Terry Pickett, Raytown South High School, Class of 1971
Terry Pickett graduated from Raytown South High in 1971. He graduated from William Jewell College in 1975 with degrees in Physics, Mathematics, and Business Administration and received a master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Missouri, Rolla.
Terry began his career at John Deere in 1977, when he joined the Electronic Systems group at the John Deere Product Engineering Center (PEC) in Waterloo, Iowa. His initial work included designing electronic hardware, embedded software and control systems, and soon advanced into development team leadership roles in the PEC Electronic Systems organization.
He was appointed to Manager of Engineering for the newly formed Precision Farming Group in Moline, Illinois in 1993 and later appointed to Manager of Advanced Engineering in 2000 as Agricultural Management Solutions was formed.
He has led, mentored, and facilitated innovation teams across the enterprise and has developed talent expansively both in his organization and across all regions. Terry led the development of John Deere’s StarFire system, referred to as “The Steel Plow of the 21st Century,” by the curator of the Smithsonian museum.
The team developed technology that had never been done before that time.
He currently holds over 50 patents, and he has participated with the ASABE and the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) off-road vehicle standard committees in their work on electronic environmental standards. He has authored and presented at technical society meetings in the United States, Canada, Brazil, Germany, and China on Advanced Electronic Control Systems, Precision Agriculture Systems, and the future of Precision Agriculture. In 2015, Terry was named a John Deere Fellow, and is now serving as chairman of that organization.
Terry and his wife of 42 years, Jill, currently live in Waukee, Iowa. She is a Master Gardner, Quilter, and volunteers for many organizations. They have a daughter, Valerie, a Registered Nurse and Surgical Nurse Practitioner (PhD) in Wichita, KS and two sons - Gerry is a pastor (Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological University) and IT specialist (BS in Information Systems from Iowa State) living with his wife and daughter in Kansas City, MO, and Dan is a surgeon in St. Cloud, MN.
