The 1970s

In the early ’70s, several new employees joined the company, and their contributions paved the way for further growth. Many of those who joined at that time are still with Willard today: Randy Bollinger, Larry Martin, Pete Surgeon, Jim Meyers, Jim Beyer and Charlie Leyhe.

Communication in those early days was basic” especially by today’s standards. Sales reps hand-wrote their orders and spent long evening hours on the telephone, relaying information to plant managers and drivers. If a question came up during the work day, reps drove miles to find a phone booth. Willard soon found a better way, installing state-of-the-art two-way radios in 1972 to keep employees in touch.

Computers came next. In 1976, Willard entered the electronic age, purchasing an IBM System 32 computer to expedite operations. Jim Willard, who served as the company’s first tech director, launched the use of formulation programs to create custom fertilizer blends according to soil samples. By 1977, the company was poised to expand. It purchased 15 acres of farmland in still-undeveloped Mt. Airy, Maryland from Colonel E. Brooke Lee to build a new facility for Meyers Liquid Fertilizer, which it had acquired in 1973. (Randy Bollinger, who was there when they dug the first shovel, still serves customers who have been with Willard since the plant opened.) Willard installed tanks 20 times larger than those in Frederick, and erected a pre-fab concrete building. A second building followed in 1980, and a third in 1999. Meyers Liquid Fertilizer was later renamed Willard AgriService of Mt. Airy. Bigger became the norm in the farming industry, too. Growers began using larger equipment, capable of handling many acres in a single day, said De. Increasingly, they came to rely on our services to do their fertilizer and custom chemical work for them.