Albaugh gives back, dedicates mural to St. Joseph

By Jenna Wilson

Albaugh LLC hosted its 45th Anniversary and Sky Bridge Dedication Ceremony to celebrate the success of the company and the newly added mural overlooking the expressway.

Owner Dennis Albaugh founded the private company in 1979 and purchased the St. Joseph property in 1992. It has since become the largest American-based manufacturer and formulator of off-patent agricultural crop protection products.

“It just kept growing and growing and I’m extremely happy today with where we’re at in business,” Albaugh said. “We have over 2,600 employees around the world, and I couldn’t be happier with the people that I’ve hired.”

Albaugh talked about his inspiration to collaborate with painter Sam Welty to make the bridge overlooking the Stockyards Expressway a gift to the community.

“The City of St. Joe has been unbelievably helpful to work with, but we needed to keep growing,” Albaugh said. “We needed to get our goods from one side of the road to the other and the city was generous enough to let us put a tunnel across the road and we decided, ‘Let’s do a mural.’ The City of St. Joe has been so good to us and maybe this company can give back to the people in it.”

The mural illustrates the agricultural history of the old stockyard facility in St. Joseph with unique designs on both sides.

Albaugh said effort from the City of St. Joseph to work with other industries and help them grow is why they decided to give back in a lavish way.

“They want industries to grow that are here and they’ve been very thankful,” he said. “They helped us through the COVID years when we needed to make products even though COVID was a bad thing happening at the time. All the way along, they helped us so it’s a give back to the City of Saint Joe.”