2026 Sustaining Sponsor Spotlight: A&L Great Lakes Laboratories

2026 Sustaining Sponsor Spotlight: A&L Great Lakes Laboratories

The Ohio AgriBusiness Association is pleased to feature our Sustaining Sponsors in the 2026 Spotlight Series. This week, the focus is on Bronze Sponsor: A&L Great Lakes Laboratories.

A&L Great Lakes Laboratories

Location (Main Headquarters): Fort Wayne, IN

Year established: 1976

Number of locations: 1

Number of employees: 38

About Your Company

A&L Great Lakes Laboratories is a locally owned laboratory providing reliable agricultural analytical services across every sector of production agriculture in Ohio. We proudly serve agricultural cooperatives, ag retailers, crop consultants, producers, horticulturalists, arborists, and both large and small property owners.

Our company provides laboratory analysis of soil, plant tissue, manure, compost, feed, fertilizer, and water for agricultural and horticultural production purposes.

What makes your company unique? At A&L Great Lakes Laboratories, we believe laboratory analysis is only the beginning. While our clients expect a lab to produce accurate, reliable analytical results-and we deliver them every day-the real value comes from what those results make possible.

We measure our success by the success of our clients. That's why we invest in relationships, responsive customer/technical support, and a commitment to helping customers understand and apply their data with confidence. As our clients grow their businesses, we grow ours-a partnership built on shared success rather than simply delivering test results.

At ALGL, we don't just generate data. We help create value from it.

Your Company Story

A&L Great Lakes Laboratories traces its roots to one of the pioneering agricultural laboratory networks in North America. Established as the third of eleven A&L Agricultural Laboratories founded by Dr. Richard Large and Don Ankerman, our laboratory was strategically located to serve the unique needs of the Eastern Corn Belt, one of the continent's most productive agricultural regions.

Throughout the 1990s, the A&L laboratory network transitioned to privately owned, independently operated businesses, allowing each location to better serve the industries and communities in its region. In 2002, A&L Great Lakes Laboratories became fully independent, building on its strong scientific foundation while developing its unique client-focused approach.

Since 1976, growth has been a consistent feature of the A&L Great Lakes Laboratories business model. Increasing sample volumes have required the adoption of new production methods, laboratory technologies, and data management systems.

The introduction of GPS technology in agriculture contributed to changes in how analytical data is processed, transferred, and integrated into client systems. At the same time, a growing emphasis in production agriculture on more efficient nutrient management has influenced the development and expansion of laboratory services.

These changes have resulted in continued adjustments to laboratory workflows, capacity, and information handling systems in order to meet evolving industry requirements.

What's next for your company? Steady growth in sample submissions to A&L Great Lakes Laboratories requires additional instrumentation, laboratory space, and staffing to support sample processing. The laboratory is in the early stages of a facility redesign that will incorporate an adjacent warehouse into its operations. This expansion is intended to improve workflow efficiency during peak seasonal periods and provide capacity for additional laboratory services.

OABA Membership

How has OABA membership benefited your company or the agribusiness industry? At A&L Great Lakes Laboratories, we recognize the economic, environmental, and social benefits associated with improved nutrient management practices. OABA's involvement in Ohio 4R-related legislation and programs has contributed to the development and implementation of nutrient management initiatives within the state. As a collective organization, OABA participates in industry discussions and policy conversations that individual members are not always able to access directly.

What is one reason you would encourage others to become an OABA member? OABA helps us stay current on public policy and provides valuable networking opportunities within Ohio agribusiness, making it easier to connect with key contacts and access relevant industry information.

Just For Fun

In 2026 ALGL is celebrating our 50th anniversary. From a small rental facility processing just one to two hundred samples a day with fully manual data processing, A&L Great Lakes Laboratories has grown over the past 50 years into a modern commercial laboratory with expanded capacity and updated systems for data handling and reporting. It's been quite a journey seeing how far the laboratory has come.

Interested in becoming a Sustaining Sponsor?

Click here to learn more about the program or contact Lauren Prettyman Brown at [email protected]. Sustaining sponsors will automatically be promoted as such at all OABA events and will not be approached for sponsorship opportunities throughout the year.

Note that because the OABA Educational Trust is a 501(c)3 charitable organization, sponsorships related to this trust are separate from OABA.