PORK Perspectives

From Products to Systems: Elizabeth Beeler on the Evolution of Swine Ventilation

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 17:10:49 GMT

Elizabeth Beeler is not your typical engineer. In fact, her husband jokes that she’s probably the most talkative engineer he’s ever met. With a passion for math, science and solving problems, she’s found the perfect role as vice president of sales for Double L Group based in Dyersville, Iowa.

“When you’re a young kid and people ask you what you want to do someday, it’s a little overwhelming,” Beeler says. “I was really good at science and math, so I chose the engineering route because it was easy. I knew I wanted to stay tied to agriculture because this is an industry that’s really about the people. In my mind, that connection makes our industry unique.”

Growing up on a 200-head farrowing-to-finish operation in eastern Iowa, Beeler obtained her agricultural engineering degree at Iowa State University. She then found a great opportunity to tie her passion for animal agriculture and engineering into a rewarding career at Double L Group, a company that provides ventilation equipment into agricultural facilities across the U.S.

For the past 10 years, she’s served in both engineering and sales roles for the company. She says the best part of her job is working with great people.

“People make the difference,” Beeler says. “I enjoy interacting with farmers and people connected to agriculture in some way. There’s just a level of integrity and passion in our industry that makes it stand out from the rest.”

Read on to learn more about her career with Double L Group – from her business philosophy to her views on the future of the U.S. pork industry.

What is your why?

At Double L, we want to make the product work in the customer’s environment. When you think of ventilation, it’s very directly tied to animal health and the facility’s operating expense. When you manage ventilation well, you can get good results. But when it’s managed or designed poorly, that isn’t the case. We do our best to help farmers, growers and integrators design and have the right product so they can raise animals more efficiently. This allows them to focus on other important things like genetics and feed – they don’t have to worry about respiratory issues or utilizing too much LP.

Describe a typical day on the job for you.

My days are very relationship driven. I am constantly interacting with our sales team, integrators, growers, Extension specialists and anyone who’s moving air through a facility. I am either on the phone or at job sites. Although every day looks very different, it comes down to a lot of problem solving.

How does your company help and work with its customers?

We start by understanding our customers’ needs and challenges. That often begins through an email, a phone call or a meeting, and eventually results in designing and building the ventilation package that will address their need. Double L is uniquely nimble through our manufacturing in Iowa and the ability to provide custom designs as needed. That is very important in ag facilities because they’re not cookie-cutter layouts. A facility in Iowa might be very different than a facility layout in a different state, and the equipment to service it looks different, too. We believe custom solutions are also important. We need to understand what customers need, and then how we fit into that from an equipment and product standpoint.

How has the business changed since you started?

Our company was formed 53 years ago. When I started, we were pretty much an inlet company, focused solely on swine equipment. As a business, we could see our customers getting more vertically integrated. Compound that with a knowledge vacuum as people with decades of experience retire from our industry, Double L knew customers wanted fewer vendors to provide more products. Instead of calling 10 vendors to get equipment to build a farm, they wanted to call half that many. Knowing that need from our customers, we’ve really built out our product line. We’ve had a very strategic focus to develop and launch quality products that include exhaust fans and the full ventilation package. In the past 10 years, we’ve launched and commercialized over 20 products. We’ve gone from selling products to selling systems, which is a better model that provides more value for our customers.

What concerns do you have about the swine industry?

One thing I think about a lot, especially as an equipment company and interacting with builders as frequently as I do, is the cost to replace the existing asset base. It’s a concern. If you talk to integrators or growers, building facilities today is different than building facilities 10 years ago. Every industry is like that over the expanse of time, but it’s increasingly challenging for pig farmers now. So, what’s our industry doing? We are continually taking what we have and remodeling to make it work. There are limitations to that at some point. When I interact with farmers and integrators, they know they need to replace or upgrade existing assets. Servicing that debt load or making that cash flow isn’t as easy as 10 years ago.

What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?

Pork has a very good opportunity to play a bigger role in protein consumption. We have a good product, and there are a lot of opportunities that come with that. If I look at some of the other proteins on the market like beef, it takes a long time to increase the supply. People only desire to eat so much chicken. Pork has a real role to play in future protein demand

Who inspires you?

My parents have modeled what hard work looks like early on and often when I was a kid. I still take inspiration from that daily. I also have professional mentors who are further along in life than I am that I admire, too. From their careers to their marriages to their families, they model what it looks like to operate with integrity. How they approach work and life inspires me.

What is your business philosophy?

Double L’s business philosophy is to make the product work in the customer’s environment. I know that sounds simple to describe, but it can be tough to execute because ventilation is both a science and an art. Approaches on how to design facilities have changed over the years. Our philosophy is we need to put in the work to provide products that fit each environment. We also focus on treating people the way we want to be treated and that you reap what you sow. If you do those three things, good business comes as a byproduct naturally.

What will the business look like 20 years from now?

The swine industry is going to evolve both in terms of technology and adoption of AI to become more efficient. We have some big problems to solve today like labor, production challenges and the high cost of assets. Becoming more efficient will help us in that area. Over the next 20 years, we will be focusing on technologies coming to market that will be smarter in ways that provide the industry with more data and allow us to use that data more to make decisions. We’re still going to be raising pigs and bringing them to market, but the facilities to achieve that result, the labor associated with it, and the production to do it will look different than it does now.

If you could go back and do something different in your career, what would it be and why?

I would take more measured risks earlier on. Sometimes you get paralysis by analysis. You focus on all the information instead of taking action. The rate of growth on learning through doing is exponential. I tell my team all the time to fight fear with facts. If you don’t know why you’re anxious or not making a decision, find the facts, review, decide and move on. If you discover that was the wrong decision five minutes later because you now have different information, guess what? You can pivot and make a better decision. I wish I had told myself that 10 years ago.

What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?

Opportunities will present themselves – lean into them. If you’re a little uncomfortable or you get that nervous feeling in the pit of your stomach, that’s when you should lean in, not out. Our industry needs young people to enter it. One of the biggest concerns I have is making sure we’re bringing in good, competent people to help us achieve our goals. Our industry needs more great young people.

Trust is Tops: Sibling Co-CEOs Drive Future of Pillen Family Farms and DNA Genetics

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 18:50:36 GMT

After returning home from the Korean War, Dale and Dorothy Pillen started farming. In 1969, Dale built a 400-head modified open-front barn and raised his first pigs on concrete.

Twenty-five years later, their son Jim Pillen built the first modern isowean 2,500-head sow farm across from the Pillen home farm. In 2003, Pillen Family Farms purchased Danbred North America, now known as DNA Genetics.

Six years later, Jim’s children, Brock Pillen and Sarah Pillen, returned home to join the business as the third generation to operate Pillen Family Farms. However, both are quick to admit this wasn’t the path they thought they would take.

“We had a lot of exposure to the business growing up but didn’t have any strategic thought that we would come back and be part of it,” Sarah says.

After obtaining a business degree in college, Sarah went to law school and practiced law in the private sector for about six years. Meanwhile, Brock also set out to get a business degree and then went to work off the farm for a couple years when he realized he wanted to return to the family operation.

“I started at the slat level power washing, then working as a herdsman before moving on to run farms and eventually take on this role as co-CEO of Pillen Family Farms and DNA Genetics with Sarah,” Brock says.

Though the siblings have different strengths and backgrounds, Sarah says they are a team in every sense of the word.

“We are in constant communication with each other and have an infinite amount of trust in each other,” she says. “We want to make sure we operate efficiently and are not redundant in our co-roles but have the same goals in mind for the best of the operation.”

As a family-owned and -operated business, they are constantly looking to the future and surrounding themselves with great people to nurture a positive quality of life for their generation — and many more to come. This requires intentionality to ensure everyone gets behind the company’s core values and mission.

“If we all have the same value set on how we treat people and how we’re going to go about doing business, it will take care of itself,” Sarah says. “When you have a high level of trust, you can do a whole lot of good.”

The last few years have proven just how important a tight circle of trust is to running a successful business and operation. In January 2023, their father, Jim Pillen, was sworn in as Nebraska’s governor.

“We’re incredibly proud of him,” Sarah says. “Until you get into the shoes he’s in and the shoes our family is in, you can’t really appreciate what it all takes. I’m proud of what he’s done and the difference he is making.”

As the Pillens look to the future, they are optimistic about the trend toward greater industry collaboration.

“Our founder generation had a competitor mindset,” Brock says. “Instead of working together, they were trying to be better than their peers. If you think about the problems in our industry, such as demand, there’s no one company that will be able to fix that. The whole industry has to work together.”

Sarah also sees how partnering has helped the industry endure tough circumstances.

“The more we collaborate and work together for the betterment of the industry, the more successful we will all be,” Sarah says. “We have to do all the right things to make sure we’re successful together.”

Read on to learn more about this brother-and-sister team, from their business philosophy to their views on the future of the pork industry.

Q. What is your ‘why’?
Brock: Our team is our “why.” We believe great people are the key to success, and we’re proud to work with an incredibly diverse and loyal team that believes in our core principles of: No. 1, do what is right; No. 2, do your best; No. 3, treat others the way you want to be treated. These were the values our company was founded on and continue to guide us today.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
Sarah: Like most leaders in our industry, our days vary considerably. We work hard to guide the big picture and encourage our leaders to take ownership and drive accountability, knowing that they will always have our full support.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
Sarah: Brock and I believe it’s important to surround ourselves with a great team of competent and passionate people who share our same values. And for us, we don’t believe in leading from a boardroom; we want to be engaged in day-to-day operations. At the same time, we want to make sure we empower our team to take ownership and go make things happen in a way that’s meaningful to them as well. We believe in a strong sense of accountability, but people must be given autonomy and flexibility to work within the road guards we’ve established to make a difference as well.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
Brock: As producers, we understand the daily challenges our customers face. We’re able to use our own experiences to walk hand in hand with them to help solve their problems. We believe research is a valuable resource for making good decisions, but we should never overlook the firsthand experiences of team members who have invested their entire careers in barns.

Q. How has the swine industry changed in the past year?
Sarah: The industry has evolved considerably over our lifetimes and will continue to change in the years to come. But if the past has proven anything, it is that we are an industry of innovation and resilience. And we couldn’t be prouder to be part of it.

Q. What are the biggest challenges the industry is facing?
Brock: The inevitable unknowns that occur in our industry every 12 to 24 months pose many challenges we must work to overcome. For us, the biggest ones are labor needs, evolving health challenges, and market volatility.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
Sarah: As we look to the future, our biggest opportunities as an industry are embracing innovation and technology to drive efficiency, attracting new talent to our industry, finding a long-term solution for porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), decreasing mortality and driving significant consumer demand for pork.

Q. Who inspires you?
Brock: There isn’t one specific person who inspires me; there have been many. A lot of things happen over your life and career that have different impacts on you. In general, our team inspires us.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
Sarah: We enjoy problem-solving and the opportunity to make a positive difference in the lives of our team. Every day is about how to solve problems. I think you can either let problems bog you down or you can look at them as opportunities to make people and businesses better. Every day, we are actively working on problem solving to become better as an organization.

A Better Pig and A Better Future: Roots Run Deep for Matt Culbertson

Tue, 02 Sep 2025 18:45:38 GMT

Matt Culbertson’s high school graduation celebration was interrupted by a disease outbreak on his family’s farrow-to-finish farm, later confirmed as his first experience with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS).

“It was surprising and devastating,” Culbertson says. “At the time, we weren’t really sure what to expect over the next two weeks, let alone the next 30 years.”

As the chief operating officer of PIC today, Culbertson can’t remember a day of his life that wasn’t centered around the pork industry.

“I was born and raised in the swine industry,” he says. “My dad worked for George Brauer, one of the original pioneers of the confinement movement within the swine industry in the early 1970s. In the mid-1970s we moved up to Geneseo, Ill., and my dad began to run a farm that was originally built by George’s brother in partnership with him.”

Matt’s dad, Dave Culbertson, (far right) appeared on the February 1971 cover of Hog Farm Management with George Brauer (middle) in a story about confinement.

(Provided by Matt Culbertson)

His bedroom window looked out over their farrowing house, Culbertson adds. He started working for his dad by the time he was in first grade – doing any job he could to be helpful on the farm. Although his parents knew their son was destined to work in the pork industry, they urged him to get outside of his comfort zone to make sure he really wanted to land a long-term career in it.

Culbertson pursued an animal science degree at Oklahoma State University, where he solidified his passion to go put his practical swine background to use in a future career. Read on to learn more about his 15-year career with PIC – from his business philosophy to his views on the future of the U.S. pork industry.

