Chester Inc. Chairman Emeritus Pete Peuquet shares his journey and business insights at Valpo Chamber Network at Noon

On Tuesday, February 24, Journeyman Distillery in Valparaiso invited community leaders throughout the area to connect with each other at the Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce’s Network at Noon event. The attendees were able to listen to the journey and career path of Pete Peuquet, former owner and CEO of Chester Inc.

Rex Richards, President and CEO of the Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce, considers Peuquet to be a great representation of what the Network at Noon speaker series is all about.

“The purpose of our Network at Noon is to bring community leaders in to talk about their career path and how they got from where they started to where they ended up,” Richards said. “People want to know ‘What was their career like? How did they get there?’ That’s what these are all about.”

Members from various organizations throughout the Region came together to connect over lunch and learn from Peuquet’s story.

“We got about 120 people here today,” Richards said. “It’s a great networking opportunity, and people want to learn and be inspired by a community leader like Pete.”

Peuquet shared stories throughout his journey with everyone in attendance at the Valpo Chamber Network. He shared one story about how Jim Risk, former President of the Valparaiso Chamber of Commerce, offered a proposal to him after he became the owner of Inman’s Bowling and Recreation Center. This was very incentivizing for Peuquet, who was in bowling leagues of his own at the time.

“I got a call about a proposal to provide a P.E. program for all the kids in school here at Inman’s for the next several years if I was willing to open the facility at 7:30 a.m.,” Peuquet said. “I did it, and I guaranteed him that I would open at that time. Today, Inman’s is 85 years old, and I’ve owned it for 47 years with the youth program still in effect to this day. I felt that we had an opportunity, and I appreciate his vision in order to help make the facility very successful.”

Peuquet has helped guide a transformation of Chester Inc. He started with the company in 1964, working for Orville Redenbacher and Charlie Bowman. He’s been grateful for the opportunity to work with these two leaders, as they have led him down a powerful path of leadership himself as the CEO of the company.

“Sometimes, it’s all about how you come up with different ideas,” Peuquet said. “Charlie often said, ‘Chester has always been an idea company.’ We can’t develop different products and different things that we think would be successful without these ideas. Some of them do not work. Some of them do. Even if it costs a lot of money to come up with some of the ideas and then implement them, sometimes things happen that actually become free and develop the business to be very successful.”

At the end of his presentation, Peuquet shared his belief in the direction that Chester is headed, with hope that the company can continue putting its best foot forward for the foreseeable future.

“When you look at our business today, we are now in the agricultural construction business,” Peuquet said. “We’ve been very successful in a lot of different areas, and now I’m finally turning the business over to my successors and to my three sons, just like Orville and Charlie did to me. I’m sure they’ll come up with more ideas over the years. I feel very comfortable with the success of our business and the continued success of our business, and hopefully we’ll be around for another 90 years.”

For more information on Chester Inc., you can visit chesterinc.com.