Editor's Note: ACM merged with Parallel Ag in June 2024 and as of Jan. 1, is now known as Parallel Ag: Upper Midwest Division. McCartney is now Vice President of Mergers & Acquisitions of the new entity, assisting with future growth plans in the region.
In 1950, a Durand, Ill., filling station owner by the name of Al McCartney was visited by a traveling Allis-Chalmers sales rep. Following a quick conversation, Al became an equipment dealer under the name A.C. McCartney (ACM). Months later, Al’s wife gave birth to a second son, Woody McCartney.
Woody, a 2025 inductee into the Farm Equipment Dealer Hall of Fame class for his achievements at ACM, literally grew up in a business that must have felt like a twin brother. His earliest memories are darting through the shop as a 3-year-old, daily climbs onto his favorite tractor (Allis Chalmers WD45) and later accompanying mechanics on service calls.
Name: Woody McCartney
Dealership: A.C. McCartney (ACM)
City: Durand, Ill.
Primary Lines: AGCO, Drago, Kuhn, KuhnKrause, Woods, Manitou, Great Plains
Locations: 5 (Durand, Wataga, Carthage, Mt. Sterling, and Fulton, Ill.)
His dream was to work in the store, though a firm offer of employment didn’t come until he was about to graduate as a CPA from the Univ. of Illinois in 1972. By then, the small dealer sold A-C, Hesston and New Idea. At a supper meeting shortly before graduation, Al offered to sweeten the $10,000 a year salary his son was being wooed with at the big accounting firms — with the promise of a company car.
From that day on, Woody’s career solidified as a dealer. He ran the accounting department and assisted his dad in sales, while his brother, Dave, was managing the parts area. After he and Dave bought out their father in 1979, Woody became president — just a few years ahead of the worst calamity ever to hit the ag business.
Fast forward to 2025. McCartney has been around long enough to have seen the average combine price of $25,000 to today’s offering that is approaching $1 million. He recalls the year the business hit $1 million in revenue and when his new 5-store operation topped $100 million for the first time. He saw the computer replace the card-cataloging system and how the cell phone forever changed the dynamic and hustle that was previously required for on-farm calls.
Profiles of Leadership
McCartney’s CPA background, which would be quickly enhanced through his bank board work, made him unique among dealer execs up until the start of the 21st century. For the first 3 decades, most of McCartney’s contemporaries were founders’ offspring who’d cut their teeth in sales or service.
Few dealers at the time held accounting degrees, and far fewer were assigned to sales management roles. As an accountant-turned-salesman-turned executive, McCartney was an industry unicorn.
Managing the numbers was a natural for his educational interests, and his affinity for the customers as a youth made sales and sales management an easy transition. “Even as a 22-year-old, I knew all the customers,” he says. “I’d been on all their farms many times, and so I already had relationships with the customers.
“Every one of McCartney’s conversations had a purpose to it. He knows how to connect with customers as well as employees ... You just don’t get handed loyalty from the customer at this level; he got his customers to follow him…” – Gary Manke, Retired Vice President, NAEDA
When McCartney was 29, he was asked to serve on the board of the Durand State Bank, just prior to the ag recession. Ten years later, at age 39, he was elected chairman of the board and served in that capacity for the next 30 years. “That experience helped me understand financing and banking when times were so tough for farmers and dealers.”
Known to be detail-oriented, McCartney is credited for resisting micromanagement, which may be a relative strong suit. “I want everybody prepared and detailed, of course, but I don’t micromanage,” he says. “If I give them the responsibility, I let them go. I oversee them, but I don’t micromanage. We hire good people, give them the parameters of the job and let them go.”
That’s not an easy task when having had his hand in everything for the first 18 years as a single-store dealership. “When I first started, you had to do everything yourself because we weren’t large enough to have people capable of doing it all,” he says.
He hired several territory managers from AGCO, including Tim Van De Velde. “We bought the Wataga store in 2001 and he came to work for us,” McCartney says. “He’s been a big asset and a reason for our success and eventually took over sales management for all of our stores.”
Honing His Knowledge
In the “old days,” McCartney says farmers and dealers could both succeed if they just worked hard at their business. That’s not enough today, he says, noting how much more sophistication is required of farmers in all areas of their business, including the expertise in market-timing their crop sales.
The same is true for dealers, he says, and pointed to the wisdom gained from decades-long participation in peer groups for part of his education. He was an early member of Spader’s peer groups, including working with founder Dwayne Spader.
McCartney credits a lot of knowledge from the fellow dealers in his group, with the biggest lesson being that “good habits are made in bad times, and bad habits are made in good times.”