Q. Describe your path to PIC.
A. After getting my degree at Oklahoma State, I went to graduate school for swine genetics at the University of Georgia. After completing a PhD, I moved back up to the Midwest and worked for Heartland Pork for five years, where I experienced a rapidly growing swine production enterprise. I then moved my family to North Carolina, where I had the opportunity to work for Murphy Brown/Smithfield Foods for 10 years running their internal genetics, nutrition, veterinary medicine and aligning various integration activities. This gave me a great opportunity to see a bigger slice of the pork chain from start to finish. In 2010, I went to PIC where I’ve held various roles from sales to global product development to technical services. Two years ago, the opportunity arose to be chief operating officer and lead our global PIC business through – what I think – is a pretty exciting and transformational time for our business and for the global industry.

Q. Tell me about your business.
A. I would like to believe when somebody talks about PIC, they say our primary goal is to help make our customers as successful as possible. Obviously, we’re a swine genetics business, and that starts with providing an improving pig from generation to generation. That definition of improving is dependent upon the customer’s targets for success. In some markets, it may be around cost of production, and for some, it might be around carcass yield and value. By deepening our relationship with our customers, we can tailor our product and our genetic improvement to help build the initial foundation for driving their success going forward. We combine that with technical support and a supply chain that strives to meet customer needs for high-health, high-quality animals and on-the-ground customer support.

Q. What is your “why”?
A. My ‘why’ is to make a better, more successful global pig industry going forward. When I think about how to do that – and this goes back to the experiences and motivations I saw from my father growing up – it’s to continue to provide innovation to the industry. For PIC, that’s innovation around creating a better pig and providing technical support that goes along with that to allow people to achieve results they didn’t think were possible.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job.
A. Although there is no typical day, most days involve a mix of interacting with global customers, listening and understanding their needs, and exploring with our team how our business can help them fulfill those needs. My focus is on how we deliver value to customers and continue to innovate through technology and people development for the future.

Q. How does your company work with its customers.
A. We want to be involved in our customers’ operations as much as possible. Genetics is different from other inputs that go into the production system – it’s a much longer-term business relationship. We obviously want to supply great pigs but we also have a true desire to understand how our animals are performing in their system, both strengths and challenges, and then working cooperatively and proactively on the challenges.

Q. How has the swine industry changed since you started your career?
A. There has been a tremendous amount of transition over the last 20 to 40 years. I think one part of that is the structure of pig farming operations. They’ve become much larger in size and more specialized. That increased specialization and increased size has occurred against a changing landscape of the availability and type of labor we see in farms across the globe. My story of growing up on a pig farm and only ever working with pigs is not the story for the majority of the employees coming into the swine industry today. We need to help them understand how rewarding a career in the swine industry is so they have the continued desire to grow and become motivated leaders in the future. It’s also changed the demand for and impact of specialized expertise that fuels innovation across health, production management, nutrition, facility design or other strategies that allow good production practices to be consistently and efficiently implemented.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry?
A. For me, the swine industry is highly personal because I grew up in it, and it’s all I know. But beyond that, producing food for people across the globe is personally motivating. As I travel around the globe and see differences in food availability and security, and the efficiency with which it is produced, I think there’s a tremendous opportunity to have a positive impact.

Q. What are the biggest challenges the industry faces?
A. One challenge that we need to continue to actively recognize and lean into is how we grow and develop the human capital needed for our industry in the future. I think it’s important for all of us to help develop the next generation of leaders so that they can continue to evolve and improve the foundation that hopefully we’ve helped build to this point.

I think the other thing that is increasingly complicated is the global aspect of health and disease. The unfortunate reality is that foreign animal diseases, like ASF, continue to spread across the globe. This is combined with the increasing challenge of many common production diseases, like PRRS, which don’t seem to be getting more predictable to manage. The public has an expectation for their food to be safe, efficient and produced in a way that aligns with their values. We need to continue to invest in an innovation pipeline that enables us to meet the consumers’ demands of the future.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. The thing I enjoy the most about my job is the people. We have a tremendous team of intelligent, high-energy, high-integrity people at PIC across the globe and that energizes and motivates me to continue to do what I do. That is multiplied by the wide range of different customers and others within the swine industry who I get to interact with. I tell people that the swine industry, for me, is much more than a job.

Q. Who inspires you?
A. The greatest inspiration I draw from is my dad. He’s the one who taught me the basics of swine production. He’s the one I witnessed walking through a transition from outside dirt lots to inside sows in large groups of pen gestation with natural service to implementing artificial insemination with gestation stalls and large-scale breeding barns. And at the same time, he invested in the community that we lived in, in the team of people that were long-term employees on our farm, and in service back to the industry from cooking pork chops at the county fair to being president of the National Pork Board. He set a tremendous foundational example for me within the pig industry and as a husband and father.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. My business philosophy is to set strategic targets for the future and then surround myself with energetic, intelligent people who think differently but are motivated by the belief in doing big things. There will always be ups and downs on any given day. That’s to be expected, and that’s okay. I was drawn to PIC in part by the motto ‘never stop improving.’ That requires a recognition that you’re not perfect when you wake up in the morning. If you were perfect, you wouldn’t need to focus on the ‘improving’ part. That really speaks to me, both as an individual and as a leader aligning our business and team around having the freedom to take chances, to do what’s right for the right reasons and to focus on that from a growth mindset.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. PIC is wrapping up its 63rd year in business. We were started by a group of pig farmers who believed they should be able to use science to make a better pig to improve their operations. What exactly that science looks like has evolved dramatically over those 63 years, from simple weights and measures to large scale utilization of computing technologies to things like genomics and gene editing. In 20 years, I hope PIC is still known for focusing on customer success and keeping an open eye toward innovations that will allow us to develop a better pig at an increasing rate.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be?
A. I don’t know that there’s anything I would fundamentally go back and do differently. There were challenges I didn’t expect at certain points, but ultimately, I learned as much from those experiences as I did in the things I enjoyed the most. From a career progression standpoint, I’ve been given dramatic opportunities to do things I wasn’t prepared to do at every stop along the way. Those things sometimes went well but sometimes it took a try or two to get it to the point of going well. I do think they were all necessary to contribute to the perspective and understanding I have today.

Q. What advice do you have for someone interested in doing what you do?
A. When opportunities present themselves, don’t be afraid to take a step. Not every step is straight up a ladder. Sometimes the steps broaden your perspective and allow you to experience new areas of the industry or new areas of the business. This helps you become more balanced as a potential candidate for future roles but also expands your knowledge base.

Q. How does the threat of foreign animal disease impact the future of the U.S. pork industry?
A. I believe we’re at much greater risk of introduction of foreign animal disease (FAD) than the majority of our industry does, and that’s in part driven by my experience watching the spread of FAD across the globe. I believe the absence of FAD across the Americas is a huge competitive advantage when it comes to export markets, predictability of operations and the predictability of supply chains. However, that always has the potential to be disrupted by a bad day. If a FAD outbreak did occur within the Americas, it would be very difficult to fully eradicate it back out within a reasonable period.

Andy Rash: How His Obsession with Progress is Changing Lives

Tue, 15 Apr 2025 17:55:56 GMT

Andy Rash isn’t one to sit still for long. He’s the first to admit he’s somewhat obsessed with continually making progress – not only in his own life, but also in helping others make progress in their lives. Whether that’s empowering a team in the ag industry or helping that team solve producer concerns, Rash is devoted to continual improvement and purposeful change.

“My obsession with progress and the culture that Alltech has around it has been a great match,” says Rash, who serves as the U.S. monogastric director at Alltech in Lexington, Ky. “It’s a culture that encourages employees to think, be creative, come up with new ideas, and frankly, steer away from over process. That matched well with my continual focus on how we make progress for the industry and for people.”

For Rash, his why is all about helping people thrive and be the best version of themselves possible. Read on to learn more about Rash’s career with Alltech, from his business philosophy to his views on the future of the U.S. pork industry.

(l to r): Dan Hoge, Joe Meggison, Andy Rash and Lee Denzer at the Premier Stockman Livestock Judging Contest in Indiana.

(Betsy Newell)

Q. How did you find your way to Alltech?
A. I grew up in Indiana where I was active in agriculture, FFA, livestock judging and showing livestock. I went to Black Hawk College East Campus for an associate’s degree and to be on the livestock judging team. I transferred to finish my undergrad at Western Illinois University with a degree in ag science and was on the livestock judging team. I went on to teach as adjunct faculty at Black Hawk East while I worked on my master’s degree at the University of Illinois. After I completed my master’s, I continued to teach for almost four years before joining Cargill where I held multiple roles. I went to work for River Valley Cooperative for four years as well before joining Alltech.

Q. How does your company serve its customers?
A. When I came to Alltech, the ask was ‘let’s get a sharper facts-based focus on the U.S.’ I was intrigued by their culture. I think the thing that makes Alltech unique is that we never say “can’t.” Instead, we say, ‘What has to be true in order for this to happen?’ This is the same whether we are talking about a customer, a member of our team or the industry in general. Every function and every person on our team is customer centered. I know that’s easy to say. But every discussion we have as a company comes back to how it helps our customer.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. I don’t have a typical day, but that goes well with my personality. I don’t do well with boredom. I travel often on behalf of our customers – for face-to-face meetings, industry events and team functions. When I do have an office day, a lot of it is spent thinking about our portfolio and how we improve what we are bringing to the market on behalf of the customer.

Q. How has the swine industry changed in the past year?
A. It’s been a challenging time for producers financially. I think that has slowed down the industry’s appetite for new technology. It’s hard to invest in technical advancement when you’re not making money. At the same time, the resilience I’ve witnessed is incredible. No one’s throwing in the towel.

Q. What are the greatest challenges in the swine industry today?
A. Every year we have a new disease challenge. It’s continual and part of every conversation I’ve had with a strategic producer at the leadership level. I believe technical advancement and digital intervention can help us intervene to improve production, waste management and animal health in real time. If you could predict that an animal or a barn or group of animals were going to become sick with some disease three days in advance, what could you do in intervention to lower morbidity and mortality? Or if your nutrition program wasn’t performing at the level, what could technology do to intervene and help you make a better decision? The industry does not need more data. We don’t have a data problem. I think we take the data and do a good job of running analytics on it and saying, ‘Well, this is what happened.’ But that was last year. Now we’ve got new environment, new disease and new cost of production this year. Historical data is important, but it doesn’t necessarily have the biggest impact.

Q. What is one of the greatest opportunities in the industry?
A. Our greatest opportunity is to think bigger when things get tough. This is not just pork. This is scaled protein production, scaled agriculture in general. When hard things happen, we go back to what we’re really good at – production, animal husbandry and barn management. Let’s stop fixating on a tenth of a percent of lysine in a formula and think about a bigger opportunity that can generate more profit for the system. We’re walking over dollars to capture a penny. We need to shift that mindset to think broader and break the complacency mold.

Andy Rash (left) says interacting with his team is one of the best parts of his career with Alltech.

(Alltech)

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I enjoy spending time with people, both in our organization and out of our organization. I look forward to the calls when I don’t have an agenda and just call an industry leader to talk. It keeps me fresh, and it keeps me grounded. I also love helping people take an idea and do something great with it. I enjoy building a strategy around big ideas to create something you can actually execute.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. I’ve been in the pork, poultry, beef, pet food, grain, retail and agronomy industries, but the business philosophy is foundational for me. I had very good teachers who always said build your base on facts. Don’t make stuff up. That’s the hard work – we build the facts of the industry or the market you’re going to work in. It’s telling a story that’s real. What are the facts of the market we serve, and what are the facts of the team and the opportunities we have to deliver to a market? The second part of this comes in care and creativity, or the strategy. Facts aren’t a strategy. They provide the foundation to give you a strategy to make a difference. The creativity piece is overlooked a lot of times. The bigger companies get, the more process that we implement. Process suppresses creativity. There’s got to be some process, but it can’t get to the point where you’re limiting the ability for the team to be creative. I want to get the facts built and the strategy and direction implemented so the team we get to work with can actually be creative.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. I believe if we implement the philosophy and strategy that is at our core, we can grow our business 20% a year. Now, when you put that on paper, that will scare the heck out of a lot of people. But I think we have the appetite to do that. Twenty years from now, I feel like we’ll have continued global expansion as a company, more talent coming on board, and our portfolio will broaden dramatically. I think it will start to move into services and ways to help the industry that are a little more nontraditional.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I’ve been fortunate to have a diverse career path with industries, but also the actual role and responsibilities that I’ve had. If I could go back, I would get more experience in the different functions earlier in my career and getting outside of my comfort zone with either a task or a role that’s maybe not the direct function or the daily activities I was used to doing.

