“Sleek” is a good word to describe Erik Dean’s new cold storage building in Hector, MN. With its clean lines and brown accents, its exterior LED lights and large Schweiss Doors bifold liftstrap autolatch door finished with decorative windows, the structure offers great farm site appeal.

Dean is a part of a new generation of GPS-knowledgeable farmers across the country. He dedicated himself to this career path following college and a stint in Iraq with the Army National Guard. At that time, he farmed with his dad, Gary, until his dad retired a couple of years later. He runs the farm now with help from his cousin, Terry Dean, his dad and a neighbor, Jim Roebke. The Renville County farm produces mostly corn and soybeans, with some sweet corn and peas.

Dean's new machine shed measures 80' x 108' and features a 48' x 20' bifold liftstrap door from Schweiss Doors. The door is equipped with autolatches and has three windows measuring 48-1/4 inches by 42-1/4 inches, allowing natural daylight to brighten up the building which has no windows on the west wall.

“My neighbor, Kurt Sandgren, and I are on the township board together,” Dean says. “He has Schweiss doors and encouraged me to talk to Mike Schweiss when I was looking for a door. Mike took me all around and talked about the hydraulic doors and pointed out the benefits of the bifold door; being able to park right in front of them and the advantage of being able to open it even if there was a lot of snow. Most of the farmers around here have bifold doors. Country Wide Lumber in Hector did my building and they also told me they liked working with Schweiss Doors.”

Dean said he really appreciates the width and height of the door, which makes it easy to move his machinery in and out, and the fact the door seals well. He confesses to being amazed at the engineering that went into the door.

“Everybody told me that when they built their building, they wished they would have put in a bigger and taller door,” Dean says. “I was even debating about putting in a 22-foot-tall door, but I’m happy with the 20-foot door. The Morton shed, built in the 80s, was where we used to store the combine. It was only 16-feet and we would have to collapse everything down on the combine to get it in. Now we just drive it in.”

He said he didn’t even consider a cable lift bifold door; he likes the straps. He chose the autolatch door system because he heard from others that you never have to remember to unlatch or latch the door. Schweiss completed the install and had it up and running in less than a day.

Dean also has two rollup doors on the building for additional easy access to the building for smaller equipment. Those doors are 16 and 24 feet tall.

“My neighbors have all come up and checked out my Schweiss door,” Dean says. “I’ve got some relatives in the Twin Cities that have come and seen it and they were pretty amazed at it, too.”