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20 Potato Grower | APRIL 2014 the late Muriel siebert, the first woman to own a seat on the new York stock exchange, once explained her strategy for overcoming obstacles thus: "I put my head down and charge." In many ways, it can be said that the sackett family of Mecosta, Mich., has taken siebert's model and made it their own. "I guess I don't know what's made us succeed for so long," says fifth-generation potato grower Brian sackett. "We just do our job. We work hard and take pride in what we're doing." And what the sacketts do best is grow potatoes. the name sackett has been synonymous with potatoes in central Michigan for a long time. A five-generation legacy means a lot of potatoes and a lot of sacketts. In 1987, Alan sackett, then a partner on the original sackett home farm with his brothers, realized the arrangement simply wasn't going to work out going forward. so he moved 30 miles to the north and—with his sons Brian and Jeff— leased a farm with 1,200 acres of irrigated land and good storage facilities. that first growing season saw about 400 acres of potatoes harvested. since then, the sacketts have bought the farm and increased its size to nearly 7,000 acres. Over half of that—around 3,500 acres in a given year—is dedicated to potatoes bound for the chip market, primarily Atlantics and snowdens, along with several Frito-Lay varieties. The Sacketts' storage capacity has also grown considerably, from 90,000 cwt. to over 1 million cwt. today. Along with their potato operation, sackett Potatoes also grows feed corn for local ethanol plants and seed corn for Pioneer. As if everything in Michigan weren't enough to keep them busy, in 2012 the sacketts also took over operation of a 1,300-acre potato grower of the Month By Tyrell Marchant I Photos courtesy Sackett Potatoes Brian Sackett is carrying on a five-generation family legacy of growing quality potatoes in central Michigan.