Into The Future

Peter Orum, 1941 – 2024

“It all starts with the customers.”
“Det hele starter med kunderne.”

-Peter Orum, Midwest Companies Founder

On Thursday October 17, 2024, our esteemed founder, Peter Orum, died after a four-month battle with a complex and rare form of lymphoma.  Peter’s unwavering commitment to Midwest and to our industry, and his visionary leadership, have been instrumental in establishing Midwest Groundcovers and Midwest Trading as prominent leaders in the green industry.

Since 1969, Midwest Groundcovers, has embraced quality and service by growing exceptional plants and providing outstanding service and value to our customers.

The nursery began with Peter and his wife Irma sticking cuttings in a friend’s back yard. As the company grew, Irma established and maintained the operational side of the business, assuring that customers were well-served and the company ran smoothly.

In 1981, Midwest Trading was formed as a separate sister company, providing Horticultural Supplies to the Chicagoland and greater Midwestern market.

Daughter Christa Orum-Keller, who had helped at the nursery since she was a toddler, began working full time in 1995, and today leads both Midwest Groundcovers and Midwest Trading as Chairman of the Board of Directors.  Christa’s husband Craig Keller joined the company in 1999, and today serves as Vice President & co-owner of Midwest Trading and attends to much of the financial and business infrastructure of the Midwest Companies.

By all measures, this is truly a family business.

Peter established strong professional principles and business values decades ago, and the leadership and staff of the companies continue to practice them each and every day. 

Our Midwest Values guide our daily decisions and include our commitment to:

• Relationships – with our Customers, Vendors & Employees
• People – with a focus on growth and celebration of accomplishments
• Teamwork – with a focus on service & collaboration
• Improvement – to bring value to our customers, industry & community
• Products & Services – to meet quality expectations & bring solutions
• Sustainability – to our land, economy, environment & community

Peter’s business vision was of a vital company based on sound and mutually beneficial business practices. He believed in building enduring relationships with customers, and was determined to find the best solutions to solve their challenges and bring value to their operations.

He firmly believed that Midwest’s customers deserve the best quality products at a fair price, combined with exceptional solution-based service in order to grow their own businesses and reputations. That commitment to establishing, nurturing, and maintaining long-term connections helped to fuel the growth of Midwest Groundcovers’ and Midwest Trading’s customers’ businesses, and the greater horticulture industry. 

Peter believed strongly in growth — and not only in acreage, inventory, and influence.  It was, and is important that Midwest employees — the people who develop, grow, maintain, and sell our products — are given opportunities for personal and professional growth. The company’s mission statement clearly declares that:

Our mission is to provide quality plants and services which meet the expectations of our customers in the landscape and green environment by continuing to build a quality company where employees and owners can achieve their professional and personal goals through the company.

Growing plants is an act of faith; it is trust in the future. And so is growing a company. Midwest’s goal has been to be First Choice considering product offerings, consistent quality and with a relational, problem-solving customer service focus. For 55 years, Midwest Groundcovers has been reliably delivering consistent quality plants to the customer when the customer wants and needs them.  And for over 40 years, Midwest Trading has been providing quality growing media, mulches and grower and landscape supplies, positioning itself as a First Choice vendor and industry partner.

These long-honored values and practices continue with the next generation of leadership and with the whole Midwest team.   

Both of our companies are well-positioned for, and committed to sustained long-term success.  Long-term strategic plans for the Midwest Companies and ownership transitions have been in place prior to Peter’s passing and they will guide our operations into the future – maintaining our strengths and leveraging opportunities.  Christa Orum-Keller and Craig Keller, along with the company’s outstanding employee team, are well-positioned to drive Midwest Groundcovers and Midwest Trading toward even stronger growth and vitality in the years to come.

Our commitment to excellence in products and customer service is unwavering and speaks to Peter’s constant outlook that everything we do starts with our customers. 

We remain committed to mutually beneficial, enduring relationships with vendors, industry colleagues, and our customers to meet future challenges while continuing to deliver exceptional value.

As Christa said on the occasion of the company’s 50^th anniversary, “We are driven by and determined to retain the entrepreneurial creativity that built Midwest, and which it will take to sustain us. Ingrained in our Midwest culture is a zest for learning, genuine curiosity, and a drive to explore and gather innovative ideas. We pair this with the tenacity to turn the ideas into functioning systems; this brings success and value for our customers, again and again.”

“We improve. We create solutions. We persevere and we succeed in serving you, our customers and friends.”

We are committed to strengthen our relationships and serve our customers with the same dedication and integrity that have defined our companies for more than five decades.

The Midwest Companies allow owners and employees to Bring Our Passion to work every day.  We firmly believe that we positively impact the world and people through the healing and transformation which gardening brings, and we are privileged to make that central to our work at Midwest.