Howard Dahl will receive honorary doctorate at commencement Saturday
On Saturday, May 15, internationally known businessman, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Howard Dahl will be able to add “Doctor of Letters” to his long list of accomplishments. A 1971 graduate from the University of North Dakota, Dahl will receive the honorary degree from his Alma Mater at the Spring Commencement, starting at 1:30 p.m. in the Alerus Center. He will join the ranks of more than 200 recipients, including President John F. Kennedy, famed heart surgeon Michael DeBakey, philosopher Mortimer Adler, and basketball legend and UND alum Phil Jackson.
UND President Robert O. Kelley will preside over the ceremonies, which will include an commencement address from U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano. About 1,600 students, including law and medical in separate events, are eligible to cross the stage. UND annually graduates a total of about 2,700 students in ceremonies in May, August, and December.
UND will also award its highest honor for faculty—the Chester Fritz Distinguished Professorship—to Holly Brown-Borg, associate professor, UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences Department of Pharmacology, Physiology, and Therapeutics; Birgit Hans, professor and chair, UND Department of Indian Studies; and Mary Ann Sens, professor and chair, UND School of Medicine and Health Sciences Dept. of Pathology.
Howard Dahl
Howard Dahl is the founder and entrepreneur leader behind Amity Technology, a leading manufacturer and exporter of sugar beet equipment in the world based out of Fargo, N.D. Several national magazine articles have been written about Dahl and his exporting business and he has received national recognition for his entrepreneur acumen. He has served UND as a leader on the UND Foundation board and the Center for Innovation Foundation board, as a benefactor, a lecturer and frequent guest on campus. He is a prestigious UND alumnus, but he is much more than a successful business and community leader. Dahl is also a social entrepreneur who has a significant impact on agricultural development in the Former Soviet Union.
Dahl was born in Grand Forks, and grew up in Gwinner, N.D., a member of the third-generation of hard-working manufacturing entrepreneurs and innovators. He graduated from UND in 1971 with a BS in Business Administration. Upon graduation, he joined the staff of Campus Crusade for Christ at the University of Georgia where he met and married his wife, Ann, in 1972. He and Ann then led the ministry at the University of Florida for three years.
During the summer of 1974, Howard’s father, Gene Dahl, arranged for Howard and Ann to live in Vienna and travel in and out of Hungary to help develop a joint venture with the government to manufacture Steiger Tractors in Hungary and to have the Raba works of Hungary build tractor wheel axles to be shipped to the Steiger factory in Fargo. The cold war culture made a profound impression upon Dahl, who comments “At the time, what struck me about the other side of the iron curtain was the grayness of the place. Homes and businesses were in disrepair and the people were mistrustful of almost everything.”
The Dahls returned to Florida but one year later they relocated to Chicago. He worked for International Harvester in marketing research while earning an MA in Philosophy of Religion Magna Cum Laude from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, now Trinity International University. While at Trinity he was Editor of the Trinity Journal, and received the Trinity Faculty Scholarship award. In 2008 the Trinity Alumni Association awarded him the 2008 Alumnus of the Year in recognition of his stellar accomplishments.
After Dahl received his MA in 1977 he and Ann returned to North Dakota. Dahl taught English at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., while just six years out of UND he and his younger brother, Brian Dahl, launched their own company, Concord, Inc., with the financial backing of their father. The vision for Concord was born during Howard Dahl’s summer abroad as well as during his work at International Harvester. The Dahls sought to build a simple, low cost tractor to help alleviate poverty and famine in the developing world, blazing a trail in social entrepreneurship. However two years into the venture it was determined that the idea was not economically feasible so they shifted their attention to building planting and seeding equipment – all this during a farm recession worldwide.
The company grew, during a severe world-wide farm crisis, and Concord eventually became the market leader in pneumatic seeding equipment used to plant wheat and soybeans. Concord was advancing no-till farming methods and technology in the mid-1980s when other farm equipment companies were standing still. Eugene, Howard and Brian Dahl sold the company to Case Corporation in 1996 but retained ownership of some specialized equipment lines including sugar beet harvesters.
Their second entrepreneur venture, Amity Technology, was formed to manufacture sugar beet harvesters and market Concord’s Air Drill seeding equipment in Russia and China. Amity soon became the leading manufacturer in sugar beet harvesting equipment in the United States, and began shipping equipment into the countries of the former Soviet Union. In 1997, Howard Dahl received the North Dakota Business Innovator of the Year Award for Concord’s accomplishments of being the first to manufacture an air drill with row-by-row packing and precision depth control, the first to put down fertilizer below the seed at the same time as planting, and the first to build a machine that changed seeding and fertilizing rates on the go. The Concord Air Seeder’s features became the model for many other company’s designs. Dahl is a proven innovator of farm equipment and farming methods, making a significant difference in agriculture worldwide.
Howard Dahl found an innovative way to help people in emerging market economies by participating in and improving the agricultural sector in those nations. His first sale to Russia had occurred in 1991 after Perestroika opened up the nation for trade. Through the next decade, amidst economic turmoil in Russia and the surrounding nations, Dahl continued to grow his business there. Since 1991, Concord and then Amity have made more than $150 million in sales in the region; Amity is now the worldwide leader in sugar beet harvesting equipment. In 2005, Amity was named the Fargo Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year and in 2006 to become the first North Dakota company to be named the U.S. SBA’s Region VII Exporter of the Year. (6-state region including Colorado and Utah). That same year, Dahl received the Greater North Dakota Association’s (now the North Dakota Chamber of Commerce) GNDA Agricultural Award for significant contributions to and impact upon the agricultural industry.
Howard Dahl was among the first American entrepreneurs to do business in and around Moscow in 1992, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Seventeen years and two currency crises later, Amity Technology is thriving. Exports to Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, northern China, and Azerbaijan accounted for $30 million in sales in 2007, about 40 percent of revenue at Amity and its two sister companies. Dahl has found doing business in the former Soviet Union to be intellectually exhilarating and spiritually rewarding. He was in Kiev during Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, for example, and serves on the board of the first Western-style Christian liberal arts college in Moscow, the Russian American Institute. The school has been very instrumental in building bridges with the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Halarion has become a good friend of the school. Through it all, Dahl has developed an abiding affection for the people of these countries, especially the farmers.
Amity Technology has machinery manufacturing plants in Wahpeton, Wishek and Fargo. Almost half of the 270 jobs at his North Dakota factories depend upon the sales to the former Soviet Union states. Their beet harvesting machines destined for Eastern Europe are festooned with Russian-language decals, and a serial number plate emblazoned with “Made in Fargo, North Dakota, USA.” To cut costs for his overseas customers, Amity went back to the drawing board and engineered the company’s beet harvesters so they can be taken apart to fit in standard shipping containers. Amity has built its export business sending company officials to Russia and neighboring countries about 200 times to develop strong business relationships. Howard has made 75 of those overseas trips personally since 1992, including more than 50 to Russia and former Russian states. He is perhaps North Dakota’s most accomplished exporter, and he is having an impact on farming and farming methods worldwide.
Howard and Ann Dahl have three children and one granddaughter and live in Fargo.