ACM’s Early Days
Woody McCartney notes that his dad, Al, had an interesting route into the ag machinery business. He never farmed and, in fact, was a city boy from Rockford, Ill. Somehow, McCartney recalls, his dad got into the gas-station business when he got out of the Navy.
“My dad started the business in 1950, right here at this location. He used to own a gas station across the street, and a guy from Allis-Chalmers stopped there one day and said, ‘Anybody around here wants to sell tractors?’ My dad went and asked his partner who shook his head and my dad said ’Well, why don't we do it?’ His partner said, ‘We don't know anything about tractors’ but my dad went out and told the guy from Allis-Chalmers yes.
“The guy said, 'OK, I'll be back Monday to sign a contract.’ So that's when we started in 1950.”
The business set up shop across the street and Woody was born a few months later. Brother Al would join in due time, as would McCartney as a 22-year-old graduate from the Univ. of Illinois in 1972.
That group was influential in learning how to control expenses and maintain the absorption rate; for the parts and service departments to help carry the business in slower markets like dealers face today.
Indiana John Deere dealer-principal Jon Castongia (Castongia Tractor) spent decades in McCartney’s group, and credits McCartney for his advancement as a young dealer exec.
“He was easy to talk to and always had good advice,” Castongia says. “I could easily see why customers were drawn to do business with him and why people wanted to work for him. When it came to business, he knew his stuff, never missed a beat and always had good advice. He calls it like he sees it.”
McCartney had his share of early challenges. These not only included the cliff-falling ag economy of the 1980s and 20% interest rates, but the shock of his mainline supplier, Allis Chalmers, going belly up in 1985 and being acquired by Deutz. “One day we’re selling orange A-C tractors and the next day we’re selling green Deutz air-cooled tractors,” he recalls.
2024 Merger with Parallel Ag
On January 1, 2025, the 5-store A.C. McCartney was officially renamed as the Upper Midwest Division of Parallel Ag, which had 12 stores in Texas and Oklahoma. “Parallel Ag was very aligned with the way we were, and that's why we merged with them. We feel like they're a company with the same values as ours,” McCartney says.
When pressed for the hardest time the “can’t-be-rattled” McCartney cites the A-C news. “It was us vs. the John Deere and Case dealers. We were very fortunate because we had very loyal customers that helped us survive the 1980s. We worked hard to take care of them and our customers took care of us during this time.”
McCartney remains keenly tuned in to industry trends and the boom-bust cycles that always influence farm machinery demand. “You’ve got to know when it’s going down and when it’s going to go back up,” he says. “A lot of times, we were fortunate to have seen it coming. And a big part of that is because we found and hired the best people we could afford and worked to keep them.”
While a lot of current talk is about how to say no to wholegoods inventory temptations, McCartney says it goes the other way, too. “We had seen in 2013 and 2014 how the business would start booming and we loaded up on inventory to make the most of it.”
An Early Consolidator
McCartney was astute to changes in the business. Where customers once managed 160-acre parcels of land, consolidation was driving farmers to increase their acreages by the thousands. “Farmers consolidated and got bigger and we as dealers had to get bigger too. It was going to be hard to survive as a one-store dealership anymore.
“We realized in 2000 that, if we’re going to be successful, we had to expand. So that’s when we started looking to buy other stores, starting with our first acquisition in Wataga, Ill., and 3 others over the next 18 years. We knew we had to keep growing and these acquisitions were all single-store operations that didn’t have a next generation ready to take over the business.”
ACM became one of the first non-Caterpillar AGCO dealers to have multiple locations. “AGCO encouraged us to make these acquisitions,” he says. “They respected the way we did business and wanted us to be successful and to expand.”
Woody McCartney Photo Gallery
The humble McCartney cites no key defining or fork-in-the-road moments. He humbly notes the changes to the business and its opportunities were gradual things any business should expect. “My dad said, ‘Take care of the customers and your employees and you’ll be successful.’”
Easier said than done in a growing business, but McCartney says they were purposeful about it. “We attempted to do it with hard work and determination.”
He’s proud to have 4th-generation customers and many employees who worked at ACM for more than 40 years, including one who retired with 53 years of service in 2024. “Once an employee started here, we considered them part of the McCartney family and worked on that even as we grew and added stores,” he says.
Top Performing-Dealer
Reflecting on his career, McCartney is most proud of the industry-leading sales performance recognitions from AGCO and points to the ring on his right hand. “Each year, the top 10 AGCO dealers in the country would get a ring and every year you were in it, you’d get another diamond.” McCartney’s ring maxed out at 10 diamonds.
As AGCO and Massey Ferguson grew, and the Caterpillar relationship matured, the program later expanded to the top 15 dealers, with ACM as a perennial recipient and model dealer in AGCO’s Five-Star Dealer Program.