Vivienne, Averey, Andy, Tara and Castin Rash

(Provided by Andy Rash)

Q. Who inspires you?
A. That list is long for most of us. You can go back to childhood days, ag teachers, judging team coaches and different bosses. I’ve been very fortunate to have mentors and leaders that didn’t just teach me things, they actually cared about me. I want to make sure I honor their investment in me. On a daily basis, I’m inspired by my family and the team I get to work with. Every day when we wake up, some people think about going to work. To me, this isn’t a job. I enjoy it. There are days where you lose track of time, and I don’t realize that I’m actually working because it’s so enjoyable. I credit that to the people I get to work with. When you get a great group of people together who have an incredible culture, that’s inspirational because you know the time that you invest in them and the time they invest in you has a real purpose.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Spend as much time as you can learning about the different roles and career paths that you can take, but at the same time, be open to different career paths that maybe don’t marry your degree. There are certain degrees where, if you’re going to be an ag chemist, or you’re going to be a beef nutritionist, that’s pretty direct. But it doesn’t always mean that’s where you stay. From an educational perspective, if you’re convicted, stay the course, if you’re not, stay broader. Just know that when you get into business or you get into a career, there’s a lot of different angles you can take.

Q. How do you think the growing threat of foreign animal disease will impact the future of the U.S. pork industry?
A. I think the rigor of the industry to mitigate global contamination across this is very strong. But at the same time, we’re going to continue to face these challenges. We spend a lot of time thinking about natural ways to improve health, immune response and encourage debate and conversations across the industry around those topics, whether it’s genetics, nutrition or medical intervention. It’s a big opportunity, yet the cost of production piece sometimes limits our interest to invest in natural ways to improve immune response. If you look at human society, we went crazy overboard the last five years with supplements and diets, but there are real opportunities in humans and in animals to do that more naturally. It comes at a cost, but it also comes with a reward. Our job is to put the ROI to some of that opportunity.

Your Next Read: Rash and Hulsebus Join Alltech’s Pig Business

5 Pork Industry Leaders You Need to Get to Know

Mon, 30 Dec 2024 11:00:00 GMT

Dig into these question-and-answer stories with five innovative minds in the U.S. pork industry. They share their thoughts on business strategies, lessons learned in their career and look ahead to future trends in the pork industry in our special PORK Perspectives series.

Fredrik Sandberg, Furst-McNess
Of all the lessons Fredrik Sandberg has learned over the past 14 years in his career, probably the most important is to listen more than he speaks.

“It’s a simple thing that most of us know,” says Sandberg, who works primarily in the U.S. and Canada but also Europe. “But it’s really about developing the ability to listen so that we don’t just hear what people say, but that we truly understand what they’re saying.”

The pork industry is incredibly diverse, he points out. To really get down to the “nuts and bolts” of what someone means requires a lot of conversation. Read more.

Megan Bollin, Norbrook
As soon as Megan Bollin was old enough to drive, she drove to her local veterinary clinic to find a job. That proved to be a wise decision.

Growing up in a small Midwestern town, she was very active in 4-H and showed pigs from her great-uncle’s farrow-to-finish farm. Like many, she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. However, she was fortunate to land a part-time job and learn about the business under the guidance of John Baker, a veterinarian in Boonville, Ind.

“Dr. Baker introduced me to Dr. Lucina Galina who encouraged me to apply for the American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV) summer swine internship program. I spent three summers gaining a ton of practical experience working with some of the best veterinarians and large integrators across the country,” Bollin says. Read more.

Breanna Lawyer, Elanco
Growing up on a row crow and hog farm in Indiana, Breanna Lawyer of Shirley, Ind., learned early that optimism goes a long way in life. Those lessons she learned working alongside her dad on the farm continue to inspire and challenge her to be her best in her role today as Elanco’s U.S. swine marketing brand manager.

“My dad still runs a nursery barn and despite the market being what it is now, his optimism and desire to get up and do the same thing every day with a positive attitude is something that goes a long way regardless of what you are pursuing in life,” Lawyer says.

She credits her dad who diligently works to feed the world as her mentor in terms of his work ethic and how he treats others with respect, all while having a positive outlook every day. It’s that perspective that so many hog farmers share that recently drew Lawyer back to the commercial hog industry. Read more.

Chad Groves, Seaboard Foods
He’s the guy who always asks for more. Whether it’s more work or more ways to learn, everyone who knows Chad Groves knows he never looks for shortcuts.

That’s likely why Peter Brown, current CEO of Seaboard Foods, sought Groves out 18 months ago to start teaching him what he needs to know to take over the reins as CEO at the end of June.

“My background has been more sales and marketing, commercial-focused, but for the last 18 months, I’ve spent a great deal of time across our live operations teams, with farmer-owners of Triumph foods, and within our plant operations to understand where I was weak in terms of my background,” says Groves, who has been serving as senior vice president of sales and marketing for Seaboard Foods in Overland Park, Kan. Read more.

Kale Causemaker, Innovation Solutions at Kent Nutrition Group
From 4-H and FFA to judging livestock at Black Hawk East to working in the swine industry, Kale Causemaker has been part of the ag industry for as long as he can remember. His experiences as a member of high school and collegiate livestock judging teams were instrumental in his decision to stay involved in agriculture. Currently, Causemaker serves as the senior director of sales for Innovation Solutions at Kent Nutrition Group.

He grew up in a small town in Henry County, Ill., where his family had a small cow calf and row crop operation. “Interestingly enough, Henry County was the self-proclaimed hog capitol of the world at one time,” he says.

Causemaker now resides in Geneseo, Ill., where he has worked in the swine industry for the past 35 years. He started his career in hog procurement and has been with Innovative Solutions for almost four years. Read more.

Your Next Read: A Winning Mentality Motivates This Illinois Livestock Industry Teacher, Coach and Mentor

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Fredrik Sandberg

Mon, 16 Dec 2024 22:26:47 GMT

Of all the lessons Fredrik Sandberg has learned over the past 14 years in his career, probably the most important is to listen more than he speaks.

“It’s a simple thing that most of us know,” says Sandberg, who works primarily in the U.S. and Canada but also Europe. “But it’s really about developing the ability to listen so that we don’t just hear what people say, but that we truly understand what they’re saying.”

The pork industry is incredibly diverse, he points out. To really get down to the “nuts and bolts” of what someone means requires a lot of conversation.

Spending time with producers throughout the Midwest in his role as senior director of monogastric ruminant research and commercial product development for Furst-McNess has helped Sandberg develop important skills.

“As a young Ph.D., when you come out of school and you go into the industry, I would say we might have a little bit more ego than we should have,” he says. “After 14 years in the industry, you learn very quickly that animals will make you humble in a hurry.”

A key realization has been understanding that people might share things in different ways.

“People may not use sophisticated language, but they can still explain and develop complex processes,” he says. “It’s being able to communicate with everybody through the chain, including the guy working at the farm who left high school at 16, but may know animals better than you ever will. It’s learning to have respect for everyone within the system and hearing what they are saying. That skill took me many years to develop and some pretty painful errors along the way.”

Read on to learn more about Sandberg’s career with Furst-McNess, from his business philosophy to his views on the future of the pork industry.

Q. How did you become interested in the swine industry?
A. I grew up on a small, mixed farm in southern Sweden. In the early 1980s, my dad had a finishing barn that had computerized liquid feeding. I was very intrigued by the technology and that side of raising pigs. I wanted to go to veterinary school but did not make it, so I ended up doing animal science. I attained my bachelor’s degree in animal science, and I got a Ph.D. in computer modelling of swine nutrition during disease, both at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. Joined Devenish Nutrition out of school and worked with them as a swine nutritionist focusing to baby pig nutrition for a couple of years. Then, with Furst-McNess, I started off as a field nutritionist, and then I moved into management roles. Today, I’m working in a director position, but I’ve focused on nutrition and health throughout my entire career.

Q. Tell me about your business.
A. Furst-McNess serves those who feed the world. That means we try and help producers wherever they are, across the different species. We have mills that make everything from complete feeds to the really, really tiny inclusion trace and vitamin premixes to some of our more specific dry and liquid technologies that are primarily focused on efficiency and health.

Q. What is your why?
A. I enjoy working directly with clients to support them in their needs, whatever those needs are. I also really like the development side of things, trying to develop new solutions and figure out what producers’ problems are and then developing solutions to those things.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. I serve a core set of customers where I am the primary nutritionist, some of those I’ve worked with for more than 10 years. I also coordinate research, analyze research, write up research and communicate it with our marketing teams. I do a lot of interacting with our field staff and serve as phone-a-friend on various issues and opportunities. I also support our manufacturing plants in different ways to help them be more efficient and to function well. Communicate with vendors and review new offerings and opportunities. I also have a support role within the company regarding the direction that we take for serving those who feed the world through nutritional solutions.

Q. How does your company work with its customers?
A. Furst-McNess is unique in that we have staff on the ground across the whole country. One of the primary ways we serve people raising livestock is that we have people who are locally available, who understand the local region as the regions of the U.S. are vastly different. We have infrastructure around them to be able to manufacture what they need but through that local service. We have an extensive centralized support system of Ph.D. nutritionists, livestock feeding consultants, formulators, research scientists and even in some areas, business support in general. We have a traditional business structure, but I think it’s unique because it is implemented at a face-to-face level. Our staff are working directly with our customers, and in some areas, even with their livestock to deliver nutritional solutions.

Q. How has the swine industry changed since you started your career?
A. When I first came to the U.S., porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) was taking off, and we were trying to fight this new virus. We still have PEDV, but we have ways of managing it, and it’s obviously no longer a new pathogen. I think one of the big ways our industry is changing, and I would say it’s somewhat concerning, are the highly virulent porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) strains. Diseases normally evolve from more virulent to less virulent, because if it doesn’t kill its host, it increases the chance of spreading to other animals — the goal of that virus. Some of these PRRS L1C strains are very virulent. PRRS has always been there, but to see that PRRS in some cases is becoming even more virulent is one of the things that has been very concerning. Another big change is the extent of antibiotic resistance we see in E. coli and Salmonella and several of the other bacterial pathogens. I often work closely with veterinarians, and as we sit down to look at the resistance/susceptibility profiles from the vet labs to our primary antibiotics, there is an extensive amount of resistance out there. I think the key area we have to be much more purposeful about is how we attack to even try and reduce resistance.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. Our industry has a great opportunity to escalate its approach to biosecurity. A lot of people are using feed mitigation, for example, and some are using water sanitation. There are some people using air filters and we have recently done work with environmental fogging. I think taking a more holistic approach to biosecurity in terms of people, feed, air and water is something our industry needs to take to another level. If you can keep the pathogens out, the performance and livability come with it. Livability drives feed efficiency and all the key financial parameters. A holistic biosecurity program is no longer optional; it is absolutely essential, and the technologies are there to do it.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. I think the greatest challenge we have today is PRRS, because we don’t have a way of managing PRRS. It’s far too easy for PRRS to go through the air, especially with lower temperatures and water droplets carrying dust particles in the air. That’s a factor we have to develop a system for addressing, not just in sow farms, but also in finishing barns. Filtering finishing barns is not financially feasible today. We need to work more broadly together as an industry to reduce the risk of that transfer across farms. I think the second part of that is developing ways of helping the animals if they do get sick. The options we have today for PRRS-affected pigs are very modest. We need to develop more.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. Outside of the people, I love developing and testing new technologies for the industry. The first part of any development process is understanding the issues that need to be solved and communicating and understanding that is exciting. As with any development process, we have many failures because everything doesn’t work. But when something does work, and when something works when we scale it up in large commercial development testing, that is truly, incredibly rewarding. It has happened a few times in my career, and hopefully a few more times before I am finished.

Q. What’s something people might not know about you?
A. Occasionally I will preach on a Sunday.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Being a nutritionist is not just someone who formulates diets. Being a nutritionist today covers everything from business consulting to support to coaching to developing staff to building teams. Pig production is fast-moving and involves so much technology, science and types of people, from veterinarians to nutritionists to bankers and all the staff within an organization. Being a nutritionist is a very rich job. It’s a challenging job, but it’s rewarding, and I would encourage anyone that has a mind for numbers and is interested in biology and economics to look into it because it is a very exciting career.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. My philosophy is to listen more than I speak and truly understand the problem before I start developing solutions. I think we should always be building paths toward solutions, because in animal agriculture, there are no such things as silver bullets. Whenever people take the approach of a silver-bullet solution to anything, as opposed to a path to process approach toward resolution, we will always fail. One of the ultimate ways we do that as a company is that some of our internal conversations are as much ‘iron sharpening iron’ as it will ever get. But that is good, because we hold ourselves internally accountable before we work with our external customers and other companies that we are influencing.

