Michigan Sugar Company President and CEO Neil Juhnke is a native of North Dakota and joined Michigan Sugar in April 2023, continuing a career in the agribusiness sector that stretches back to 1990 when he went to work for American Crystal Sugar Company in Moorhead, Minnesota. He spent 15 years there working his way up to become Ag Operations Manager, at which time he was responsible for the harvest, storage, and transportation of the company’s sugarbeet crop and served on the company’s Executive Operating Committee.

After leaving American Crystal in 2005, Neil was instrumental in the founding and development of Northstar Agri Industries, where he led the development and construction of a successful canola processing and refining plant near Hallock, Minnesota. He later became President and Chief Operating Officer, overseeing the processing of more than 400,000 tons of canola seed annually into canola oil and canola meal.

More recently, Neil served as Vice President of Manufacturing and Operations for Fargo, North Dakota-based Red River Commodities Inc., a food processing company, with four divisions – including the well-known SunButter LLC – and seven factories spread across Kansas, North Dakota, and Texas. During his time there, he led a strategic operations initiative, improving the company’s safety, capital deployment, plant maintenance, and production management processes.

Since joining Michigan Sugar, Neil has been focused on resetting the company’s foundation and putting it on a path for future success. That has included bringing several new faces to the company’s leadership team, raising the bar for excellence in factory operations, establishing new high standards for sugarbeet harvest and permanent piling, and overseeing the completion of Michigan Sugar’s molasses desugarization facility that came online May 20, 2024, in Bay City.

Neil and his wife Heidi have four adult children – Aaron, David, Daniel, and Hannah – as well as six grandchildren.