While the manufacturer-dealer relationship is often challenging and can be contentious, McCartney adds that ACM worked equally hard at that relationship. “That’s another thing my dad taught us,” he says. “In addition to taking great care with customers and employees, he said it was important to be fair with your manufacturers.”
ACM’s Family Business
Woody McCartney’s earliest memories on earth were accompanying his mother to the store when he was 2-3 years old, “running around the tractors and sitting in the old WD45s and then going out in the country with the technicians.” He always knew he wanted to work at the dealership, he says.
After a dinner negotiating a $10,000 salary with a car, he joined the business in 1972 fresh out the Univ. of Illinois with an accounting degree.
Today, the 75-year-old business is in its fourth generation with his great-nephew. Pictured from left with Woody McCartney are his sons Mark (CFO) and Andy (store manager) and nephew Jim McCartney (corporate parts manager). Store manager Luke McCartney, Jim’s son, represents the fourth generation.
Beyond ACM’s performance in AGCO’s sales programs, it was clear that McCartney was important to the AGCO headquarters leaders in Duluth, Ga. “I think they always respected how we did business,” he says. When it came time to eulogize the founders of the company (Ed Swingle and Bob Ratliff), McCartney was honored to have been selected to speak at their funerals.
“They were both dealers’ type of people; very dealer-oriented and they cared about the dealers, " he says.
McCartney cites Dennis Heinecke, the retired AGCO vice president of sales, as one who influenced his career. Heinecke was generous with praise for his top-performing dealer and friend.
“Woody wasn’t afraid to make a decision,” says Heinecke. “He’d weigh the facts — the positives and negatives — and at the end of the day could make a decision without hemming and hawing or waiting for the wind to blow. He’d just go for it.”
As an example, Heinecke says McCartney could weigh an acquisition’s strategic value as well as the personnel needed to lead it. “And when the time came, he’d review the positives and red flags and could pull the trigger,” says Heinecke.
“The most important thing he did was analyze the numbers. He did not manage by the seat of his pants but rather what was right in front of him. His ability to recognize issues was strengthened by what the numbers showed, which at one time a lot of dealers ran on the back of envelopes.”
A Legacy in Leadership, Family Business
Along the way, McCartney left his mark on the industry in other ways, too, including longtime service on AGCO’s Dealer Panel and stints as president of the Midwest Equipment Dealers Assn., and later the North American Equipment Dealers Assn. (NAEDA).
Since the merger with Parallel Ag, his official title is vice president of mergers and acquisitions. “We at Parallel Ag want to grow and buy more stores, and I know every dealer in Wisconsin and Illinois,” he says. “When the economy turns around, you’ll see us grow significantly in this region.”
What’s McCartney most proud of over his 53-year-career? “I'm proud that we’ve been able to successfully build a business from 1 store to 5, survive the hard times and run a family business where we could work with our dad, brother, kids and nephews. There aren’t many family businesses lasting 4 generations and 75 years.”
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What Others Have to Say About Woody McCartney
The Banking Relationship
“I’ve known him for 10 years, in 2015. He had been the chairman of the bank since 1989. When we merged in 2021, he had put in 32 years as chairman. It was impressive how he built the bank and his equipment business at the same time.
“He was always very supportive, approachable and empowering. When I started in 2015, it was a new venture for me and I was learning. Woody made sure he wasn't a stranger. He was approachable with questions and guided me without being on top of me. I am privileged to get to know Woody as a mentor and friend.”
Performance-Driven. “He grew the profitability of the bank but not without its ups and downs like the 2008 housing market crash. There were trying times for the bank. With time and patience with the community and customers, he turned around and made us more profitable and attractive for us in merging with another bank.”
A Challenging Role. “The point of a board is to have diversification and a variety of perspectives. But they also must be willing to learn banking and regulatory information. The typical person won’t know the ropes right off the bat and they’ll need to take time for the banking classes and webinars to make the best decisions.
“We were a pretty small community bank, pushing $100 million. As any director, he was responsible for regulatory findings and an emphasis on bank employees and management to see things are done correctly. As our chairman for so long and having attended all the banking classes and his accounting and finance background, he sat perfectly in that role.
“He brought managing and bottom line fiscal sense to the role as well as the community. Our banking customers were also his customers and if there was an issue, they knew who was in charge. He grew up and lived in this business. And he’d get involved to squash a problem if one arose.”
