Tom Wheeler (L) and Bill Crocker (R) of Carolina Eastern Crocker have been serving western New York agriculture community together since 1999.
Tom Wheeler has been at the helm of Carolina Eastern-Crocker (CEC) in western New York as its general manager since it was established in 1999 as a joint effort between Bill Crocker and Carolina Eastern, based out of Charleston, South Carolina. “We run all of the operations in Western NY, and Carolina Eastern supplies us our fertilizer inputs. Both companies have been family owned for three generations as well.”
Wheeler worked with Crocker for three years before CEC came to be. “CEC has three locations currently,” said Wheeler. “Our LeRoy location was originally founded by the Crocker family in 1930 to service the local agricultural community, which is where I started at in 1996. In 2003 we expanded to Stafford, NY, which is where our central offices are now, and in 2017 we opened another facility in Pavilion, NY. We currently cover all of Western New York from the border with Lake Ontario to Pennsylvania.” CEC serves on NEAFA’s Agronomy Committee, through employee and certified commercial applicator Joe Augello.
The company provides numerous products and services to the region. “We have dry and liquid fertilizers, organic fertilizers from our Pavilion location, crop protection products, agricultural lime, gypsum, and seeds,” said Wheeler. “We also provide custom application and spraying of fertilizers, including variable rate application, and we sell fine ground corn meal among the numerous other services and products that we offer.”
Wheeler himself comes from a long agricultural background, growing up with a small registered Holstein herd and graduating from Alfred State College with a degree in Animal Science. Being there since the start of CEC in 1999, Wheeler has seen continued expansion and growth that has improved what the company has to offer its customers. “We’ve grown dramatically from our early days here at CEC,” said Wheeler. “We started as a small company that had one road tractor, one 6 wheel auger delivery truck for fertilizer, and only 2-3 trucks that first year in our original LeRoy location. Now we have 13 road tractors and 10 auger trucks, plus a number of seasonal rentals for both, over 25 trailers, delivery trucks and employ approximately forty full time and thirty seasonal staff members. We’ve grown dramatically in all aspects, from our fertilizer options and corn meal, they’ve all grown dramatically. CEC is now one of the largest Pioneer Seed dealers in the northeast.
Through it all, Wheeler has found the camaraderie of the industry to be something that he enjoys. “The people that you meet is a great part of working here,” said Wheeler. “You develop relationships and friendships with your customers while working with farmers to make their businesses better, and it’s nice to see them do well because of our help.”