FARM MART DISTRIBUTOR, CISCO, HELPS MIDWESTERN RETAILERS REBUILD

July 1, 2008 - Many customers of The Cisco Companies, a FARM MART Distributor based in Indianapolis, Indiana, have been hit quite hard by the Midwestern floods and tornados. And Cisco is doing its part to help them rebuild.

According to Don Robison, vice president of sales for The Cisco Companies, when much of south central and southern Indiana was hit by huge amounts of rain on June 6 and 7 many of the company’s customers were impacted. Just one week earlier a series of tornadoes hit southern Indiana.  The impact to Cisco’s customers has been significant.

As Robison said, “The downtown area of Franklin, Indiana was in three feet of water and where there were small creeks there are now rivers. Four bridges are gone.” Damage was also significant in the towns of Martinsville, Mooresville, Columbus, Seymour and Medora. One of Robison’s customers used a basement that was in 12 feet of water, for backup stock of retail products for the store.   The customer was only able to salvage a small amount of this product.  The large grain bins have to be removed as the flash flooding damaged the concrete footings, making the structures, which are over 100 feet tall, unstable.

Also, customers are hard hit because they have to honor prices and their costs have gone up significantly in the agricultural commodity market. “They have to buy corn at now over $7 a bushel and sell it at $4 to fill their contracts.”

Cisco’s hardest-hit customers are in Martinsville, Medora, Mooresville and Columbus Indiana and have sustained losses in excess of $2.5 million.

Cisco has put together a program to help long-term customers rebuild and stay in business, including 90-day terms, elimination of fuel surcharges and offering substantial discounts.

“It’s the right thing to do.  We are giving back to customers that have supported us,” Robison said. “We want them to survive.” According to Robison, Cisco’s biggest challenge right now is working with vendors who are trying to raise prices retroactively on products such as fertilizer, steel and commercial chemicals.  As a company, Cisco had an all time record high sales and through the end of May, 2008 the company is up 18 percent.

NOTE:  Photos available upon request.  Don Robison has photos that show the devastation in the area caused by floods and tornados.

	Above: The flooded parking lot in front of the Oren Wright Building in Franklin, Indiana. Only four cars were visible; many were completely submerged.  The building was flooded with 7 feet of water. The Oren Wright Building houses several Johnson County offices, including the prosecutor’s office and the county’s electronic voting system.

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The CISCO Companies, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, is a wholesale distributor of lawn & garden, seed, feed ingredients and farm supplies. CISCO joined PRO Group when PRO Group acquired the UADA Group and is a member of the GardenMaster and FARM-MART groups. CISCO serves independent businesses in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania as well as the Caribbean Islands of Trinidad and Tobago.

Headquartered in Denver, PRO Group, Inc. www.pro-group.com www.pro-group.com is a merchandising and marketing organization with purchasing power exceeding $3 billion through its 40 Member Distributors.

For More Information Contact:
Shari Kalbach, PRO Group, Inc. 

(303) 792-3000

shari.kalbach@pro-group.com

Or

Don Robison, The Cisco Companies

(317) 357-7013

donrobison@ciscoseeds.com

Or

Additional media contact:
Ruth Furman, ImageWords

(702) 255-8288

ruth@ruthfurman.com