Who We Are
AGRI-SEARCH is committed to serving the agricultural industry with integrity, passion, and excellence by assisting our candidates to reach their career goals and helping our client companies build successful teams.
Professional Agricultural Recruiters You Can Trust
Chelbi Williams Alt
Partner, Strategy and Growth
Growing up in Assumption, Illinois, agriculture has always been a part of everyday life for Chelbi Alt. So, it was no surprise that after graduating from Millikin University in 2006 with a degree in Business Management, she began her career in the Ag industry with GSI where she worked for the next 13 years.
Chelbi joined AGRI-SEARCH in 2019 as a professional agriculture recruiter specializing in executive searches, but it didn’t take long for her to find other ways to put her experience to work.
In January 2026, Chelbi and longtime colleague Brad Jansen became the new owners of AGRI-SEARCH, taking over the business Dave Allen had spent decades building and growing. The transition was something they had been working toward for several years, and Chelbi credits their different strengths with making the partnership work.
Chelbi believes the best recruiting relationships happen when clients see AGRI-SEARCH as part of their own team. That means taking the time to understand a business and getting to know the people who could become part of it. She wants clients to feel confident that when AGRI-SEARCH recommends a candidate, the team has done its homework.
Outside of work, Chelbi and her husband, Sheldon, live in northwest Indiana, with their three children near Sheldon’s family farm. She enjoys getting back to her hometown of Assumption whenever she can, especially when it means her children get to spend time playing with their cousins.
Nothing is more important to Chelbi than family. She and her older sister founded the Casey Williams Foundation in memory of their younger sister, and, alongside five other board members, they work to raise awareness about organ and tissue donation while supporting families navigating the donation process. It’s a cause close to her heart and another way she can continue doing something she has always enjoyed: helping people.
Brad Jansen
Partner, Strategy and Growth
As co-owner of AGRI-SEARCH, Brad is passionate about connecting great people with great companies. He thrives on solving problems, building relationships and helping organizations find the talent they need to succeed. His experience across multiple sectors of agriculture gives him a unique perspective on the challenges employers face and the opportunities available to agricultural professionals.
Brad also serves on the Board of Directors for Effingham Equity, providing valuable insight into cooperative leadership and agribusiness management. He and his wife live in central Illinois with their four children, where they remain actively involved in their community and agriculture.
Phil Zimmerman
Professional Recruiter
Phill Zimmerman has spent much of his career getting to know people and building relationships across agriculture and the industries that support it. Along the way, he’s made a lot of connections and learned a thing or two about what makes a business tick. When he joined AGRI-SEARCH as a Professional Recruiter in September 2026, working primarily in precision agriculture, equipment and ag technology, along with the oil and gas industries.
Phill grew up on a farm in eastern Indiana and went on to earn an agribusiness degree from Purdue University. He spent the first 10 years of his career with an agricultural cooperative, managing its precision agriculture program and working in fertilizer purchasing and crop protection. His next opportunity took him into the equipment business, where he helped establish a new dealership location and managed it for more than seven years. From there, Phill moved into sales in liquid flow control and automation, then on to sales management in the oil and gas industry. The work allowed him to travel throughout the Midwest and gave him the opportunity to develop relationships with people and businesses across the United States and Canada.
Phill also knows what it’s like to be on the other side of the recruiting conversation. He’s worked with recruiters when making career moves of his own and has been the employer looking for the right person to join his team. Now, as a recruiter himself, he has firsthand experience with all three sides of the applicant-recruiter-employer relationship. That experience gives him a different perspective when talking with someone who’s considering a career change. He also knows that employers need someone who can do the job and fit into the business and that experience and education can never bridge a culture and values gap.
Phill has also served on the Agribusiness Council of Indiana board and as vice president of the Indiana Food and Fuel Association board.
Phill says that one of the best parts of recruiting is helping someone find a job they can see themselves staying in for years to come. He enjoys getting to know people, hearing their stories and learning what they’re looking for in their next opportunity. And when he can help a good company find a good employee, that’s a good day!
Courtney Hiler
Administrative and Recruiting Coordinator
Courtney Hiler joined AGRI-SEARCH in September 2025 in a part-time support role, assisting the recruiting team with candidate searches, internal processes and day-to-day administrative needs.
