Firefighters are trained to rescue people from dangerous situations, extinguish fires and provide care. They learn how to deliver hard news and handle dire situations. For Lance Dunbar of Berwick, Ill., there are many similarities between his career as director of production for Professional Swine Management and his role as a firefighter.
“It’s all about doing the right thing,” he says. “If you do the right thing every day, you’ll be successful.”
It’s that courage — doing the right thing even when it’s hard — that makes Dunbar a barn hero in the eyes of the people he works with and interacts with every day on the farm.
Working His Way Up
Although there is something to be said about education, a lot can be said about experience, especially on the farm. Dunbar oversees 36 sites and five boar studs in his role today. But some of the most valuable lessons he’s learned in life started years ago growing up on a diversified livestock farm in Illinois with pigs raised outside.
“I’ve always had a passion for the pork industry and wanted to be a part of it,” Dunbar says. “I love pigs and can’t imagine doing anything else.”
That passion is evident by the roles he’s taken on over the years. In high school, he was a farrowing manager on a small 800-sow farrow-to-finish farm. A few years later, he became the assistant manager on an 800-farrow-to-finish operation before becoming the manager in 1993. He remained with that farm until early 2002 when it closed after the owners sold their farm ground. He applied with Carthage in 2002 and became a farm manager of one of their multiplication farms.
Within a few years of making the move to Carthage, his farm was named Farm of the Year three times, and he was named Manager of the Year before moving into new roles in the company.
“I have worked my way up in this industry,” Dunbar says. “I’ve power washed, tagged piglets at birth and sleeved sows as a farm manager on a small farm.”
He appreciates his experiences working on smaller farms because he was able to do a little bit of everything, he says. Now, as a director of production, he’s still involved in many of those processes, especially training.
Spending time with his teams on the farm is critical for everyone to be able to do their best work.
“I go into the farms often to look at the processes being done,” he says. “I like to walk through with the farm leaders and ask questions. Often those answers allow me to strategize how I can help them get better. I often say, ‘I can tell you this because I’ve messed it up.’ Maybe I don’t say it in those exact words, but I’ve sure made mistakes.”
Mandy Dutton, senior production manager for Professional Swine Management, says that’s one of Dunbar’s leadership qualities she admires most.
“He’s very up front,” she says. “His ability to go into a farm and work side by side with others is incredible. He’s not above anyone on the farm and people respect that about him.”
Don’t Leave it to Chance
His honesty and transparency are greatly valued, Dutton explains. He’s honest about what he sees in the barn and what he needs to see. His team values his positive and constructive criticism.
“He’s very invested and passionate. When you hear him talk and see him at a farm manager meeting, you might think he’s a little wound up, but he’s not. He’s just very passionate and loves what he does,” Dutton says. “He’s a senior leader who rolls up his sleeves, gets in and gets dirty. He can outwork any of us at the end of the day.”
Dunbar says he wants his team to fully understand the processes being laid out. Sometimes that means showing them how or helping them figure out a better way.
“Years ago, every person who worked on a pig farm was a farm kid. Today, that’s not the case,” Dunbar explains. “There’s a broader range of training involved to get new employees up to speed. It requires more patience and certifications.”
One of the things Dunbar has helped implement is a training and onboarding program in the Carthage system. Every employee is taught the same thing regardless of their prior experience. From animal welfare for piglets to using a fire extinguisher and from animal handling to understanding the flight zones of pigs, employees go through a detailed onboarding process before they are allowed to go on a farm.
“It’s really helped us get employees onboarded and continue to develop them. I think it takes more time to get employees up to speed to do the right thing on a daily basis now than what it did 20 years ago,” Dunbar says.
That’s why he doesn’t leave it to chance that employees are equipped with basic skills. When it comes time to find caregivers, the bar is set high.
“A good caregiver is compassionate and willing to go the extra mile to say, ‘These animals didn’t look right to me,’” he says. “They are good communicators and have follow-up skills to go back and treat animals.”
Environment, water and feed are essential to providing good animal care, but the efforts don’t stop there.
