Rick Brandt does not talk like someone who built a global company.
He talks like someone still thinking in decades, not quarters.
Brandt is chief executive officer and president of Brandt, a family-owned supplier of agricultural inputs founded in 1953 and now headquartered in Tampa.
When he took over as CEO in 1995 at age 29, the company had about $30 million in revenue. By 2022, it had climbed past $600 million.
That growth did not happen by accident. Brandt says acquisitions became the turning point. Under his leadership, the company completed 24 acquisitions and built a wider platform that now stretches well beyond its Midwestern roots.
A family business, built to last
Brandt was founded by Brandt’s father, Glen, and his aunt, Evelyn. At 99, Evelyn still keeps office hours, Brandt said.
His father, he said, was relentlessly entrepreneurial.
“He had like six jobs at one time,” Brandt said. “He had a used car lot. He had a gas station, he farmed and he started the fertilizer company.”
Brandt grew up in Pleasant Plains, Illinois, a town of about 700 people. Success was not something you advertised.
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His parents also bought a home in Bonita Beach, Florida, which gradually pulled the family toward the state.
Over time, they bought neighboring properties. The homes were later damaged or destroyed, including those affected by Hurricane Ian in 2022.
Florida also became connected to the business. Brandt’s father bought into TradeMark Nitrogen in Brandon, a company Brandt now owns and leads.
A Florida chapter, and a detour
Brandt attended Florida Southern College in Lakeland before finishing his degree at the University of South Florida, earning a bachelor’s in economics.
He did not expect to return to Illinois or to stay for decades.
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“I never would have imagined that I would leave Tampa and move back to Pleasant Plains, or anywhere in Illinois, for 30 years,” he said.
Back home, he watched the company’s global expansion up close and began pushing for the next phase.
The moment that changed everything
Brandt says the board was cautious in the early years. He wanted to move faster.
In 1999, he said, Brandt looked at acquiring a small fertilizer company in Illinois. He had the authority to spend up to $300,000 without board approval. The seller wanted $350,000.
“I went back to him and said, I’ll give you $290,000 for this company and you can have whatever you want for inventory,” Brandt said.
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The deal set a pattern. Brandt says acquisitions reshaped what the company could be.
“We started doing a lot of acquisitions,” he said. “That was a total game-changer for the company.”
Why Tampa became the headquarters
Brandt and his wife, Kristie, were already spending time in Tampa for business and family reasons. Eventually, their daughter, Sierra, began attending the University of Tampa.
Brandt said one question made the decision feel final.
“I asked [Sierra] one day, ‘Are you ever going to move back to Springfield?’” he recalled. “She said no.”
Brandt moved to Tampa in 2010. Kristie and Sierra followed in 2018.
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As the company anchored itself in Tampa, Brandt said his executive team helped restructure the business into a holding company model with multiple operating companies.
Brandt Inc. became the parent company, headquartered in Tampa. The company also moved employees into a separate corporation called Team Brandt, a structure Brandt said made sense both operationally and culturally.
“It was kind of one of those things that, in hindsight, you think, why didn’t we do this sooner?” he said.
The next generation, and the question of ownership
Brandt said keeping the company family-owned matters, but he thinks about ownership as a responsibility, not just a job.
Sierra, he said, now has an ownership stake in the company.
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“I always told her, you do what you want to do,” he said. “If you want to be part of [the company], that’s great. If you want to go do your own thing, that’s great. But I think you have to, at least, want to be an owner.”
He also frames long tenure as part of the company’s identity. One employee, he said, has been with the business for 50 years.
NASCAR as a business tool
Brandt has also used marketing in ways most fertilizer companies never consider.
The company returned for its 13th season in the NASCAR Xfinity Series in 2023 with driver Justin Allgaier.
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“For me, NASCAR is a pure marketing initiative,” Brandt said. “While I’ll freely admit that I like to go fast and win, NASCAR enables us to engage with our customers in unique and enduring ways.”
He said the sport also helps reinforce culture, customer loyalty and awareness among prospects.
“I wasn’t a NASCAR fan until I saw my name on the side of a race car,” he said.
A side project with the same mindset
Brandt also collects guitars and has started working with music talent.
He said he is currently involved with an emerging artist, Kelsey Hickman, a singer-songwriter originally from Springfield and now based in Nashville.
“We actually started a company,” he said. “It’s called GB Records. I decided to do GB for my dad, and also for ‘go big or go home.’”
To Brandt, the logic is familiar. Take a swing. Build something. Learn fast.
“I might lose a hell of a lot of money or might make a lot of money,” he said. “But either way, I’m going to have a lot of fun doing it.”