Q. If you could go back and do something different in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I spent a lot of my career working on farm, and I still work on-farm today in many areas. With such a large Spanish-speaking group of staff in the swine industry, being a technician supporting these farms, I always felt that it was a failure on my part not to be able to speak fluent Spanish.

Q. How is the growing threat of foreign animal disease impacting the future of our industry?
A. I see the issues that go on in the European mainland, where many countries like Germany and others have had to deal with African swine fever (ASF). I think it is a make-it or break-it situation that should not be left to chance. I have been a big follower of Scott Dee’s work for a long time, and the reason for that is because a lot of people would think that getting a virus through feed into a farm is a really silly idea, and he proved that it was not. Then, we look at ponds or water sources like aquifers; they can be sources of pathogens. We also know people bringing sandwiches onto farms and all those types of things are risks. ASF is not something we can get lazy about. I think that as a country, the U.S. produces incredible amounts of very high-quality pork. We need to protect that through a much more aggressive stance in terms of biosecurity. Attack is the best form of defense. I think with foreign animal diseases, we must take that approach, and if we don’t, we’re going to lose.

Q. Who inspires you?
A. Zig Ziglar says, “Help enough people get what they want, and you will get what you want.” It’s really taking the servitude approach. Whatever we’re doing, we need to serve others. There are two men in my career that I have interacted with, competed against and been challenged by that have had a huge influence on me personally: nutritionists Wayne Cast and Tommy Shipp. Their focus toward the bigger picture of any problem, whilst looking at the really small details and integrating that with practicality has really been fundamental in terms of how I think about nutrition. They’ve given me some good lessons over the years, which I’m very grateful for. Some have been pretty humbling, but that’s good for you.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. Twenty years ago, many people would have said that the swine sector would look like the poultry sector now, but it does not. There is still a large number of independents within the swine sector. It is consolidating, but what we see specifically on the swine side is when we model the economics, average isn’t good enough. You have to be in the top 25% of performance if we compare it to MetaFarms benchmarking data, to be sufficiently profitable in the good years and to break even or have minimal losses in the bad years. I think that’s where swine production is unique because it is a big battle between scale versus efficiency. Ultimately, I think the success of swine farming is return on invested capital (ROIC). Many people look at margin over feed or feed cost, sometimes return on investment, but I believe it’s really ROIC. Large systems can lose an awful lot of cash very quickly if performance is not good, and smaller systems can sometimes have higher levels of performance, allowing them to be at that safer area in terms of cash in, cash out. I don’t know where the industry will go, and that’s a very good question whether scale will beat efficiency. We’ll see. I expected it to be a lot more consolidated today than it is.

Editor’s Note: PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest.

Put in the Work to Chase Your Dream, Says Veterinarian Megan Bollin

Thu, 17 Oct 2024 14:08:56 GMT

As soon as Megan Bollin was old enough to drive, she drove to her local veterinary clinic to find a job. That proved to be a wise decision.

Growing up in a small Midwestern town, she was very active in 4-H and showed pigs from her great-uncle’s farrow-to-finish farm. Like many, she dreamed of becoming a veterinarian. However, she was fortunate to land a part-time job and learn about the business under the guidance of John Baker, a veterinarian in Boonville, Ind.

“Dr. Baker introduced me to Dr. Lucina Galina who encouraged me to apply for the American Association of Swine Veterinarians (AASV) summer swine internship program. I spent three summers gaining a ton of practical experience working with some of the best veterinarians and large integrators across the country,” Bollin says.

She attended Purdue University where she received her bachelor’s degree and DVM. After interning with Carthage Veterinary Service, she was offered a herd veterinarian position and moved to west-central Illinois. Her experience at Carthage prepared her to join Norbrook as a technical service veterinarian, where she has been for the past six years.

She and her husband, Darin, farm near Bowen, Ill. They have an almost-two-year-old daughter and are expecting another child in February. Between farming, her career and chasing a toddler around, she admits she doesn’t have much free time, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Read on to learn more about her career, from her business philosophy to her views on the future of the pork industry.

Q. Tell me about your business.
A. Norbrook is a small, family-owned veterinary pharmaceutical company based out of Northern Ireland that serves the global livestock and pet industry. I visited the headquarters my second week on the job to meet the team and tour the production facilities. It was an unforgettable experience. Funny enough, I studied abroad in Dublin for three months during undergrad. In a way, going back felt like going home!

Q. What is your why?
A. Because Norbrook is such a small company, I’m fortunate to have an impact on multiple aspects of the business. My favorite part about my job is learning from others and building relationships. Some of my best friends are veterinarians and producers in the industry. Being able to help make an impact in their lives and businesses is what’s most meaningful to me. I love collaborating with our territory sales managers to share knowledge and expertise and help them strengthen interactions with customers. At Norbrook, we have the best, hardest-working team, and they are my second family.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. No two days are the same. Internally, our technical service team is involved in almost every strategic plan we have. This includes providing technical advice and intel to everyone from our sales and marketing teams to our quality, regulatory and pharmacovigilance teams. I work closely with our territory, national and key account managers and their customers to align on and reach targets and goals. My position is largely remote, so some days you will find me at my computer. Other days, I’m traveling to a conference or to meet with customers. Still others, you can find me on my computer and answering calls and emails in the grain cart. I always have my phone on me, so there’s nowhere I don’t work!

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. Our customers are our No. 1 priority. We work with you start to finish to provide consultations, products and services that help get you where you want to go. Some of the ways we do that are by troubleshooting problems you may be experiencing, analyzing data and providing expert feedback to help you feel better-equipped to make the best decision for your business. If the customer isn’t happy, neither are we.

Q. How has the swine industry changed?
A. This is nothing new to those in the industry, but in the past year or two, the swine industry has seen financial losses of historical proportions. It has been a trying time to say the least. When you work in agriculture, it’s no secret that there will be good years and bad years, but we can only pray that there are more of the former. I think we’ve seen the worst of it, and thankfully, the past several months have taken a turn for the better. I think an important lesson to be reminded of is the value of contingency planning and diversifying as much as possible to withstand future challenges. Tough times make tough people. I’ve always said the swine industry has the brightest minds: people who are discovering how to prevent and eliminate disease, how to raise pigs more efficiently and how to care for them to the best of our abilities. We will continue to do that.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. One of the challenges we continue to have is connecting with the consumer. There has been a lot of effort put forth by National Pork Board, but I think there is tremendous opportunity for the swine industry to make headway in the arena of marketing breakthroughs and driving consumer demand. With 99% of the population infinitely removed from agriculture, we must do a better job telling our story and determining how to best amplify that message. It’s a matter of promoting our product and being proud of our legacy.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. Working with veterinarians and producers across the country to help them solve challenges and achieve their goals is what keeps me going. I enjoy developing those relationships and providing resources to achieve breakthroughs.

Q. Who inspires you?
A. Dr. John Baker was my inspiration for joining the swine industry, but my mom is my inspiration for life. She is the strongest woman I know. She raised four children while working fulltime and made it look easy. She taught me how to be resilient, set priorities and boundaries, work hard for what you want, and navigate the work-life balance. Family means everything to me. Since becoming a mother myself, I’ve experienced a shift in my own my perspective and outlook on life: what’s really important, what my goals are, and what I’m okay letting go of. I’m part of a small Bible study group with some amazing women. In the past year I’ve learned, more than ever, to put my trust in God and pray about everything. We are here to do His work and love and help others along the way. I feel so blessed every day and try to always see the positive in every situation.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. It’s all about the people. Serve and protect the customer. It doesn’t matter what product or service you’re selling. If you don’t do right by the customer, you’re not relevant or sustainable.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. Business today looks different than it did 20 years ago, and it certainly will in another 20. If you look at the trends, market conditions and policy have driven many of the more impactful changes we’ve seen recently. These are two factors that aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. Other important things to consider include long-term domestic and foreign demand for pork, and legislation reform to alleviate labor challenges. In 20 years, production strategies and disease control and elimination strategies have evolved to what they are today. As swine veterinarians, when we discover new challenges, we quickly pivot and adapt and are always open-minded to trying what the latest research supports. Disease-resistance genetics will likely play a more significant role in the health of the national herd, and perhaps that’s a breakthrough we need to help alleviate some of the challenges we’ve had with PRRS.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I truly believe God has a plan for all of us, and I know He has led me to where I’m at. If you’d asked me this question a few years ago, I would have had a different answer, but anymore, I don’t like to spend time thinking about the “what-ifs.”

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Find a mentor who can help make connections and open doors for you. Work hard in school and get as much experience in as many aspects of the business as possible. Be open to traveling to new places, meeting new people, and learning new skills. You’re likely to end up where you’re meant to be when you don’t close any doors.

Q. How do you think the growing threat of foreign animal disease will impact the future of the U.S. pork industry?
A. There’s no question that biosecurity will continue to be paramount. Prevention is worth every penny. Lessons learned since porcine epidemic diarrhea struck have vastly enhanced our understanding, capabilities and success in keeping disease out. We have the most intelligent researchers doing great work on nearly every disease we battle, and it’s only a matter of time before they make more breakthroughs to help us protect herd health. Veterinarians don’t like having to treat disease either. We want healthy pigs as much as anyone!

Editor’s Note: PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest.

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PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Breanna Lawyer

Tue, 06 Aug 2024 12:34:57 GMT

Growing up on a row crow and hog farm in Indiana, Breanna Lawyer of Shirley, Ind., learned early that optimism goes a long way in life. Those lessons she learned working alongside her dad on the farm continue to inspire and challenge her to be her best in her role today as Elanco’s U.S. swine marketing brand manager.

“My dad still runs a nursery barn and despite the market being what it is now, his optimism and desire to get up and do the same thing every day with a positive attitude is something that goes a long way regardless of what you are pursuing in life,” Lawyer says.

She credits her dad who diligently works to feed the world as her mentor in terms of his work ethic and how he treats others with respect, all while having a positive outlook every day. It’s that perspective that so many hog farmers share that recently drew Lawyer back to the commercial hog industry.

After graduating from Black Hawk College East Campus, she transferred to Purdue University and majored in ag business. She went straight to Dow AgroSciences in a territory associate role in the range and pasture business before moving to southeast Florida to pursue a crop protection sales position with the company. She continued to take on new challenges and grow into new roles in global transformation and business before she landed a unique opportunity with Elanco’s marketing team. After almost a year in this role, she recently shifted over to oversee Elanco’s porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) and respiratory product focus.

Read on to learn more about Lawyer’s career with Elanco, from her business philosophy to her views on consumer demand in the pork industry.

Q. Tell me about your business.
A. Elanco is well known for not only bringing producers solutions, but also collaborating and working with producers to better understand what they need and why, in addition to the challenges they’re facing, whether it’s a product fit, or even some of value-add work that we do from a data to decisions standpoint.

Q. What is your why?
A. Agriculture, and specifically the livestock industry, has always been the base of what I’ve done in life. Regardless of where I’ve gone, agriculture and production have always been what’s driven me to make my next career move. Specifically, my why is to help people be successful. I want to show other young women in agriculture that you can succeed, work hard, stay humble and be respectful at the same time. There are always opportunities for folks like that.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. It changes day by day but here in the short term, it’s preparing for Elanco’s launch of Pradalex. I am working with regulatory, manufacturing, account managers, technical consultant teams (veterinarians and nutritionists), ensuring I’m aligned with them as far as product positioning and resources that we have for our account managers and external stakeholders. When I’m not helping launch a new product, it looks like forecasting or answering questions that a customer or account manager might have about a specific purchase order that’s been sent in.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. We work closely with producers to better understand everything from optimizing profitability at the packer level to transport loss and from sow productivity to market animal selection training. We focus on product fit but also educating and trying to improve efficiency at the producer level. Our account managers are known for their partnership with producers and tools that we have to bridge that gap to help them be as efficient and profitable as possible.

