When the late Kendal Thompson walked into a room, everyone took notice. It was hard to miss his 6’9” frame, but it was even harder to miss his heart for people, says Mike Hemann, CEO and president of DPI Global from Carlinville, Ill.
“A lot of people have served as mentors to me in my career, but Kendal is at the top of the list. We lost him way too soon,” Hemann says. “It is unbelievable how many family farms were successful because of him and touched by his expertise. Many of those farms could not have survived challenging times or thrived to be the operations that they are today without his guidance and wisdom.”
In April 2021, Hemann took on a technical sales role with DPI Global with the intent of transitioning into the role he holds today. Unfortunately, that transition happened earlier than anyone wanted when Thompson suffered a heart attack in June 2022.
“Kendal had a way of connecting with every person he met,” Hemann says. “It didn’t matter if they were the gas station clerk or the CEO of a major pork operation, Kendal treated everybody like they were important. And people felt it.”
Hemann says that principle guides his actions every day. “When I wake up the first thing on my mind is, “How can I make a difference in somebody’s life? How can I impact someone’s day and be that gentle giant in the pork industry like Kendal Thompson was?”
He shares his views on the industry, leadership strategy and what he’s learned along the way.
Q. How did you find your way to DPI Global?
A. I was raised on a grain and livestock production farm in southern Illinois. We produced commercial feeder pigs and I was heavily involved in the showpig and purebred industry as well. I pursued a degree in applied swine nutrition and management at the University of Illinois. As an undergraduate, I worked in Dr. Bob Easter’s lab where we conducted research for DPI. It is interesting how things have come full circle in my career. Prior to starting my master’s under Dr. Easter, he was promoted to department head for Animal Sciences at U of I. Fortunately, Dr. Mike Ellis came down the hall and said, “You need to come down here with me.” Both Ellis and Easter served as joint advisors through my master’s program. My research focused on the effects of feeding high oil corn in swine rations on pig performance, meat quality, and fat quality. When I finished my masters, I conducted some contract research for Dr. Ellis before leaving to go work for Land O’Lakes. After 13 years there, I joined Zinpro Corporation for eight years before going to work for my long-time mentor and friend at DPI Global.
Q. What is DPI Global’s why?
A. DPI Global is a California-based company that started with a focus in the orchards of California. We often get asked, “How did a soil amendment being used in an orchard end up in a swine ration?” It was out of the scientific curiosity of our team back then, and it has evolved to become a staple product within the industry. DPI provides all-natural phytogenic feed additives for livestock, in addition to serving aquaculture, horticulture, pet foods and municipal waste treatment facilities. So, when you come down to it, our why is making lives better. Much of our raw ingredient product is sourced in Mexico. People from those communities where it comes from say our company has changed their lives by providing employment and opportunities for the next generation. I think about that during my work day as well– I want to be able to impact all of our employees’ lives. That carries over to our customers, too. If I can sit down with our customers and discover a solution or a technology that we can bring to them, it’s like throwing a pebble into the pond. It ripples out farther than you can imagine.
Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. We are a small company in regard to the number of employees. We all wear a slightly different hat every day. That is the exciting thing about my position – the opportunity to provide leadership to our team, but still be intimately involved with sales, marketing and production. Part of my challenge is staying focused on the big challenges and not getting distracted with too many irons in the fire. That can be challenging at times, but it also provides us a good perspective of the company and the customers we serve.
Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. When we are in the process of developing a solution, we focus on answering this question first: Am I just listening to the customer or am I hearing the customer? Our team is not afraid to go out and grab someone else outside from within the industry and make a request saying, “I need some help in this area because my customer is having this challenge. This can be an opportunity for both of us.” I think that’s the beauty of our team and how we approach the customer. We also have the advantage of being flexible. There’s no set solution for every problem, only the requirement to really “hear” our customers.
Q. How has the business changed since you started?
A. Technology continues to come at us faster every day. We are always figuring out our next step from a technology standpoint and how it can apply to customers. For example, right now we are focused on looking at new ways to deliver products to customers. Are there better active ingredients available? Are there better physical forms of the product we can get to our customers? Are there different applications that our customers can use that we haven’t thought of? We are centered on being a science-based, research-based, technology-driven company, but we also want to evolve with our customer. Communication is key, and how we communicate is constantly changing. We need to think about that because people still sell people. Relationships create opportunities. That’s how we will solve problems by having those individual relationships where we can capitalize on knowledge from each other.
Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. My biggest concern is labor. If we can make someone’s job easier by applying technology, that’s a great thing, however we still need the person to execute that technology. We can’t forget that we are dealing with a biological system. If Mother Nature decides to get up in the morning and be in a bad mood, there’s not a piece of technology that can overcome that. I’m concerned that we’ve lost that “sixth sense” of the generation we used to have who grew up with a farm background. They could go into a barn and know when something was wrong. We’ve gone so far away from that generation, and we don’t have the people we need coming back to production. We’re discovering non-traditional employees, which is fine. But we must figure out how to engage that labor force. For technology to continue to grow, it requires application. If we can figure out how to attract and retain the right people, we can knock down a lot of mountains in terms of what we need to do to feed a growing population.
Q. What’s the best advice you’ve heard?
A. I’ll never forget something Dr. Ellis told us. He said, “You need to be like a swan – calm and placid on top of the water, but you better paddle like hell under the water to get done what you need to get done.” There will be times when you feel the pressure of life weighing on you. Keep that calm demeanor, but work like heck underneath the surface to get what you need to get done. Jack Kelly at Land O’Lakes and Wayne Cast have also given me some good advice over the years. In general this is one of the important things they have taught me “Pigs will never let you down, it’s the people who will.” If we can educate and mentor the people applying the technology of today, pigs will respond by growing quickly and converting feedstuffs into a healthy protein source.
Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. It comes down to three things that may not be very profound in the business world but have been profound in business applications to me.
1. We need to listen twice as much as we talk. Seek to understand, to really figure out and hear what the customers are saying and then apply that.
2. Control what you can control. There’s been a lot of things coming at us lately that we don’t have control over. But, if you can control what you are doing with your business, and really excel at that, a lot of those things don’t affect the success of the business. Be great at what you are good at.
3. It’s never the wrong thing to do the right thing. Just be a good human. Treat each other with respect. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes as you sit across the table. Look at their challenges and opportunities.
Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. The interaction of health and nutrition will become even more important. With increased pressure regarding less antibiotic use and the loss of some feed additives, we need to look more closely at how nutrition plays a role in health and how health affects nutrition requirements. I see those occupational fields, aka nutritionists and veterinarians, starting to play together better in terms of combining efforts, putting egos aside solving problems.
Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I wish I would have realized sooner that everyone has a role, and it fully matters. Sometimes when you are younger in your career, you look for the bright shiny object aka the person within the system you think can help you make decisions in your career. While that’s not wrong, you can’t overlook the people feeding the pigs every day, checking that the waterers work, making sure the ventilation is set right, etc. It doesn’t matter where you are at in the production system, you have a key role to play, and everyone matters. They all deserve some of our time and dedication.
Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Don’t be afraid to fail. You can learn so much from mistakes. As a society we are so focused on success that we lose sight that it’s ok to take a chance once in a while, that it’s ok to fail. One saying that the Navy Seals abide by and is reflected in a recent book I read is this, “Fall down seven times, but make sure you get up eight.” Failure will happen. Learn from those failures and get better. Also, there is a lot of value of checking your ego at the door and not being afraid to have conversations with the barn workers or the hourly workers at the feed mill. A lot of times those individuals can communicate the real challenges and opportunities in a production system as opposed to somebody sitting in the C-suite or in an upper management position that isn’t on the farm every day.
Q. How do you think the threat of ASF will impact the future of the U.S. pork industry?
A. It’s allowed us to examine what we’re doing at all levels from a biosecurity standpoint. It’s also brought to light how much we rely on the export of U.S. pork to add value to our product. An ASF outbreak would shut down our ability to export products and result in a devastating effect on our economy. It invites more conversation around bolstering domestic consumption of pork. How do we bring pork to the forefront as the choice protein to put on your plate three or four nights out of the week as opposed to a piece of chicken or a quick hamburger at the at the drive-thru?
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 Mike Hemann 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.
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