MANKATO — Two brothers who helped grow Archer Daniels Midland into an international giant also were known for sharing their wealth.
Lowell W. Andreas donated tens of millions of dollars to Mankato colleges, hospitals and other endeavors. He and his wife, Nadine, donated to a variety of groups, most notably the arts at Minnesota State University and Andreas Cancer Center. They also funded the Andreas Theatre in the Performing Arts Center and provided the naming gift for the Andreas Observatory on campus.
Lowell majored in philosophy at the University of Iowa. Nadine was born in West Liberty, Iowa, and attended the University of Minnesota, where she performed in theater productions and developed a love of the arts.
After World War II, Lowell and brother Dwayne purchased Honeymead in Mankato, growing it to the largest soybean-processing plant in the country. They sold it in the 1960s and bought a bank in the Twin Cities.
They were asked to join ADM where Lowell served as president for six years before retiring. But he remained on the board of directors and always maintained an office in the Mankato ADM plant.
In 2007, Lowell and other family members donated $7.5 million to MSU for an endowment in the name of Nadine, who died in 2005 at age 82.
“Nadine had a deep love for the arts, especially theater,” Lowell said at the time of the gift.
Lowell was 87 when he died at his Mankato home April 4, 2009.
The couple is buried in Glenwood Cemetery.
The Andreas brothers were born in Iowa.
Dwayne, who was 98 when he died in 2016, was in the public eye much morethan Lowell.
Dwayne Andreas in 1998, the year after he retired as chief executive of Archer Daniels Midland. He was then still chairman of the board of directors of the agribusiness giant.
“No farm industrialist of the 20th century navigated the world’s seats of power as easily as Mr. Andreas,” was the New York Times’ description of Dwayne for his obituary.
He had “achieved outsize stature in the White House, in Congress and among the agencies and councils of influence that are critical to an industry so mightily swayed by government authority.”
The obituary went on to say Dwayne and his company sometimes “ran afoul of those authorities. One federal investigation led to a $100 million fine in 1996 for fixing prices, a record penalty in a criminal antitrust case at the time. But more often he courted and was courted by some of the world’s most powerful political figures. During the nearly 30 years he controlled the company, he and ADM were among the most generous financiers of congressional and presidential campaigns, Democratic and Republican alike.”
The 1996 price-fixing scheme was recounted in a 2000 best-seller “The Informant” that was turned into a movie starring Matt Damon in 2009, according to Dwayne’s obituary in the Des Moines Register.
