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Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. When I finished my PhD, I wish I would have been more open to experiencing opportunities completely unrelated to my technical training. For a period of time, I felt like if it wasn’t genetics or statistics, I couldn’t add any value. It was like I had blinders on. A few years ago, I went back and got my MBA. I did that because I started to pick up more interest in the business and finance side of things. If I could turn the clock back, I would have done that sooner to get that exposure. As it turns out, I really enjoy finance, economics and business strategy. I probably would have tried to flip that order a bit and expose myself to other things faster.
Q. How has the business changed since you started?
A. The industry has changed a lot in the 10 years I’ve been with the company. Some common threads exist such as cost and efficiency, but I’ve learned as labor resources become scarcer in our industry, some of the subtle differences between genetic lines become more important. User friendliness of some of the lines is more important today than what I remember years ago. I think this is mainly because production systems are not getting easier to operate. Genetics can play a big role here, and that’s why predictability and repeatability of the outcomes is so important.
From an Acuity standpoint, one thing that’s changed is the customer base. When you have just one customer, you look at things with that set of lenses very closely. The early work we did within Acuity was focused primarily on The Maschhoffs. The growth you gain with outside customers brings perspective on other elements in the industry that we may not have been exposed to as directly as what we are now. There’s a level of understanding and shifting the business to meet the needs of people other than just The Maschhoffs that we’ve had to grow and evolve on relatively quickly. Those learnings have made us better, and we plan to stay on that trajectory. We’re better as a business today than we were yesterday, just because of that added perspective. As long as we continue to make the customer the No. 1 priority, and treat them like partners, Acuity will evolve and grow as a result.
Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. It’s a partnership, not just a product. Our benchmark is our partners’ success. Ultimately, that’s the core of the entire business philosophy. That’s how we deliver our core competency centered on harvesting value from genetic resources. Our goal is to combine that approach with evolving business processes and an investment strategy to incorporate a portfolio of technologies aimed at delivering viable genetic solutions.
Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. Specific to Acuity, it will shift and evolve as its partnership base evolves. I think there are some changes occurring in how pork production is formatted, both domestically and globally, and Acuity can support these shifts. This ranges from livability and disease pressures to how we create an animal that thrives in an environment set up for group sow housing and other production formats coming our way. We can watch some of our counterparts in Europe and learn a lot from how they’ve evolved. As a U.S.-based company, we need to not only be competitive domestically, but set our partnership base up to be successful as the global industry changes. Acuity will be a vastly different business in 20 years, but I’m not so arrogant to say I know exactly what those changes will take place. All I can tell you is the headwinds and tailwinds of the industry are going to change the shape of the global industry and Acuity has to be part of the solution. If we can do that, then the growth outcomes are just a matter of us making sure we can pace that growth in the right way where we don’t overextend ourselves.
Q. How do you think COVID-19 will impact the future of the pork industry?
A. I believe COVID-19 opened some doors to different dimensions of innovation that we haven’t thought of before. It just happens with necessity. Some innovations are going to work. Some of them are not. But it’s going to change the course of how we apply technology in our business, and open doors we probably thought were too challenging to open before.
Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Find a way to stay curious, and continuously explore it. If you want to be involved in business leadership in the innovation or technology space, there’s a level of curiosity you have to make sure remains part of who you are and what you do.
Read more from Farm Journal’s PORK:
PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Mark Hayden
PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Mark Bienhoff
PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Steve Weiss
PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Kerry Keffaber
PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Dari Brown
PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest. Opinions expressed in this column are the opinions of Clint Schwab and do not represent the opinions of Farm Journal’s PORK. Watch for future columns featuring advice and insights from more of the pork industry’s leaders.
