Our Personnel

MONTE VAN KOOTEN
Broker / Owner

Now in his 30th year of the farm real estate business having first received his real estate license in 1980. He has handled transactions from $100,000 to over $8 Million in 18 different Illinois Counties. Some of the recent transactions he has handled include the following:

1,427 Acres-Winnebago County
640 Acres-Macon County/Christian County
900 Acres-McDonough County
1,450 Acres in Whiteside County
1,176 acres in Whiteside County
476 Acres in LaSalle County
313 Acres in Bureau County
410 Acres "Estate" sale in Whiteside County

Some of the customers and clients Monte has worked with over the years include the following:

Tom Reynolds-Vice President, Trust Officer-
Amcore Bank
Randy Gittleson, Gittleson Farms, Franklin Grove, IL
Judge Edward Keefe, Retd., Rock Island, IL
Dan Nafziger, Director of Agri-Business - AEGON USA
Dale Gullicksen, Farm Manager - New Lenox, IL
Steve Glascock-Babson Farms, Inc.

JAMES ANDERSON
Broker / Owner

Born in 1947, Jim was raised on a farm in northern Illinois. His formal education began in a one room country school in Hahnaman township. For those of you not familiar with country schools, all 8 grades were in one room with one teacher. Jim had only one other in his class. His older brother and sister in addition to twenty or so neighborhood kids made up the entire school.

Jim completed his grammar school education in the newly consolidated unit school built in Deer Grove - 4 rooms - 4 teachers. His high school class averaged twenty five, thus allowing him the opportunity to be as active as he desired. For Jim, that meant, playing all sports, all plays, vocal music, 4 H and church M Y F. His parents strongly encouraged him to never say no to getting involved.

In1965 after graduating from Tampico High School, he enrolled in Northern Illinois University located in DeKalb as part of over 5000 entering Freshman. College years seemed to fly by quickly concluding with a bachelors of science degree in Mathematics. From there Jim took employment in the Chadwick school system where he taught both math and science to junior high and high school students. He coached several sports eventually leading to the athletic director and assistant principal position.

He left education in 1979 to enter into an ag retail position. Jim owned and operated this business from 1979 to1996 when he sold it to Terra Industries. He managed the business for them until the fall of 1998 at which time he went back to school to pass the qualifications for real estate sales which he began in January of 1999.