Kevin McNew, President and Founder

Kevin was raised on a farm in central Oklahoma. He received his Bachelors degree from Oklahoma State University and Masters and PhD from North Carolina State University in agricultural economics.

For over a decade, he was a Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Maryland and Montana State University focusing on commodity markets. He won numerous academic awards over his career for his research and outreach work, and was widely regarded for boiling down complex economic issues in to easy-to-understand concepts for applied life.

His creative interest in localized commodity markets and his passion for applied problem-solving led McNew to found Cash Grain Bids Inc in 1999. It's mission was to be more than data, but a reliable source of unbiased intelligence to commodity traders. McNew has led the development of such feature-rich trading tools as the Optimizer, My Grain Trades, and the latest product GoGrain. These tools provide thousands of users a unique understanding of where and when to buy or sell their commodities, all while keeping users informed of their market positions as volatile commodity prices change.

As an Analyst, McNew's unique commentary on cash markets can be seen weekly on Bloomberg, DTN, Agweb.com. Agriculture.com and other publications, and he is often quoted by Reuters and Dow Jones news services on commodity markets. In addition, he is a popular speaker at conferences on topics of risk management, bio fuels and new trading techniques.

JC Hoyt, Vice President & Director of Risk Management Services

JC grew up on a farm in Iowa and attained his Bachelor’s degree from Iowa State University College of Agriculture. In his career, he has worked with such agribusiness companies as Pioneer HI-Bred, Harvest States, Koch Industries and Capital Trading Associates. He has worked closely with supplier and producer clients in developing risk management programs.

At Cash Grain Bids, JC is guiding the development of new applications to help producers, merchandisers and end-users successfully manage cash price risk and enhance their overall trading performance and efficiency.

Brett Holzer, Biofuels Feedstock Analyst

Brett was raised on his family’s farm/ranch operation in central Montana. He now applies his experience with economic analysis to the feed grains markets and analyzes the potential market impacts of proposed ethanol and biodiesel plants.

Currently, Brett is working on new technologies that will provide real-time local cash grain market forecasting for our clients utilizing our proprietary spatial models and real-time crop yield forecasting based on microwave satellite technologies.

Holzer has a Masters degree in Applied Economics from Montana State University.

Luke Martin, Grains Analyst

Luke brings an extensive background in economic analysis that gives him a unique perspective in developing user-centric trading tools for commodity markets. He has developed crop yield forecasting models based on satellite imagery data, and was instrumental in the development of the Cash Grain Optimizer. Martin has a Masters degree in economics from Montana State University.

Barry Peterson, Data Analyst

Barry has been involved in the telecommunications industry and has strong skills in managing large databases. He holds a BS degree from Iowa State and manages our data quality and control procedures.

Tabby Jagger, Accounts Manager

Tabby comes from a farm in Michigan and serves as Account Manager for Cash Grain Bids. She assists retail and corporate clients in handling their subscription and billing issues.

Data Entry Team

Can you imagine trying to enter 25,000 prices everyday in a 3-hour period from a litany of faxes, emails, phone calls and websites? We can’t either. That’s why we have the best staff of qualified data entry specialists that do this everyday (you should see their fingers fly!). Our staff includes Eddie Giblin, Chelsea Bailey, Mike Archer, Billie Jo Holzer, Suhail Asghar, Kathy Holzer and Julie Martin.