Yantis Yarns:
Ritchie Waterers Span Generations of Farmers & Ranchers

Celebrating 100 years of business is a special milestone that is rarely achieved in today’s manufacturing environment. Former Ritchie CEO Leon Yantis recently reflected on the long history of success at Ritchie.

“You can’t talk about 100 years of Ritchie without mentioning all the people that have made this success possible,” said Yantis. “The pride and work ethic of our employees to produce a superior product – everyone from the CEO to the janitor – is proud of the products Ritchie produces.

Our commitment to making a great product is part of our core values. We wanted to push innovation and be leaders in the industry. There are Ritchie waterers that were made in the 1960’s that still perform well and you can still get parts for to this day. When you design and engineer a product you want to produce the best, nothing mediocre.  I don’t think that our engineers ever really started designing a unit thinking it would last over 30 years, the units just did because every effort was made to eliminate any bugs or design flaws before the unit went into production. The durability and reliability are the by-product of Ritchie’s commitment to making a great product. This in turn makes our customers extremely loyal to the brand.

In 2018 I heard about an old Ritchie waterer that was manufactured in the 1950’s that is still in use today. A young farmer had contacted our distributor in Missouri to get some replacement parts. It turns out that he was rebuilding the waterer instead of replacing it because he wanted to keep his grandpa’s Ritchie waterer. That waterer represented a connection to his family’s heritage and I thought that was really special.”