Uniqueness. ”You must be willing to risk some things to venture out into new territory. Sometimes board members say ‘No, we’ve always done this way, it’s what we know.’ Woody wasn’t afraid to jump out of the box and say, ‘Let’s give it a try’ – that we’d learn something or end up needoing go in another direction. He wasn’t scared to try new things; he realized you can’t stay idle or you’ll be lost. He also empowered employees to expand their skills to better the overall organization.”
Community. “Woody is generous with his time and talents. He was always responsive even when not in close proximity to the bank while traveling between equipment locations spread out. He is not one wanting any spotlight and often made contributions to local organizations anonymously. He greatly values and supports community needs without desiring recognition.”
– Kathy Sutherland, Executive Vice President – Risk Management, Solutions Bank, Durand, Ill.
The Dealer Association Relationship
Gary Manke, who retired from North American Equipment Dealers Assn. (NAEDA) in 2025, recalls meeting Woody McCartney 45 years ago, shortly after he joined his father, Al, and brother, Dave, in their single-store dealership in Durand.
“Woody is one of those guys that is unique in his time, as a CPA and accountant by trade. He was also one smart guy who was gifted in sales. He knows how to connect with customers as well as employees, and could sell anything to anyone and manage any type of employee well. Every conversation had a purpose to it.”
But Manke says McCartney also worked at these skills, and was one of the most well-read executives he saw, continuing to brush up on management and leadership, as well as observing people and situations.
Manke says the vast growth of the business was due to McCartney and executing on the customer service he preached. “You just don’t get handed loyalty from the customer at this level; he got his customers to follow him.”
McCartney also brought his honed skill set Manke’s Midwest Equipment Dealers Assn. (MEDA) as president and later as president of the national NAEDA group. “He was known to say ‘Business is business,’” recalls Manke. “Even when a situation involved a longtime employee or even a family member, he’d correct it regardless of how difficult or awkward it was. He’d make the decision when it was needed and quickly. And when asked for his opinion, he’d give it to you straight – even when he knew you wouldn’t like the answer.”
– Gary Manke, retired Vice President, National Equipment Dealers Assn. (NAEDA)
From Parallel Ag CEO
“Woody is a guy who's been in the industry his entire life and led his business while growing from 1 to 5 stores. His name carries a lot of weight; he's very well respected among dealers and AGCO. He was one of AGCO’s founding dealers and among the first of its dealers to own and operate multiple locations.”
Skaggs adds that McCartney was instrumental in shaping the entire AGCO distribution network. “He’s also been vocal in dealing with AGCO but in a positive way, trying to improve things across the AGCO network.”
– Shawn Skaggs, CEO, Parallel Ag, Chicakasha, Okla.
From the Mainline OEM
Dennis Heinicke, retired VP of Sales for AGCO, has known Woody McCartney since the Deutz Allis acquisition and worked closely with him during his perennial string of AGCO’s Circle of Excellence performances. He added that A.C. McCartney would have been top 10 or even top-5 best dealers during his tenure.
“Woody is the essence of being a very strong leader in his organization. He is a very good manager, he had confidence in his people, delegated tasks and made them accountable for what they said they would do – and followed up with them.
“He wasn’t afraid to make a decision. He’d weigh the facts and the positives and negatives and at the end of the day would make a decision without hemming and hawing or waiting for the wind to blow. He’d just go for it. For example, in analyzing an acquisition, he could see its strategic value as well as whether he had the personnel lined up to lead it. He could see the positives and the red flags, and he could pull the trigger when the time came.
“Probably the most important thing he did was analyze the numbers. He did not manage by the seat of his pants but rather what was right in front of him. His ability to recognize issues was strengthened by what the numbers told, which at one time a lot of dealers ran on the back of envelopes.
“You could approach him and he’d give you opinion straight out – good or bad, or tell you don’t know what you’re doing. At the end of the day, he supported the brand and company. He was definitely one of the top dealers that we had; and always in the top 15 in volume. He was always someone who you could rely on.
“Any brand was proud to have Woody as a dealer not only for sales volume but also because he supported the product with great parts and service. That customer satisfaction was among the reasons they’d continue to buy from ACM; that there'd be a significant force that stood them.”
– Dennis Heinicke, retired AGCO Vice President of Sales
From John Deere Dealer
“I’ve known Woody for almost 30 years. He was the first guy I met in my 20 group meeting. I was nervous as a 28-year-old in a room of veterans, but we became fast friends. I could easily see why customers would be drawn to do business with him and why people wanted to work for him.
“He was fun, easy to talk to and always had a story. But when it came to business, he knew his stuff and never missed a beat, and always shared good advice. He calls it like he sees it. Besides my father, I am proud to call him one of my top mentors and trusted advisors of my career. “
– Jon Castongia, President, Castongia Tractor, Rensselaer, Ind.