Q. How has the swine industry changed in the past year?
A. I’ve watched the overall resiliency and openness to collaborate with each other from a producer standpoint improve as far as conversations about things that are going well and things that aren’t going well. The past few years have been extremely challenging for producers. I think producers have truly displayed leadership resiliency not only at the barn level but also in advocating why we do what we do. I believe a big mindshift is taking place in how they approach things on a day-to-day basis.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. The volatility in ag right now is concerning – not to mention when you add the layer of public perception and production practices receiving pressure. To me, one of the big challenges in ag in general is educating consumers to ensure we continue to have the freedom to operate moving forward.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. Even though I grew up with a production hog background, you are separated just a little bit from where you come from when you go to school. Your eyes open to other opportunities. When I was in crop protection, I missed talking about livestock and production ag outside of row crop. I know it sounds cliché, but the people in the swine industry brought me back to commercial pork production.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I enjoy sitting down with producers and hearing straight from them about the challenges they face and the bright spots they see. I value the collaboration I have with them in my job. It’s that true teamwork that I love most about my job, whether that’s internal with our account managers or sitting down one on one with producers.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. All too often we focus on driving toward results and being very task oriented. But I always think it’s helpful to take a step back and remember you are working with people. From a business values standpoint, I think it’s about making it clear you care about the people you work with. You will deliver better results when you know the people you work with care about what you are doing and appreciate what you are doing. For me, it’s a lot greater than just KPIs or increase to the bottom line. That’s nice to have, and obviously very important, but at same time one of the core values I have is respect, empathy and a willingness to work together. To me, that is what embodies leadership even more so than hitting a goal and delivering a plan.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. I hope we continue to be innovative and that there will be less of a gap between consumers and producers. We are doing an extremely good job at getting more effective and productive, and that continues to improve, but it doesn’t matter how productive or efficient we are if we don’t have consumers that want our products. I would like to see pork consumption up and producers still being efficient and productive and profitable.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. Ask more questions. I look back and think about the things I had the opportunity to do and wish I would have tried to understand better rather than just knock out tasks. If I could go back, I would ask questions like, “Why are we doing it this way?” Take advantage of opportunities to sit down with subject matter experts.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Lean on the folks you know that are in an industry that you are passionate about. The best way to understand if a career is something you want to do or not is to experience it through job shadowing or internships. The more hands-on, one-on-one experience you can get with folks is best. Not only does that help you understand what you do or don’t want to do, but it builds a network of people to help you find the right fit. I’m a big advocate of surrounding yourself with leaders in industries you are passionate about. We can all get caught up in going through the motions. My biggest piece of advice is to ask yourself what you enjoy doing and why, then surround yourselves with people you can lean on to set your network to get yourself into those positions.

Editor’s Note: PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest. Pradalex and Elanco are trademarks of Elanco or its affiliates.

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PORK Perspective: A Minute with Chad Groves

Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:50:33 GMT

He’s the guy who always asks for more. Whether it’s more work or more ways to learn, everyone who knows Chad Groves knows he never looks for shortcuts.

That’s likely why Peter Brown, current CEO of Seaboard Foods, sought Groves out 18 months ago to start teaching him what he needs to know to take over the reins as CEO at the end of June.

“My background has been more sales and marketing, commercial-focused, but for the last 18 months, I’ve spent a great deal of time across our live operations teams, with farmer-owners of Triumph foods, and within our plant operations to understand where I was weak in terms of my background,” says Groves, who has been serving as senior vice president of sales and marketing for Seaboard Foods in Overland Park, Kan.

A firm believer that capacity to learn and flexibility trump experience on the job, Groves has been passionate about the food industry since he was a kid learning about sales from his dad who was a sugar broker and owned a small butcher shop.

“Never lose that curiosity to learn,” Groves says. “The people who are advancing their careers at Seaboard Foods wake up every day with a curiosity to learn, to get better and to make the business better. We can go and get you experience without any issues, but you’ve got to have that curiosity to be able to go out and learn.”

Read on to learn more about Grove’s career with Seaboard Foods, from his business philosophy to his views on consumer demand in the pork industry.

Q. What makes you unique in this industry?
A. I did not grow up on a farm. I grew up in the suburbs of the north side of Indianapolis and neither of my parents went to college. My dad was a sugar broker and started his own business. I went to college, thinking I’d come back and work for my dad at some point. But my dad was adamant that I “go and get some experience somewhere else prior to coming back.” That led me to Purdue University where I obtained a degree in selling and sales management. During that time, my dad sold the business right before I graduated so I had no business to come back to any longer. I found a job at Cargill and kept advancing forward in different roles until I landed my current position three years ago with Seaboard Foods.

Q. Tell me about your business.
A. Seaboard Corporation is a Fortune 300 company with well over 100 years of history that started in grain trading. The company diversified and expanded into other businesses. Nearly 27 years ago, Seaboard Foods started up a flagship processing plant in Guymon, Okla. That facility currently harvests just over 21,000 animals a day. But the main differentiator is the setup of farms surrounding that plant. We don’t pride ourselves in being the biggest, but we are vertically integrated and own the animals that we harvest. That’s a key differentiator for us. The business started with the Japanese consumer in mind who expects a higher-level eating experience. That quality has resonated across all our customers, both here in the U.S. and in other countries as well.

Q. What is Seaboard Foods’ why?
A. Our why is simple – we want to bring excellence to the table. With everything that we do, we look to be a cut above our competition in the marketplace.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. My philosophy is to be a down-to-earth guy who fits in with the rest of the team. I think that speaks to who we are as a culture. But what you’ll also find with me is that when mistakes, errors or issues pop up, I own it. I’m always looking internally. It’s easy to look external and assign blame to others trying to figure out who put us in a tough position. But that’s not who we are as a business. One of the books we live by here at Seaboard Foods is “Extreme Ownership.” It teaches you to look within when you’re faced with challenges. When problems come up, we look within to say, how can we be better? Some of my best growth has happened during those tough times when I’ve looked within and thought to myself, ‘How can I make an impact going forward to prevent us from being in this position again?’

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. It’s the people. The Bresky family has built a family-oriented business from day one. We’ve run relatively lean as a group, and we know the families of our employees and that’s how we always want it to be. As managers, we tend to be keepers of the culture and look at new hire and say, ‘Will this person add to or subtract from our culture?’ We’re wildly passionate about making sure we keep up and maintain the culture that we’ve been able to have here at Seaboard Foods.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. We put the customer at the center of everything we do, and always ask ourselves, “Is this better for the customer?” I know when our team walks in the door, we’re never going to be the least expensive. But we want to outmaneuver our competition when it comes to the tangible and intangible areas our customers value.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. The lack of incentive alignment that we have across our industry concerns me. Packers have no standardized way to incentivize producers for producing higher quality pork. Instead, producers focus on feed conversions. But when they do that, it jeopardizes the quality of the eating experience. National Pork Board research has found that consumers typically say no to pork for two reasons – nutrition and inconsistency. Pork is extremely nutritious and rich in vitamins, but we don’t talk about that enough. It’s a difficult scenario because we can spend a significant amount of money to go out and educate consumers to go out and try pork. However, if they don’t have a great eating experience, all that money has been spent for naught. We really need to figure out a way to reward producers for producing a better product. By no means am I calling to put in a grading system that’s going to require USDA inspection, but there’s great technology out there that allows for grading to be done visually by cameras and other means. This could allow us to put money in the pockets of the farmers for producing a better product that will lift the entire industry and help build trust in pork.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry?
A. We have several different housing standards throughout our system and segregation for each in order to meet the consumer and our customers where they want to be. I think getting to one national standard or one understanding, whether it’s a complete freedom to operate or a set standard, is key. We don’t want 50 states coming to us with 50 different standards because that adds more complexity to the business and costs within our system.

Q. Who inspired you?
A. I would not be in the food industry if it wasn’t for my dad. Growing up, he ran his business out of our house. I was basically his IT person very early on in my life. I also got to know many of his customers and went to customer events. That is where I caught my passion for sales. My dad would always say, ‘I’m never the lowest price, but my customer knows that whether they call me at 9 p.m. or 10 a.m. on a Saturday, they know I’m going to answer the phone and they’re going to get to have a conversation with me.’ That is what I’m trying to bring to this industry. My dad taught me to wake up wanting to be better every day and striving to do more.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. Our business is at this inflection point where we’ve grown to the size we want to be on the live operation and fresh meat processing sides. Now it comes down to executing in the value-added space. If I were to look back 20 years from now when I’m retiring, I want to be able to say we were wildly successful and built out our value-added business to be 50% of our sales.

Q. If you could do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I’ve certainly had some highs and lows within my career. Both the highs and lows have come with great learning, but what I’ve found is the best learning comes when you’re in the absolute lows of your career. You don’t realize that at the time because you’re going through hardships, but the lows make you a better person in the long run.

Q. What can the pork industry do to drive more pork demand domestically?
A. It starts with understanding who your consumer is. I’m not sure we really have understood who our customer was until now. We have done some segmentation, but never at the level that has recently been done by David Newman, senior vice president of market growth, and his team at National Pork Board. The National Pork Board is switching gears between understanding who the consumer is and now shifting to how do we go after them and bring them back to the category? I think it starts by telling those stories, meeting the consumer who’s more diverse than we are, making pork an ingredient and finding ways to put pork into dishes, not necessarily as the center of the plate. Finally, we need to share pork’s nutritional story more.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Don’t be afraid to get outside your comfort zone. Don’t get comfortable. If you find yourself in an uncomfortable position, even if that means changing up your job and asking for different responsibilities, the more diversity you can create in your work experience and what you’ve done for the company, the more doors will open further down the line. When we’ve had leadership roles open up here at Seaboard, the people that have put themselves in those uncomfortable positions, always end up in those leadership experience and leadership roles because they’ve challenged them themselves and shown their ability to learn.

Editor’s Note: PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest. The views expressed in this article are those of Chad Groves.

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Pork Perspectives: A Minute with Kale Causemaker

Fri, 23 Feb 2024 13:00:00 GMT

From 4-H and FFA to judging livestock at Black Hawk East to working in the swine industry, Kale Causemaker has been part of the ag industry for as long as he can remember. His experiences as a member of high school and collegiate livestock judging teams were instrumental in his decision to stay involved in agriculture. Currently, Causemaker serves as the senior director of sales for Innovation Solutions at Kent Nutrition Group.

He grew up in a small town in Henry County, Ill., where his family had a small cow calf and row crop operation. “Interestingly enough, Henry County was the self-proclaimed hog capitol of the world at one time,” he says.

Causemaker now resides in Geneseo, Ill., where he has worked in the swine industry for the past 35 years. He started his career in hog procurement and has been with Innovative Solutions for almost four years.

Read on to learn more about his career, from his business philosophy to his outlook on the pork industry.

Q: What is your why?
A: My why is to help discover and get directly involved in identifying and developing nutritional solutions for pork producers while leading a team that supports these technologies for our customers.

Q: Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A: Every day is a little different and that makes it fun! Not only do I manage people from a director’s position, but I’m also developing a new business model within the organization. If there are two constants, each morning I get caught up with a high-level overview of what is going on in the industry as well as what I need to share with my team. This helps me have a good understanding of what producers are facing and see what is going on with our team. Second, I regularly check in with our technical manager Dr. Tom Weber to get updates on research projects and product developments. All of this helps me better understand the innovative ways we can help our industry.

Q: How does your company serve its customers?
A: It’s really pretty simple – we prioritize working with our customers to understand their needs and challenges. As a whole, my company has the capabilities of providing high quality swine and other animal nutrition to producers. We have 10 manufacturing facilities in the Midwest central geography as well as four plants on the East Coast.

Q: How has the business changed since you started?
A: The industry has changed immensely since I started working at Kent for the first time in 2003. There certainly has been consolidation and that will likely continue. Most notably, there seems to be more collaboration within the industry between producers and competing companies to work together to find solutions.

Q: What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A: Currently, one of the major concerns is profitability or lack thereof. We’ve been through this before as an industry, but not sustained this long. 2024 is forecasted to be about the same situation for producers. That’s a major concern. Another one is the threat of foreign animal disease – it is always on our mind.

Q: What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A: Our greatest opportunity is to improve livability. I don’t think anybody’s satisfied or proud of the rise in sow mortality that we’ve seen over the years. Approximately 20% of the pigs don’t make it to weaning and approximately 30% don’t make it to market. There’s obviously a lot of factors involved there, from genetics to management, even nutrition. It is going to take the industry coming together to solve that. Fortunately, there are already steps in place to do that.

Q: What do you enjoy most about your job?
A: Interacting with the people in our industry is my favorite part of the job – whether it’s the producers themselves, my colleagues or other industry professionals. There isn’t another industry I’d rather be involved in than agriculture. It’s a small world and when you narrow it down to agriculture, and it’s even smaller.

Q: Who inspires you?
A: I’ve been fortunate to have many people positively influence me, whether it’s personally or professionally. It’s hard to say just one – it is really the pork industry as a whole. The industry motivates me because they are a group of a good, resilient people. They make you want to work hard for them.

