Face Behind the Fertilizer: Connor McMillen

At 18 years old, Connor McMillen didn’t have much direction for his life. He had barely graduated from high school and was working at a local parts dealership, spending his days without much motivation and mostly doing the minimum to get by.

At the same time a state-of-the-art nitrogen fertilizer plant was being built in Wever, Iowa, just five miles from where Connor grew up. Connor’s older brother happened to be employed by a contractor working on the plant. He told Connor they needed more rescue technicians and suggested he apply. It paid more than the parts dealership — so it was an easy choice.

“I didn’t really have a clue what I wanted to do,” Connor said. “So, I took my brother’s advice and was hired as a high angle and confined space rope rescue technician.

“Towards the end of construction, I had to decide if I wanted to travel the country with the company I was working for or find another job close to home. I’ve lived here my entire life, and I didn’t really want to leave the area. My brother applied to be an operator at the new fertilizer plant, so I was like, ‘Oh well, I’ll just keep following him wherever he goes.’”

Following in his brother’s footsteps turned out to be a good decision yet again. In January 2017, Connor got a job as a loading and storage operator, an entry level position at the plant.

“I didn’t know anything about anything when I started,” Connor said candidly. “I was fresh out of high school, no college and super inexperienced.”

The Right Motivation Makes All the Difference

He spent a little more than a year in loading and storage before becoming an ammonia field operator. Around this time, something started to click for Connor. He began to find his niche at the plant — things he was good at and enjoyed doing. He also credits his supervisor at the time with helping to sculpt him into the person and leader he wanted to be. Whatever the combination was, it shifted Connor’s mindset from neutral to drive.

“Looking back on it now, I can see I wasn’t properly motivated,” Connor said. “Thinking back to high school even, it’s not that the work was too difficult, there was just no motivation for me to do well. When the plant became Koch Fertilizer and I started to learn about Principle Based Management™ and how I can apply it to everything I do, I was like, ‘Yep, it all makes sense to me now.’”

His role changed again less than a year later when Connor went from ammonia field operator to ammonia board operator. With a newfound enthusiasm to contribute at a high level, his approach to this role was different. His aim wasn’t just to do well — he wanted to be the best.

Leveraging that motivation, Connor dove into learning the ammonia board and a year later he was ammonia-board certified, an impressive achievement considering the intricacies of the operation.

“I want to be the most knowledgeable person about the ammonia plant,” Connor said. “That’s what drives me and helped me discover that I really enjoy the challenge of creating the most value in whatever role I’m in.

“I enjoy finding better ways to do things and thrive in environments where continuous improvement and learning are encouraged,” he continued.

While his goal is to be the go-to person for the ammonia plant, Connor knows achieving success is not a one-person job. He said it takes the entire team seeking out new knowledge from coworkers, training and hands-on experience, and then sharing that knowledge with others to support the team’s growth so everyone can contribute in meaningful ways.

“Coaching and feedback has been the foundation of my PBM journey and there’s a huge humility aspect to that,” Connor said. “If I’m doing something wrong and nobody tells me it’s wrong, I’m going to think it’s right. You have to be able to accept feedback and use it constructively to continually grow.”

Contributions, Not Credentials

As Connor continues to develop his skills and take on new challenges so he can contribute at a high level, his role keeps evolving as well. After five years as ammonia board operator, he moved to shift supervisor for a year and then to upstream unit specialist in the fall of 2025. In his current role, he maintains the reliability, production and efficiency of the upstream plants through day-to-day operation and long-term planning.

“It’s about finding work that’s both meaningful to me and valuable to the business,” Connor said. “If you are contribution motivated, the possibilities are endless. You can go as far as you want and the only person holding you back is yourself.”

If Connor could go back in time and talk to his high school self, what would he tell him?

“I would tell myself, ‘You don’t have to go to college to get a good job and make a good career. You just have to be motivated and do a good job.’

“At Koch, it doesn’t matter what your background is or what degree you have,” Connor said. “Your career journey and compensation are based on the value you create every day.”

It turns out Connor’s drive was there all along. He was just looking for the right motivation to move it into gear — something he found at Koch Fertilizer.