For Anthony Novero, biosecurity has been a part of his life for as long as he can remember. His dad managed a research sow farm for Kleen Lean Genetics in the 1980s, where showering in was a way of life before other farms adopted the practice to help keep disease out of barns.
“Biosecurity has always been part of my thought process,” says Novero, who now serves as chief technology officer at Farm Health Guardian.
Novero grew up in eastern Indiana on his family’s hog farm. When PIC moved into North America in the 1980s, they bought smaller genetics companies like Kleen Lean, which was wholly owned by Purina Mills at the time. Purina wanted to retain Novero’s dad so they moved to Omaha, Neb., where his dad worked for Purina for a number of years.
“I grew up around a lot of pigs,” he says. “But I thought I wanted to become a computer engineer. One day I realized I didn’t want to wake up and be a computer engineer, so I went back to the pork industry that I’ve always loved.”
He entered the industry as a general contractor in his early 20s and helped bring new technology into barns. After a brief exit to work on a row crop technology project, he came back and began building Novetech, a biosecurity company focused on the movement of people on farms. In June, Novetech merged with Farm Health Guardian, a business that supplies, develops and sells digital biosecurity products.
“Our two products are really fantastic together,” says Novero who lives in Fort Calhoun, Neb. “When we brought the two teams together, my role shifted to focus more on the technical side. I think Farm Health Guardian provides great customer service and great products for the customer. My job is to make it all work.”
Read on to learn more about Novero’s career in the swine industry, from his business philosophy to his outlook on the future of swine biosecurity.
Q. Tell us about your business.
A. It’s a business that the “why” is really important. We are building and developing tools to help producers know exactly what’s coming in and out of their farms. That can be trucks and trailers, employees, even manure spreaders and equipment like that. The product takes all that data and puts it into a place that they can then apply their biosecurity A. rules. That’s what makes this different. It’s not just putting a GPS tracker on a truck. We allow you to configure the system to make it fit the biosecurity rules you’re already using. We can then restrict movements based on that. We are trying to make decisions about the health of animals repeatable.
Q. What is your company’s why?
A. The number one source of loss for the swine industry is disease. Helping these guys keep their animals healthy, so that they’re more profitable is key. In addition, nobody likes to work around sick animals either. These products help producers maintain a staff that are interested and want to participate in the health of these animals, because it’s a lot nicer working in a farm when the animals are healthy and happy.
Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. I work with software developers and hardware manufacturers and customers. I go to customer sites to talk about product development whenever I can because I want to really understand what their pain points are to make sure we’re introducing features to the products that matter to them. I would say 75% of my time is spent doing computer work from my house. About 25% of my time is spent checking things out on a hog operation. I also spend a lot of time integrating the two companies together.
Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. The number one thing that I do is listen to the things that pork producers are having problems with. This product is about them, their employees and their animals. Understanding their problems and finding creative and lower-cost solutions to help solve problems is really what it comes down to.
Q. How has the business changed since you started?
A. When we started working on digital biosecurity products, it was a needed product. But what it was going to look like and how it was going to serve the customers wasn’t quite known yet. As we developed our products, we talked to customers to understand their pain points. Avian influenza and the dire threat of African swine fever (ASF) really pushed us to figure out not only how we could solve problems now, but also problems that we could deal with in the future. It went from “Yes, this is something that we need to take care of because of PRRS and PEDV,” to “Yeah, but there might be something even worse out there. So we need to push toward that.”
Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I enjoy the people I get to work with day in and day out. The pork industry is full of really good people. By and large, it’s made up of people who are all pulling in the same direction and interested in the same things. I also enjoy being able to work with customers to understand their needs and try to find innovative ways to solve those problems.
Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. For me, it’s pretty simple. Whenever my customers’ animals are healthy, I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. I just had a conversation with our customer service team. I said, “Look, as you implement these rules with your customers, there are going to be times when you don’t always know what the repercussions will be of a biosecurity decision. For example, in the case of movement between farms, if a trailer is on the fuzzy line of health status, then the answer is no. It can’t go.”
Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. I would not consider myself an old guy, I’m only 42. But I have been in the industry my whole life. If you are going to work in animal production and pork specifically, you’ve got to know that there will be times when it’s not always going to be easy. Times of consolidation and hardship are also times to find opportunity. If animal disease is one of the largest costs to a producer, what can we do that can help reduce those costs? The industry is experiencing a lot of financial difficulty now, but I think there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. People are starting to see it and are hopeful for the medium-term future. But even once those financial hardships are resolved, we’re still going to have the two big things that almost everybody talks about: foreign animal disease threats and labor shortages. Those are the two biggest problems we have and are going to continue to have even after the financial stuff is fixed.
Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. To me, the greatest opportunity is helping producers have healthier herds. This helps producers’ bottom line, but it also helps them retain employees. Working with sick pigs is not fun. Helping them have the tools to enable a sickness in one barn not to spread to an outbreak throughout all their barns or throughout a county or part of a state is an opportunity and a way to contribute back to the industry.
Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. It may look different than it does now, but we will still be looking to grasp what the pain points are for producers and how we can help them. Animal production, and pork production specifically, is one place there’s still a lot to be done. Being a part of what that revolution looks like is really interesting. We need the next set of animal husbandry experts – not just technology – who understand the animals.
Q. Who inspired you?
A. There’s a lot of people that have been a part of my journey through the pork industry. And in some way, they all inspired something. One person that really led me down the path to find myself where I’m at right now is my dad. I’m not claiming I know everything there is to know about pigs, but I do know a lot about biosecurity, and I learned most of it from him. Moving into the industry and growing in the industry all happened because of him.
Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I definitely have made mistakes and will continue to. But I’m sitting here having this conversation with you because of the combination of those things. I like what I do. I believe in what I do. I don’t believe there’s anything I would like to do over. That doesn’t mean that it was all happy or fun. I just hope I get to continue to do what I do for a while longer.
I have two teenage boys who play defense in football. I always tell them, “If you snap the ball, and you’re able to get into the backfield without anybody touching you, you’ve got a problem. Because somebody’s coming from somewhere that you can’t see. And it’s not going to feel good.” You’ve got to struggle through things and fight through that defensive line. If you just get let through, it’s not going to be good. It’s just like finding opportunity in the market today.
Q. When it comes to foreign animal disease, what keeps you up at night?
A. The transience of employees. We get employees in, we get them trained, and then they might find another job, or decide they don’t like what they’re doing. So, whatever we’ve taught them is walking out the door. What I’m continuing to work on is finding and building tools that allow a producer to expect the same biosecurity decisions are made, whether an employee has been there for a month or 10 years.
Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Spend time getting to know people and the industry. I’ve learned a lot by listening to people with different perspectives. If you just listen to one producer, you think that’s what the whole industry is. And it’s not. There are a lot of varied ideas out there of how to be successful. Get into a position where you can experience that domain knowledge and understand the industry better.
PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest. Meet Anthony Novero, chief technology officer for Farm Health Guardian.
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