RhubarB Roots to Digital Dreams
The FBS Story of Innovation and Integrity
In the early 1980s, in the heart of rural Mercer County, Norman and Cheryl Brown founded FBS Systems in Aledo, Illinois—a small Midwestern town deeply rooted in the traditions of American agriculture. Aledo, like many towns scattered across the Midwest, is a place where neighbors know each other, local diners serve coffee with a smile, and hard work is a way of life. It’s also famously home to the annual Rhubarb Festival, a beloved event where visitors gather each June to enjoy pie, parades, and a celebration of small-town living. This atmosphere of community pride and agricultural heritage helped shape Norm’s vision. He believed that solutions built in small-town America could serve the heart of American agriculture better than anything developed in a high-rise office tower.
Norm was an early entrepreneur with a unique blend of business sense and agricultural know-how. At a time when most farms were still tracking expenses with ledger books, he recognized the potential for electronic record-keeping to revolutionize the industry. Computers were just starting to appear in rural businesses, often purchased at the local Radio Shack and powered by systems like MS-DOS. Norm saw an opportunity to help farmers gain more control over their operations through software. He taught himself programming, writing early versions of what would become the FBS platform, and laid the foundation for a company that would serve agriculture with practical, producer-driven tools.
The early years of FBS Systems were marked by both innovation and grit. Norm and Cheryl built the business from scratch, working side by side to support customers and continue improving the software. As computing evolved from DOS to Windows and beyond, many early players in farm management software disappeared. But Norm’s commitment never wavered. He stayed focused on the needs of farmers—adding new features, adapting to changing regulations, and integrating financial and production data in ways that helped producers make better, more informed decisions.
Over time, FBS Systems became more than just a tool—it became a trusted partner to thousands of farms across the country. The same small-town values that shaped Aledo helped shape FBS: hard work, honesty, and a deep respect for the land and the people who work it. Norm’s story is not just about software. It’s about a man from a small town who understood that the future of agriculture would be built not just in the fields, but also in the code. And he made sure that future started right where his roots ran deepest—in the heart of rural America.