Q: What is your business philosophy?
A: If a product or service is not scientifically proven to provide a positive return on investment, then it is not a sustainable solution. It’s just that simple. I don’t think it’s the correct thing to do to provide a product or service, just to make a margin for your company. It must prove positive for the producers, and then it’s a win-win.

Q: If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A: I probably would have taken more of a meat science route. I enjoy that. I’m one that likes to stand in front of a meat counter at a grocery store and just analyze cuts of meats. It’s just like judging a live animal. It’s always intrigued me.

Q: What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A: I would encourage someone who’s interested in a career like mine to always prioritize your team’s success over your own personal success. If you do that, you’re going to maintain a stronger team, maintain more talent, and ultimately that will be the result of your own personal success. Remember it starts with the team.

Q: How do you think the growing threat of foreign animal disease will impact the future of the U.S. pork industry?
A: The growing threat of foreign animal disease has certainly heightened our awareness and our preparedness. As a result, we have policies in place to try and keep foreign animal disease out of our country. We have production systems that have bolstered their biosecurity, not just for foreign animal disease, but for other endemic diseases that affect them. Doing these things to be prepared will make the industry as a whole more prepared for a response if the worst case happens.

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PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Anthony Novero

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 14:05:43 GMT

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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PORK Perspectives: A Minute With Denny McKilligan

Thu, 24 Aug 2023 13:49:49 GMT

PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest. Meet Denny McKilligan, Innovations leader for TechMix.

Pork producers are under a lot of stress now. That’s what drives TechMix’s Denny McKilligan, leader of the Innovations Team, to find answers to the challenges that keep farmers up at night.

“Our customers are our friends – the best way to help them is to help their animals,” says McKilligan, who resides in Ames, Iowa. “When we develop products or programs that help their animals, we help our customers. In turn, when our customers do better, we get more business because of it.”

For McKilligan, business is relationship-driven. That’s what makes it fun and meaningful, he adds.

“Everyone will have challenges,” he points out. “Stuff happens to all of us. It’s a matter of how we work through it and not just through it, but with character. As you’re doing things, are you being truthful and considerate in the process? And with patience?”

He’s a strong believer in collaboration and bringing in people to tackle problems from different perspectives.

“You never know where a solution will come from,” he says. “In our industry, we rely on scientists with a formal education. That can be extremely helpful. At the same time, there are many people, including caregivers, service providers and others, who have experiences and ideas that can solve the problem. Solutions can come from anywhere and from anybody. So, it’s important to have a multifaceted group to attack these problems.”

Read on to learn more about McKilligan’s 21-year career with TechMix, from his business philosophy to his outlook on innovation in the pork industry.

Q. What is your why?
A. I grew up on a Charolais cow-calf operation. We had some calving problems, and I quickly realized the value of the obstetrical chain to get calves out. Since then, I’ve always leaned toward helping the young calves and young pigs. That’s what drew me to TechMix. Our why as a company is to keep animals drinking, eating and producing – in other words, alive and healthy. I think that’s important with our large operations today – to focus on helping those animals stay healthy so they can produce more.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job.
A. Although it varies every day, my typical day is working with and visiting with customers to understand their challenges. I spend a fair amount of time reviewing literature to find potential interventions, ingredients or methods to help, looking through the science that someone’s already done to help animals live better. I work with the various departments in our company to see that projects are progressing. I encourage team members and make sure they have the resources they need.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. Interdependence is better than independence. It’s really cool when people get to the point where they’re responsible and do things for themselves. When you get to interdependence, you reach another level where you’re involving others and working together to solve problems. When problems are solved, there’s dollars to be shared. We don’t make any bones that we want to be a profitable company. But at the same time, in order to be profitable, you’ve got to create value and help producers. If they lose fewer pigs, they have more pigs to sell, and they get more dollars for the amount of pork they produced. I think sales and growth are the fruit of your work, as opposed to ‘Okay, I’m going to go try and make money.’

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I love to develop new things that make a difference. I enjoy working with team members and customers to solve problems in a creative way. I have a great team and when we get together to talk, it’s fun to see how our products make a difference in the field for both pigs and caregivers.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. Our emphasis is on short-term interventions that improve pig livability. I tell people that one of the best things I can do is to sit on a bucket and watch pigs and the people taking care of the pigs to understand what’s going on in their system. If our team is in the barns and seeing what’s going on, then we can develop a useful intervention. We employ design thinking in our innovation process where somebody comes up with an idea, then we go out and try it. We get feedback, and then we iterate or change it up in some way. Then we come back again, and then we iterate again. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of iterations. But that’s just part of the process to get it to a point where it’s really effective. Figuring out how to do things in the right sequence is key.

Q. How has the business changed since you started?
A. It has become more science-based. By that, I mean we’re measuring our product’s performance with objective standards. That’s even true for livability, where we’re working with a large number of animals so we can get statistical significance. In scripture, it says there’s nothing new under the sun. But there’s a lot of stuff under the sun you can work with. We liken it to putting together different combinations. We use different methods to get in the science to understand the objective results. We’ve also integrated project management so can be more process-oriented as we develop things.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. My biggest concern is whether advancements and technology development keep up with or surpass the challenges. We have ongoing health challenges that cause pig loss. It’s really frustrating for the caregivers. Labor availability and biosecurity are big issues, too. As we have less labor, we’ve got to develop technologies that can allow these caregivers do a good job. I think the number of people we have on the farm compared to the number of things that need done on a farm can be overwhelming. My concern is whether we can develop things and change quickly enough to adapt so we can continue to provide good care for the animals and a good environment for people to work in.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. Collaborative efforts to make progress where people have passion. If you really think about it, most people are passionate about, for example, a certain lifecycle of the pig, or they’re passionate about a particular area of pork production. If you can connect that passion with collaboration, you can make a difference. I like the quote, ‘A rising tide lifts all boats.’ Rather than developing technologies in a silo, if we can develop technologies in a way where others can get better and better, that will be very valuable for the entire pork industry.

Q. Who inspired (or inspires) you?
A. R. G. LeTourneau, the author of “Mover of Men and Mountains” has been an inspiration in my life. He was an industrialist – basically a dirt mover. He invented the first dirt scraper hauled behind a tractor. It’s a great example of a farmer developing things on his farm to farm better. LeTourneau developed new tools and equipment and started getting a lot of earthmoving jobs. Over time, he realized he needed to be in the business of developing equipment. He eventually developed equipment to help other movers and companies. At the same time, he lifted his employees by providing for a variety of different needs, like education and housing. He loved inventing things to help make life better, but he was always looking out for his team and trying to help them, too.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. I think our business will be more process-oriented and technology driven. We’re trying to embrace technology, whether it’s apps to measure things or AI (artificial intelligence) in our product searches and formulas. We want to develop processes that are repeatable. We are trying to make sure we are continually improving our processes and hitting for a higher batting average.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I would learn more about design and development. I think, whether you’re building a product, building a structure or building a formula, if you get the design right, things much better. I would like to figure out how to design things better, so I can be better at solving problems and creating value.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. You don’t need to have all the answers yourself. I feel like I’m as much of a coordinator as I am an inventor. Use your own skills, but tap into other people’s skills and lift people up as you go. When you help others, it’s not always a direct relationship. But when you help others, it will come back in some way, shape or form eventually.

Q. How will the growing threat of foreign animal disease impact the future of the U.S. pork industry?
A. The longer we go without it, the better off we are. I think if we get a foreign animal disease, we will figure out how to deal with it. When we had porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), that was terrible right away. But there’s actually a lot of good things that came out of the challenges that we got from PED.

Q. What’s one word to describe you?
A. Curious. I’ve had several people tell me I’m like Curious George. I snap at every shiny thing. Although I’m very curious, I want to be encouraging and help others realize that we all have problems, but they can be overcome together.

Read More:

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Victor Ochoa

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Matthew Rooda

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Victor Ochoa

Tue, 02 May 2023 16:34:34 GMT

PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest. Meet Victor Ochoa, director of Swineworks.

For Victor Ochoa, the TN visa process isn’t just something he talks about. It’s something he’s lived. After attending vet school in Mexico City, he went to work for a pig farm in Mexico that was owned by a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods. Not long after, he was recruited to apply for the TN visa program and join a Smithfield farm in the U.S. in 2007.

From power washing to processing to breeding and managing, Ochoa got an up-close look at what it’s like to work on a U.S. swine farm. He even experienced running an onboarding farm for a couple years. He went on to work for PIC and saw their company face some of the same struggles as Smithfield.

“It opened my eyes to what kind of workers work best and what kind of workers do not make it in this industry. We all know it’s a tough industry, it’s hard work,” Ochoa says. “I have had a lot of friends that decided to leave in less than a year because it was too much for some of them.”

Now, after 15 years of living in the U.S., Ochoa is the director of Swineworks, a family-owned business that started in 2017. Ochoa took over the reins in 2020 and it’s been exploding ever since. He is stationed in the Nashville, Tenn., area while the rest of the team is located throughout Mexico. The business serves both swine producers in the U.S. looking for employees and residents of Mexico who want to find employment in the U.S.

“We’re in an industry, especially in Mexico, where there’s a lot of fraud. People are just trying to get money from the candidates. We don’t try to convince people to come here with false promises that it will be easy, and they will get rich,” Ochoa says. “I always tell my recruits that we never have to convince anybody to come to the U.S. to work. We explain the reality of the job, the reality of the industry, and then whoever ends up coming is truly interested in coming to work in the swine industry.”

Q. Tell me about your business.
A. We are a staffing company that provides recruiting, visa and temporary worker services. Our motto in the U.S. is “We have a snout for talent.” In Mexico, it’s ‘Dedicados a brindarte un mejor futuro,” or “We are dedicated to give you a better future.” We want to provide a better future not only for the people who come to the U.S., but also to the producer as well. It creates a lot of value for them and for us. As a business, we are in an industry that is growing. Being a resource for the industry, for the producers, and for the people in Mexico, is why we want to succeed in this industry.

Q. What makes Swineworks unique?
A. I came into the U.S. under the TN Visa program as a farm technician and went through all of the department roles and activities that producers need staff to fill. I can tell people this is what you’re going to do: power wash, process, vaccinate. It’s going to be cold. You are going to unload trucks at 3 a.m. That’s insight that other companies can’t provide. We can all do the paperwork, but I can help provide them with more information about transitioning into the U.S. and also what helps people succeed.

Q. What is your why?
A. I’m an immigrant, born in Mexico. We don’t have the same opportunities. In Mexico, you can make money, but somebody’s likely going to rob you or you are going to get kidnapped. You don’t get to enjoy that money. You don’t have the same quality of life. My “why” is I want to show people that there are more opportunities here in the U.S. I think my job is to provide that opportunity, to show people in Mexico that it is possible. That’s why I enjoy this.

Q. What is one of the biggest differences between working on a U.S. swine farm vs. a farm in Mexico?
A. When I was working at farms in Mexico, there were some open positions, and the minimum requirement was five to 10 years of experience to get into a management position. Here in the U.S., because there’s a limited workforce, you can get promoted in three months. You’re actually saving time -10 years of your life – to get a better position than you would have in Mexico. I have a lot of satisfaction when I see somebody has been successful in this industry, especially coming from a country where you don’t have those opportunities.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. When we receive a call, we know they have probably experienced several months of being short staffed, so we are always looking for ways to streamline our process, so it produces the labor they need when they need it.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. I believe what happened with porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) back in the 1990s, when a lot of small producers disappeared and a lot of consolidation happened, will happen again because of the labor issues our industry faces. Not that many producers are going to be able to pay $20 an hour to attract people like the largest companies can. Start focusing – not necessarily investing more money – on different ways of attracting people and retaining them.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. I believe the swine industry, or agriculture in general, is very disconnected with younger generations. Without the workforce, it is very difficult to produce pork. I think there are only two ways to survive in this environment: invest in technology to automate the process and use less labor or really invest in attracting workers and developing retention strategies.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. Meeting challenges and solving problems. Immigration is very inconsistent. I can see two sides of the coin – from a worker’s perspective and a producer’s perspective. Sometimes both can be unrealistic, but a lot of the time, they want the same thing – to be successful and get paid for doing a good job. I love seeing how some producers are not offering that much money but have better results in terms of turnover compared to other people offering more money. That made me curious about why they are struggling to retain people. We have some producers that really care about their people compared to other producers that just see another body to help.

Q. Why are you so passionate about bridging generation gaps?
A. I think we are in a battle right now, where the producers are baby boomers and workaholics. It’s their farm and they want to have a career – they don’t take days off. Then we have the millennials that want to see technology, that value their time and seek balance. Everybody complains about millennials, until they have a problem on the computer. I think it’s all about how you manage each generation and how you take advantage of their skills.