Before joining AGRI-SEARCH, Courtney spent over 20 years in education as a public-school teacher and administrator. The transition to AGRI-SEARCH has given her the opportunity to bring her organizational skills and people-focused experience into a new industry, while continuing to learn more about agriculture and agricultural recruiting.
A lifelong resident of Assumption, Illinois, Courtney lives on her husband’s family farm with her husband, Brian, a grain farmer and farm manager, and their three children, George, Grace and Gentry. Growing up in an agricultural community and raising her family on the farm have given Courtney a strong connection to the people and communities AGRI-SEARCH serves.
Courtney especially enjoys learning about candidates and helping prepare presentations for executive searches. She values AGRI-SEARCH’s people-first approach and enjoys being part of a team focused on connecting good people with good people. As her role continues to develop, Courtney looks forward to learning more, meeting more people and finding new ways to support the AGRI-SEARCH team.
Jim Fleming
[email protected]
Jim Fleming has spent the last 25 years helping agricultural companies find the right people and helping candidates find opportunities where they can build lasting careers. Since joining AGRI-SEARCH in 2002, he has witnessed enormous changes in technology and communication, but his approach has remained rooted in relationships, trust and understanding people.
Raised near Arthur, Illinois, Jim expected his future would be on the family farm. The farm crisis of the 1980s changed that path, but his involvement in church, 4-H and FFA developed the communication skills that ultimately guided his career. A passion for agriculture and people led him into agricultural broadcasting, where he spent years covering markets, policy and the stories of rural America.
Those years behind the microphone built a network that stretched across every corner of the industry. Jim interviewed producers, agronomists, commodity leaders and agribusiness professionals, creating relationships that would later serve as the foundation for his work in recruiting.
His transition to AGRI-SEARCH came unexpectedly when Dave Allen encouraged him to consider recruiting during a period of change within agricultural media. What began as a new opportunity quickly became a career built on understanding both clients and candidates and identifying matches that would succeed for the long term.
Today, Jim continues to believe that successful recruiting is about far more than filling positions. It requires understanding company culture, recognizing potential and moving quickly when the right opportunity presents itself. After more than two decades, his commitment to connecting good people with good companies remains unchanged.
Vic Heinold
[email protected]
Vic Heinold has spent nearly 50 years working across agriculture, building experience in grain, feed, agronomy, agricultural policy and international feed ingredient markets.
Raised in Kouts, Indiana, Vic attended Purdue University before taking responsibility for his family business, Heinold Elevator and Feeds, in 1979. During his tenure, the company grew into one of the nation’s top specialty feed manufacturers and a recognized dairy premix manufacturer.
Vic’s career later took him to the Indiana State Senate, where he worked on legislation supporting agriculture and ethanol production, and to Consolidated Grain & Barge, where he led the company’s Feed Ingredient Division and developed international markets.
In 2011, Vic joined AGRI-SEARCH, bringing decades of firsthand industry experience to our recruiting team. Today, he specializes in grain, feed and nutrition, as well as management positions with state and national agricultural associations.
For Vic, recruiting has become another way to serve an industry he loves. He especially enjoys building relationships and helping good people find opportunities with good companies where they can succeed.
Vic is the proud father of 5, grandfather of 16 and great-grandfather of 10.
Dave Allen
[email protected]
As the second generation of leadership at AGRI-SEARCH, Dave Allen has epitomized a people-first, relationship-driven business model for more than 25 years, carrying on the legacy of his mentor, friend and founder of AGRI-SEARCH, Rich Connell.
After beginning his career in agronomy, Dave joined AGRI-SEARCH in 1999 under Rich’s mentorship and quickly discovered a passion for connecting good people with good companies across agriculture.
Over the past twenty five years, Dave has helped grow AGRI-SEARCH through integrity and transparency. His passion for leadership recruiting, succession planning and long-term relationship building has helped position AGRI-SEARCH as a trusted partner throughout the agricultural industry.
Today, Dave continues to support AGRI-SEARCH while helping transition the business into its next chapter alongside Brad Jansen and Chelbi Alt. Dave believes Brad and Chelbi were brought into the business at exactly the right time and is excited to watch their complementary strengths take AGRI-SEARCH to a new level while continuing the people-first culture the company was built on.
Dave remains an important part of AGRI-SEARCH today, focusing on his passions for succession planning, leadership development and building lasting business relationships across agriculture.