CMZA) in collaboration with NASA’s Space Remote Sensing Center. This software program maps grain origination territories for elevators and processors by road distance and plays one site off against its geographic neighbors in terms of the different grain bids (prices) that each might have.
Major grain merchandising and processing companies rely on this analysis to understand local cash grain prices and movements. This type of analysis is widely used by firms in selecting the geographic location for new facilities. The PRX geographical site comparison is paired with ”small area basis impact analyses,” which provides a strong indication of how the cash price would change in one given location versus another.
More recent analysis by PRX has used this early geographical supply/demand picture to build a convincing econometric model for what factors govern the highs and lows of the spreads between different months of the Chicago Board of Trade corn contracts.
With the emergence of the U.S. ethanol industry, the CMZA mapping system has become the standard in the ethanol investment community for prudent site location analysis, corn basis impact studies, and understanding the geographic and transportation aspects of ethanol expansion. PRX is the leading firm in providing feasibility studies for new ethanol facilities.
For further information,
contact The ProExporter Network® by clicking here
or at (816) 810-5000.
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Our People
The ProExporter Network® is composed of a small group of independent analysts – persons with proven talent, originality, and seasoned market experience – who collaborate to produce PRX service products. |
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Bill Hudson is a principal and the founding partner of The ProExporter Network® and is responsible for much of the firm’s research and analysis, including the regular “Grain Market and Transportation Outlook.” He was a pioneer in using mapping techniques to illustrate grain flows which is a unique PRX service. Prior to beginning The ProExporter Network in 1988, Hudson served as senior vice president of business research for The Andersons of Maumee, Ohio. He is an international speaker, author, and respected industry authority on agribusiness, cash grain markets, and transportation. He is a graduate of the University of Kansas |
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Marty Ruikka is a principal of The ProExporter Network® and manages the firm’s “Commodity Market Zone Analysis” (CMZA) software. He has used CMZA to help rationalize many mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures and to establish the strategic origination plans for many grain companies and cooperatives. He is also responsible the firm’s ethanol analysis and feasibility studies. He began working with The PRX Network soon after its inception in the late 1980s. |
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Bill Holbrook provides research and analysis services to The ProExporter Network®, working mostly with the CMZA software and assisting with ethanol feasibility studies. Prior to joining PRX, Bill was with Farmland Industries for 13 years where he was Regional Marketing Manager and Director of Professional Business Services. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees from Kansas State University. |
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Ross Korves is an economic policy analyst who provides analysis of biodiesel expansion along with farm and trade policy. He joined PRX following a 25-year career as an economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation where he worked on economic policy issues ranging from farm programs and international trade to the right to own and use private property and rural health care. He has a B.S. in Animal Industries and a M.S. in Agribusiness Economics from Southern Illinois University. |
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Mike Metz directs PRX data acquisition and database design, including crop production, transportation, exports and prices. He has developed new approaches to crop supply/demand in Mexico, Canada, Argentina, and Brazil. He began his association with PRX in 1996 while pursuing a PhD in economics from the University of Kansas. Metz is the co-author of several academic publications related to his doctoral dissertation, Remnants of the Hedge Tax. He earned his Masters Degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of Wales, United Kingdom, and his PhD in Economics from the University of Kansas. |
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Bob Petersen is an independent consultant who serves as director of marketing for The ProExporter Network®, assisting the firm with seminars and marketing initiatives. His background includes service as president of the Kansas City Board of Trade (2000-2004) and president of the Washington, DC-based National Grain Trade Council (1980-2000). He has worked with grain industry leaders on new marketing processes, public relations initiatives, legislative strategy, and farm policy issues. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. |
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John P. Stewart & Associates, Inc.
The ProExporter Network® has benefited from long-standing collaboration with John Stewart & Associates (JSA), an agricultural risk management and consulting service now headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. JSA’s founder and namesake, John Stewart, was an integral part of the formation of PRX in 1988 and an important contributor to PRX’s analytical system.
JSA is today led by principals Tom Tucker, based in San Antonio, Texas, and Doug Schultz, based in St. Joseph, Missouri. The firm is an introducing broker for Iowa Grain and a leading provider of risk management services to the dry mill and elevator industries.
Dr. Bill Tierney recently joined the firm as executive vice president for research and marketing. Prior to joining JSA, Dr. Tierney served as the principal grains economist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s World Agricultural Outlook Board for three years. Before joining USDA, Dr. Tierney was a professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University for 20 years.
Further information about John Stewart & Associates may be found on their web site: www.jpsi.com.
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