Q. Who inspires you?
A. What inspires me the most is when I see immigrants thrive. It’s inspiring how these people come with nothing and can get a better life. The easiest way would be to stay in Mexico and make money doing bad things. They decide to come here and work to have a better life.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. I think in 20 years the industry will shift from entry-level positions to equipment operators, robots, computers. We need to change our model to find people who will be filling these roles, from mass recruiting to a more specialized staffing process. I think we’re going to be needing less people. We have to adapt and find the people that are going to be needed in 20 years.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. Start earlier. I spent almost 10 years working for Smithfield. I love agriculture and swine production. I think at some point, you can get too comfortable in one spot and start getting scared of taking new opportunities, because you are living a good life and you are comfortable with your surroundings. If I could change something, I would have gone to PIC and Swineworks earlier. Sometimes we wait for the perfect moment and then that perfect moment never comes.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Don’t be scared. If you are always trying to time the market and have everything perfect, it’s never going to happen. “Perfection” is the enemy of “done,” so prepare, learn, study—but nothing beats doing (action).

Read More:

7 Things You Need to Know Before Hiring Workers from Mexico

What’s Holding You Back from Utilizing the TN Visa Program to Grow Your Team?

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Matthew Rooda

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 16:03:18 GMT

Matthew Rooda, co-founder and CEO of SwineTech, was born to think outside of the box. As a kid, he drove his four-wheeler to pig farms to do vaccinations. As time passed, he grew stronger and faster, but he still got paid the same. After a conversation with his father, a pork producer, Rooda decided to ask his employers if they would pay him per pig instead of by the hour. The answer? Yes.

This was a pivotal moment for Rooda. He began understanding the value of efficiency.

He started his career in the swine industry working in nurseries and finishers. When the manager of a sow barn took maternity leave, he stepped in to help. His education was also an asset to his experience. While attending Hawkeye Community College and later the University of Iowa for a genetics and biotechnology and business management degree, he worked for Schneider & Schneider Pork Farms as an assistant farm manager. In preparation for medical school, he eventually became a nurse’s aide and then a medication aide at a nursing home called Oaknoll. And that’s where things really got interesting.

“The University of Iowa had an opportunity for students to present business ideas for cash. I’ve worked a power washer a lot, so I’ve had plenty of time to come up with the world’s “greatest” ideas...and most of them were pretty terrible,” Rooda laughs. “But I had this one idea where we could use voice recognition to save piglets from getting laid on.”

Long story short, the idea won and he and his business partner were invited to be a part of a student accelerator program where they were later identified by the Iowa Startup Accelerator.

“They offered us $25,000 to participate in their program, but we had to drop out of school and we only had 24 hours to decide,” Rooda says. “We were going into our senior year. I was pre-med hoping to be an obstetrician and had the MCATs coming up. But my buddy and I decided we were going to do it. We hated it when athletes tried to stay in school when they had these amazing opportunities. We were like, ‘This is our once in a lifetime opportunity, we’re going to take it.’”

^{Matthew Rooda (right) with co-founder and SwineTech chief operating officer Abraham Espinoza.}

They dropped out of school and spent 90 days working 16 hours a day in the program. They had the opportunity to pitch their plan in over 25 business plan competitions during that time, racking up prizes worth over $350,000 at places like MIT, Microsoft, Princeton, Under Armor, Harvard and more. The prize money funded research to work on the piglet crushing prevention idea and validated the idea of using a chiropractic TENS impulse to alert a sow to roll over so her piglet won’t be crushed. This spurred the development of SmartGuard, a solution to help stop this problem. And then, the pandemic hit.

“Nobody was going to be investing in new technology during the pandemic,” Rooda says. “It just wasn’t going to happen. We had to pivot.”

Read on to learn more about Rooda’s business pivot, his leadership philosophy and his outlook on the pork industry.

Q. Why did you decide to pivot your business idea?
A. The COVID-19 pandemic gave us time to think more deeply about the problems we were seeing on sow farms. We had to sit back and think about what we could do to help mitigate the challenges we were facing with SmartGuard, but also help the industry in a bigger way. We scheduled interviews with over 200 employees representing 30 systems. We were able to validate this point: Unless we go in the farm physically, we really don’t know what’s happening, who’s doing it and if it’s compliant. When we talked to employees, they said, “We want to know what we need to do, when we need to do it and if we’re doing a good job.” The two really lined up incredibly well. That’s when we decided we were going to put SmartGuard on the backburner and build a new solution for farms around workforce management.

Q. Tell me about your business. What is your why?
A. When we look at how far our business has come over the past seven years, the initial goal was to prevent piglets and sows from dying. That started out by creating a voice recognition technology that could identify a piglet in distress, alert the mom to stand up and save that piglet’s life. But we quickly realized that in order to have sustained impact, all of the processes that followed saving that little pig needed to be well understood, managed and executed on. And we couldn’t control that. We wanted to step back and figure out how we could do that. That’s when we created PigFlow, a point-of-care platform for pigs, designed to help understand when and where people need to be and whether or not they did a good job. Our mission is to help producers streamline and monitor routine and emergency care, communication, daily workflows, administrative tasks, herd diagnostics, as well as record storage and transmission. We’ve put the pig at the core of what we’re focused on – the health of that pig and the care for that pig – modeling our approach from human health. The results from heightened accountability and ownership have been exciting with substantial improvements in employee efficiencies, engagement, and pig care.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. It starts with a morning standup where everyone on our team gets together to talk about what happened yesterday and what’s going on today. After that, it’s an open game. For me, it might be working on the business as a CEO, as a marketer, as a salesperson...a little of everything. Then you sprinkle in meetings and solving problems and it becomes a very dynamic day for me. I enjoy the opportunity to be a part of so many different things and have the confidence to offer value in all of those areas, despite not being able to spend a whole lot of time on them. I enjoy being able to provide input, guidance and hopefully empowerment to the team members who are actually working on those things.

^{The SwineTech team at the Iowa Pork Congress.}

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. We believe in a partnership approach – the consult-join-counselor approach. We want to understand: What are the challenges being faced? How do we collectively create a strategy to start solving those problems? With SwineTech pivoting to a more holistic approach to pig care and workforce management, it has allowed us to step in and be helpful in many areas. That’s probably one of the most rewarding parts of what we do – being able to connect with people who are taking care of pigs and trying to grow their business, and strategically walking through solutions and strategies that can help make that better.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. I believe labor, herd health, public perception and viability of our producers are the greatest concerns moving forward. I think another big challenge is that we are at a tipping point of whether or not the individuals who helped build the industry to what it is today want to stay in it. It will have a profound impact on what our industry looks like in five to 10 years. They all have the purview to make that decision for themselves and we’ll have to figure out how to move forward.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. Production potential is a big opportunity because we do not maximize our current genetic potential today. We are, in most systems, hundreds of dollars per sow away from the biological limits or genetic potential of that animal. How do we help elevate our industry to that of the 90th percentile? We have so many resources with labor, genetics and so on, that we are just not maximizing. There will be people who figure out how we stay viable as an industry. There will be people who will figure out how we keep raising the bar of our potential. At SwineTech, our core focus is pig care, so how do we make the most of the resources we’re already paying for today? There’s so much opportunity that just lives within that bucket.

Q. How will the growing threat of foreign animal disease impact the U.S. pork industry’s future?
A. It’s going to push us to be better. Yes, Doomsday might happen. But until then, we’re continually refining our biosecurity approaches to be better. Whether we get ASF or not, I think we’re better for the threat existing. It’s in the back of our minds, right outside of our borders, pushing us to be better than what we would have been otherwise.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. Authenticity, ownership and innovation are our three core values. Authenticity is being who you are. Your unique self brings a perspective, a diversity in itself, that is special. As a society we always talk about diversity around race and gender. But we don’t necessarily talk about diversity when it comes to backgrounds and ideas. Even if you’re not in the swine industry, if you can come in open-minded and be who you are, you’re going to bring a new puzzle piece that we’ve never had before. We’re not going to succeed as an industry if we do the same thing we’ve always been doing. As a business, we need to be who we say we’re going to be, not just do what we say we’re going to do. If I say, I’m going to be the point-of-care platform for pigs, I need to go out there and invest in that. I need to be 100% committed to being that for our industry. Regarding innovation, we always say “Find the better way.” Don’t let perfect become the enemy of good enough. With those three values, we hope to be an authentic brand and a servant to the industry.

^{Matthew Rooda loves being a part of an industry that is constantly growing and evolving.}

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I love being able to work with our customers, our partners, our team, to build relationships, which are often lifelong. My wife works in mental health, and I’ve got other friends in other industries. I’ve learned from them that people job hop between industries quite often. I think that a really cool thing about our industry is that usually when people are in it, they stay in it. That means every time we go to an event, I’m seeing customers that have been doing this forever. That knowledge and relationship is awesome. I also enjoy building a team. We’re in the trenches. Life is changing every day. We’re growing by leaps year over year. Challenges come our way, but we’re in it together and it’s just so much fun.

Q. Who inspires you?
A. My parents and my grandparents were my biggest inspiration growing up and in everything I do today. My dad has accomplished a lot within the swine industry and my mom was always supportive and a very strong person. My grandparents were entrepreneurs. My grandfather was a producer who didn’t pivot in a timely manner with the rest of the industry. But admirably, and in such a good work ethic kind of way, he persevered. My other grandfather was a schoolteacher who started a real estate management company while he was just having his first kids. He’s grown that into a very successful business that has been passed on within the family. It was really inspiring to be able to go work for both of my grandparents, whether that was on the farm or painting, scraping and evicting homes as a kid. They are two very different things, but they taught me a good work ethic.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. When I worked as a nursing aide and medication aide, in the most respectful way, I saw an opportunity for pig production to emulate that when it comes to providing high-quality individualized care. I think 20 years from now, our business will look like an imitation of workforce management in healthcare. I think we can use that system to provide transparent, high-quality care at an individual basis to pigs. We’ve got computer vision, sensors and technology that is becoming less expensive. I think we will be emulating healthcare on a day-to-day basis.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I am happy where I am today. If I change something, that entire story is gone or could be changed. However, I do wish when I started working, someone had told me how crazy one year of eating out all the time will totally make a difference. I would have drank far less of those Starbucks double shots, and ate far less Casey’s breakfast pizza and fast food.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. I always tell individuals thinking about an idea to go get involved in an industry that you’re passionate about and work your ass off to figure out what holds you back. Because whatever is holding you back from accomplishing your goals is likely holding the rest of the industry back as well. There’s your problem. Go passionately pursue the problem before you passionately pursue the idea.

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

Mental Toughness: Make the Most of What Life Throws at You

PIC Invests in SwineTech

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Matthew Turner

Tue, 25 Oct 2022 15:44:32 GMT

When JBS approached Matthew Turner, DVM, in 2016 to serve as head of operations of their live pork division he admits he didn’t think it was a good fit at first. But after he reflected for some time about his career path, he says everything just fell into place to take the leap.

The company’s mission drew him in to serve as head of operations for JBS Live Pork, he says. The last line of the mission, “creating opportunities to better the future of others,” is the most rewarding part of his job. Whether he’s helping contract producer families or members of the team, he is always thinking of ways to help them succeed.

“When you have that guiding principle – that your goal is to help other people have a better future – that’s just a great way to interact with other people,” Turner says.

The JBS values of availability, determination, discipline, humility, ownership, sincerity and simplicity are put to use every day in these interactions.

“If you live out JBS’ values, success comes naturally. It’s a really fun place to work because everybody knows what to expect from one another every day,” he says.

He shares his views on leadership, strategy, efficiency and what he’s learned during his career at JBS Live Pork.

Q. How did you find your start in the swine industry?
A. I grew up on a small row crop and mixed animal farm with 50 sows. After completing my animal science degree at North Carolina State University, I went on to complete my veterinary degree in 2000. During that time, the swine industry was growing rapidly in North Carolina where I was from. I accepted a position in a consulting swine veterinary practice after graduation and worked there 1.5 years before transitioning to the role of full-time veterinarian for Prestage Farms. I spent 15 years there before taking the opportunity to head up operations for JBS Live Pork.

