Western Iowan blends Spanish, rural cultures for John Deere

Carlos Arguello shows a John Deere tractor at the recent Farm Progress Show in Boone.

Carlos Arguello is blending his rural Iowa upbringing with a rich Latino lineage to help an icon of American agriculture move further into emerging markets.

Arguello, 24, a 2002 Carroll High School graduate who went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa, has been a highly successful John Deere sales representative for about a year.

A native of Nicaragua, Arguello, grew up in agriculturally dominated western Iowa. He speaks the cultural tongue of this region of the nation as well as the actual language of his homeland, Spanish.

“Anyone who knows a second language, regardless of whatever that second language is, has a whole new world of opportunities,” Arguello said.

At the recent Farm Progress Show in Boone, Arguello  showed Deere tractor features to Iowa farmers, using the colloquialisms of the area. Just moments later he was speaking with South Americans in fluent Spanish about the same machines.

It’s a skill that has earned Arguello attention from Deere officials.

“Having people like Carlos who can speak a second language is a big advantage,” said Eduardo Alfaro, a marketing representative for a Mexican division of Deere.

Alfaro, who was in Boone for the Farm Progress Show, said Arguello was instrumental in working with customers there who flew in from Argentina.

“It’s necessary to have people who speak Spanish to give better service to them,” Alfaro said.

Marketing representative Charlie Anderson, a Waterloo-area farmer who has worked with the company for nearly 40 years, said Arguello is helping the company with a goal of maintaining strong domestic sales and growing internationally.

The two men team up for sales programs, and it works well, says Anderson.

“John Deere builds and sells products worldwide,” Anderson said. “There are no walls.”

Anderson said Deere believes Arguello is someone to watch with the company.

“He might be president of John Deere someday,” Anderson said.

Arguello, now based in Lenexa, Kan., has traveled extensively in the United States for John Deere. And he was in Canada in recent weeks. Arguello said it is likely he’ll be in Mexico and other Spanish-speaking nations soon.

He said John Deere understands fully that it is in an international marketplace.

“I think John Deere is a very diversity-driven company, no matter if it is toward the Hispanic community, the African-American culture, the Asian culture,” Arguello said.

Arguello is one of those young people seemingly perfectly suited for an emerging new era in Iowa, the intersection of business and demographic shifts.

Having come to the United States at age 7 he is a fully acculturated American, with a degree in marketing and real estate from UNI. He maintains a deep understanding, and love, of his Spanish culture. It’s a powerful one-two punch for a self-described entrepreneur.

At age 14, Arguello started his own translation business, Caal Translation Services, that he continued to run at UNI and still maintains to this day.

His father, Juan Carlos Arguello, is a surgeon in Nicaragua and his mother, Lorena Lopez of Carroll, is the founding editor of La Prensa, a western Iowa Spanish-language newspaper. Carlos helped his mother establish the newspaper while he was in college and takes great pride in its growing reputation as an advocate for the Latino community.