Opportunity Knocks: A Grain Salvage Farmer’s Remarkable Tale

Blood on the tracks. Commodity blood. Dennis Haugen stared in disbelief at a wealth of frozen vegetables, seafood, butter, flour, lead ingots, lumber, and a motley array of odds-and-ends scattered across his land. As he walked the wreckage of a derailment with 50 cars crushed accordion-style or tossed like tin cans, the fibers of a farmer’s entrepreneurial bent went rigid. Opportunity was pounding and Haugen was ready to find out who was behind the door.