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Legacy: Flegenheimer at the Helm by Terri Queck-Matzie “We’ve been in the industry for awhile, but not as long as some of the families in Loui- siana or some of the sugarbeet growers,” says Mark Flegenheimer, of the Michigan Sugar Company Flegenheimers. Mark is the third generation to sit at the helm of the company, a rarity in the sugar business. “Keep in mind we didn’t start the com- pany,” he points out, minimizing his fam- ily’s role in the company’s success. “It was started in 1906, and my grandfather and father didn’t come along until the 1960s. So, a whole lot of people were doing a whole lot of things right before my family got here.” 50 Years of Sugar They may not have been there from the beginning, but for the past 50 years, Michi- gan Sugar and the Flegenheimer family have been inexorably linked. Albert Flegenheimer left the sugar pro- cessing business in Germany just prior to World War II to emigrate to Canada. There he was instrumental in estab- lishing the Manitoba Sugar Company in Winnipeg. The plant remained open until just a few years ago, though Flegenheimer had moved on. He made a segue through the sugar business in Iowa and Wisconsin, before ending up in Saginaw, Mich., in 1963, when he bought into what was then a public company. Within a year he brought his son, Ernest, on board as president to run the company. 20 Sugar Producer June/July 2010