“We do everything we can to make the animals comfortable and to raise animals that are very easy to work around,” Dunbar says. “When you walk down a farrowing barn hallway, and sows walk past you heading into a room, we want our sows to never turn around or be scared to walk by people. The animals should have no flight zone around our folks. We want the sows to know people will never harm them.”
He believes this is part of the story the pork industry needs to tell better.
“There is a misconception by some people that we put our animals in cages and don’t care about them,” Dunbar says. “Our company has zero tolerance for neglect or willful abuse to animals. We will terminate people who are mean to animals. We do as much as we can to help employees understand it’s all about creating the best environment for pigs and treating them in a humane manner all the time.”
What Does Success Look Like?
In Dunbar’s mind, success on the farm isn’t all that complicated.
“Success looks like happy and healthy employees; it’s low turnover and low incidence of accidents,” he says. “Ultimately, it’s getting farms to be productive, raising healthy piglets, and putting out a product that the customers and owners are happy with.”
He believes this starts by creating a positive culture where employees feel informed, empowered and recognized.
“We make sure to acknowledge when people are doing awesome things,” Dunbar says. “When farms are extremely productive and well managed, how can we learn from that?”
They prioritize developing the next managers from within the company. For example, last year, they had 10 internal promotions from heads of departments to managers.
“We keep pushing the system to grow within,” he says. “They already know the SOPs and the people, and then when they become farm managers, everyone sees that and thinks, ‘Wow, this guy was an HOD and now he’s a manager of a $20-million operation.’ It’s inspiring.”
Personally, watching people achieve success is the most rewarding part of Dunbar’s job. Over the years, he’s watched several employees who are now farm managers start out as technicians and move up the chain into leadership roles.
“It’s super fun to watch those folks grow into the next generation of leaders,” Dunbar says. “When I retire, I know there are talented folks in the system who will take my place.”
Manage Chaos
When you have over 170,000 sows and five boar studs and many truck washes to oversee, there are a lot of moving parts. Staying on top of all the moving parts can be a challenge.
“You need to have great communication about your team’s needs and challenges. It doesn’t take very long to get behind or out of the loop,” he says. “You have to be able to manage chaos. Unfortunately, sometimes it feels like you’re just putting fires out. It never shuts off. The wheels are always turning even when you think you’re off. It’s a full-time-and-a-half job.”
But it’s worth it, Dunbar says.
“You get to meet a lot of great people,” he says. “You can learn something new every day in this career but be prepared to work really hard at it.”
He couldn’t do what he does without the support of his wife, Michelle, and his kids: Landon, Livia and Wyatt. His family knows that the job never stops and some days he will have to deal with a trailer rollover until the wee hours of the night or unexpectedly run to a barn in Missouri that’s having a health issue.
“When we got married, I was just a farm manager, so my wife has watched my career continue to develop and blossom over the years,” he says.
Dunbar also serves as the assistant chief of first responders and station fire chief in Berwick. He recently started a junior firefighters program, introducing young people into the fire service. His son, Wyatt, was one of the first to go through the program.
A Real-Life Hero
Being a firefighter is a lot like Dunbar’s day job for Professional Swine Management. It requires great sacrifice and commitment to do it right.
Dutton believes her mentor and boss, Dunbar, defines a barn hero.
“He goes into a barn and knows what he is going in for,” she says. “He’s looked at the records, knows where we need to get better and focuses on that. He involves the whole team. He is part of the process to fix anything that needs fixed and follows up on that. That makes him a barn hero to me.”
When it comes down to it, what makes Dunbar unique is ownership.
“For me, the job doesn’t end at 3 p.m.,” he says. “For example, if you have an alarm call, you go verify and make sure the pigs in your building are good, regardless of the time of day or night. I believe it’s important to treat people and the pigs like they are yours. I always manage the business like it’s my money going into it. A lot of things feed into ownership — it’s also owning how you want to be managed and treated yourself.”
One of the most telling characteristics of Dunbar’s leadership is that he answers his phone when his team calls. Dutton says that means a lot in this business to get a call back every time from your boss.
“I am extremely humbled to be named a barn hero,” Dunbar says. “I always try to do the right thing in the industry, work hard and develop folks along the way.”
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