Q. What is your why?
A. Our why is to put the whole chain together from the birth of the pig all the way to the final product leaving the packing plant. We want to be the very best from start to finish, we want to be the most efficient production system in the world and deliver a great product to our customers.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. Our production division is spread out over seven states. About 60% of my time is spent traveling to visit our facilities, contract producers and team members. I spend roughly 40% of my time in Greeley, Colo., the headquarters of JBS USA. Within the office, I interact with many of the pork team members including sales, marketing, processing operations, risk management and senior management. Ultimately you could summarize my day-to-day job as optimizing short-term and real-time results coupled with long-term strategy to make sure we’re doing everything we can to fulfill that mission to be the best in all we do.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. Philosophically within Live Pork, we realize we serve a lot of different customers: our JBS Pork plants, all our team members, and our production partners or contract producers raising our pigs for us. We try our best to provide technical service and technical expertise, as well as high-quality pigs, for all of our customers to be the most successful they can. Our entire leadership team positions itself as a servant to everybody we work with.

Q. How has the business changed since you started?
A. I’ve been involved in the pork industry for over 20 years and the business has not changed a lot over that time. Fundamentally, it’s still about getting as much production as you possibly can from every sow and trying to improve performance of those pigs from weaning to market. I would say what’s really changed over that time, however, is my perspective. As I’ve moved from being a veterinarian in the field every day to seeing the broader scope of pork production, I think I’m more aware of the industry and factors that influence pork production. When I was focused only on veterinary medicine, I didn’t have a well-rounded vision for the scope of pork production around the world or how customers viewed pork production. It’s been an awesome privilege at JBS to be able to see pork production from a global perspective and to interact with all aspects of the pork value chain.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. I firmly believe the swine industry has a great future. The main reason why is because it’s made up of fantastic people. When I visit producers throughout the U.S. and in other countries, I’m amazed by the quality of individuals in animal agriculture. They work hard every single day to do what’s right. However, there are some concerns our industry is facing. The biggest concern is the threat of foreign animal disease. The U.S. produces a lot of pork and we’re dependent, in our current structure, on exports. If we’re not able to export pork products in the future due to a foreign animal disease, that’s going to be very damaging to the pork complex because we produce more pork than our domestic consumers currently consume. If we were to get a foreign animal disease, some contracture in production will have to take place because we will have too much pork. We’ll also have to change the structure of the industry. We have an industry built around moving animals long distances very frequently. That is a real concern for our industry. I think our industry has a soft underbelly related to the movement of animals between regions and the infrastructure used to move animals. This potential weakness makes it possible that a disease could potentially spread rapidly into different geographic regions and be a challenge for us to eradicate the disease quickly.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. I think there’s a big opportunity coming down the pipe related to greenhouse gas emissions. Pork has a fantastic story to tell. There will be opportunities to tell that story and improve on our performance around those metrics. I’m excited about what the future may hold around greenhouse gas emissions and what role animal agriculture can take to make the future better for everyone.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I get to work with a fantastic team of people. It’s an absolute pleasure to work around people that are like-minded and want to be the best in everything they do. What’s really unique about my role today is that I’m able to see people start their careers and develop over time. That’s incredibly rewarding to see people grow and develop both personally and professionally. I am blessed to have a great team supporting each other.

Q. Who inspired you?
A. I have been inspired by many people, but one of the most impactful people in my life during my formative years was my grandmother. She did not have it easy, but she took everything in stride, with grace, and always came out of every challenge with a positive attitude. She instilled values around positivity in me that I still reflect on and take with me through difficult times today. We all have a choice in how we deal with adversity and the very tough times. You can internalize those things, you can be negative, or you can turn them into a positive. I try to assume the best from everybody and spread positivity instead of negativity.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. I strive to be fair to all parties involved: to myself, to JBS, to our teammates, to our producer partners, to everybody. As you think about being fair to everybody, that doesn’t mean everybody gets their way. Sometimes you have to be firm in a position and hold people accountable. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s about being fair and moving that needle in a positive direction every day to make tomorrow better. That also supports or mission to provide that opportunity of a better future.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. If you had asked me that question 20 years ago, I don’t think I would have said it looks like what it looks like today. With that, I’m probably going to be wrong in saying what it will look like in 20 years. But I anticipate further integration, fewer owners of the pigs. That’s not necessarily packers owning more pigs, or producers owning more packing plants. I think there’s potential for integration all the way across that value chain – from the time a pig is born until it lands in a retail store ready for a customer to take home to their families. I believe there will be further integration, fewer players and larger retailers that participate all the way through the value chain. The ones that are going to be the most successful are the ones that are the most efficient from the absolute start to the final product, that is why we have to strive to be more efficient every day.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I don’t have any regrets. But if there was one thing I would change around my personal development over the years, I recognize I should have been more of an active learner early in my career. Finance, human resources, nutrition, high-level production experience – if I knew then what I know now – I would have taken the time to learn more skills earlier in my career. I am a believer that lifelong education is incredibly important, I enjoy learning. Learning can come in many different forms, but I’m a big fan of taking online courses to better my skill set going forward. If I see a need to learn something new today, I seek out a way to gain that knowledge.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. If you want something in life, work your butt off to get it. Nobody’s going to walk up to you and hand you a position or an opportunity if you’ve not shown you’re willing to work hard and earn it. You have to own your own development and you must work hard to be the you that you want to be. You’ll have to sacrifice to get it. You’re going to have to work after hours to get it. You need to own it, and work hard to earn it.

Q. How do you think the threat of ASF will impact the future of the U.S. pork industry?
A. I think the threat of African swine fever (ASF) has made our industry a little bit stronger. I do believe if we actually get infected with ASF, it will completely revolutionize how we do business. The number of animals that we move, the biosecurity principles we have, the just-in-time production model that we employ, will all be very difficult to maintain after an ASF outbreak. We need to do everything we can to keep that virus out of the U.S. so we can stay competitive as an industry. I have great confidence in the swine industry, from the amount of education that we’ve done to the resources that we put into prevention. I have faith that we will rally together and keep ASF out of the U.S.

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 Matthew Turner 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.

Read More:
PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Mike Hemann

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Pat Joyce

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Kent Bang

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with John Waddell

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Edward Seed

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:57:00 GMT

PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest. Meet Edward Seed, vice president of global sales and marketing for Pharmgate.

When Edward Seed, now vice president of global sales and marketing for Pharmgate, began knocking on doors in Canada and the U.S. about 10 years ago with a new product no one had ever heard of, he wasn’t sure what doors would actually open.

“Here I was representing a very small company, which nobody had ever heard of, representing a first product, and starting to survey the markets,” Seed said. “I was so impressed that customers were prepared to open their doors and help. Obviously, they wanted to hear what we were, who we were, what we had and how it might help them. But they were also absolutely generous in giving time and support.”

It’s those people that he met during the start-up of Pharmgate Animal Health that are still his most loyal customers today. And they are more than that, he says. They are very good friends. Since then, the company has continued to grow and expand its customer base. Seed shares his views on mentoring, leadership, strategy and what he’s learned during his career at Pharmgate.

Q. How did you find your way into the swine industry?
A. I completed my degrees from Pretoria University in South Africa in animal science and animal nutrition. My first job in the early ‘80s was with Elanco as a technical service and development person. I later joined Roche in South Africa in 1988, and was put onto their international management development list, which meant a number of international appointments around the world every three to four years. I was transferred to Switzerland in 1992 and in my second international assignment got to lead the animal health business in Europe. I then moved to the U.S. in 1998 to manage the North American animal health sales and marketing operations. In 2000, Roche sold its animal health business to Alpharma and I managed international sales and marketing operations. In the early 2000s, the company was sold a couple times. I stepped away during this time and Colin Gray, the founder of Pharmgate, which is owned by the largest manufacturer of chlortetracycline in the world, began talking to me about their desire to move from being a supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients to forward integrating into the North American market with a product range and direct contact with customers. Gray approached a couple of colleagues and I to help him do that from 2008 to 2010, and that was how Pharmgate was established.

Q. Tell me about your business.
A. Pharmgate has been through a major evolution since the company started in 2010. We’ve evolved from this idea of being the chlortetracycline supplier to being a company with a fairly broad product line of about 30 products, including antibiotics, therapeutics and biologics. And we’re continuing to look for a couple of others to complement the product line as well. We are a small company, and we like it. We try to be the best that we possibly can be in terms of delivering product to customers in the most efficient and ‘easy-to-do business with’ manner.

Q. What does it take to succeed in multicultural environments?
A. I’ve come up through a very international career and worked in multicultural environments the majority of the time. Over the years, I’ve learned what it takes to do that. You need to have a very collaborative approach. For example, adopting a European approach with a team of people here in the United States or other parts of the world won’t necessarily work. People have different ways of doing business, there are different cultures and different value systems, and you need to be able to respect that.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. From a product point of view, we want to have a broad enough array of products to be relevant to customers. From a business process point of view, we strive to be lean, uncomplicated and easy to do business with. From a personal point of view, I want to be fair. Everyone needs to make their business work, but we want to see a little bit of fairness in the operation, too.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. A typical day involves a lot of multitasking. In my role, that can vary from high-level strategy development and interacting with the technical teams, to product management and working with customers and our sales team. We have a well-established business in the U.S., Canada, and international markets like Latin America and the Asia Pacific Rim. 2020 was a busy year launching products, primarily our vaccine products, in the international markets. I would typically intersperse this with a lot of travel to both trade shows and technical conferences as well as contract negotiations with customers. When the pandemic struck, we quickly adjusted to finding ways to keep customers engaged through virtual meetings. We offered training programs that have worked well during the last few months and we’ve been using digital platforms more to conduct our initial contracting discussions for 2021.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. We are in the fortunate position to offer a range of products, both antibiotics and vaccines, which are broadly used across the swine industry. For us, it really starts with working with the technical decision makers of our customers to help them determine how best our products fit into their health management protocols. It mostly happens through discussions – our veterinarians speak to their veterinarians. But we also will run some diagnostics for them, potentially place products for them to evaluate and monitor progress to see how all the products best fit in. We’re here to make sure that customers actually can derive the most value out of our products. And then the next step is determining how we can streamline the supply chain to get our products where they need to be as efficiently as possible.

Q. What has helped you grow your sales and marketing team?
A. I think everyone who works for us enjoys the camaraderie of a relatively small company. We really do try and keep an atmosphere of teamwork, brainstorming and collaboration in conducting our business.

Q. What keeps you up at night about the swine industry?
A. Foreign animal disease is a big one. I’m not an authority on the subject, but that’s certainly on my mind. There are many continually evolving pathogens out there. Our job is to make sure that our vaccines are cross protective against evolving strains of those types of organisms. Provided the swine industry is responsible about continued antibiotic use, I believe it will largely satisfy both the regulatory and consumer concerns thrown its way. I think we have achieved a good balance at this point in terms of using medications judiciously, only when required, following all the safety protocols, and ensuring both human health and animal welfare.

Q. What is one of the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. Under the current environment, the big opportunity is the export market. With the tremendous natural resources that the U.S. has when it comes to food production, it’s certainly a land of abundance. We see technological efficiency advances made year by year, which allows us to produce pork more efficiently, more economically and continue to compete in the international stage for pork supply. We know export opportunities will change when Chinese production gets back onto its feet and recovers. But at the moment, there is an opportunity over the next couple of years to continue the expansion and continue producing pork profitably.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. Dealing and negotiating with customers. As an animal scientist, it’s one of the few careers where you can choose how much time you spend behind the desk and in the field. I’ve always managed to get out and meet people in the flesh and talk animal production with them – what they are encountering, how they see things. We don’t always have all the answers, but we work hard to bring new ideas to the industry based on that firsthand contact with producers, veterinarians and other decisionmakers.

Read more on Page 2 about Seed’s strategy on earning respect and getting a start-up company rolling.

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with David Herring, Page 2

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:56:29 GMT

Continued from page 1

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. Our greatest opportunities will always be our biggest problems. You have to look at your problems and turn those into opportunities. Definitely today, one of our biggest obstacles is our labor demands or labor deficiencies. I think we need to address that head on. Agriculture has changed tremendously in the last 100 years. Think about it: 50% of the people in this country worked on the farm 80 years ago. Today, we’ve got 1.7% working on the farm and that’s due to mechanization. The pork industry is going to have to get more automated and more mechanized.

Also, we’ve seen flat pork consumption in this country for the last 10 years. I think we need to learn more about what our consumer wants and design products that are more desirable to them. I see it in other proteins, but pork is not leading the race in product innovation. The lifestyle today is so busy and people do not want to spend a lot of time preparing food. I think this presents a great opportunity for the pork industry to increase pork consumption through new innovation.

Q. What do you think the pork industry needs to do to build up its labor force?
A. We have to expose future leaders and employees to what we do and help them understand it better. Hog Slat runs a summer internship program where we offer 30 to 35 internships every summer. Although I can’t tell you exactly what our retainage has been, it’s been pretty high. Too often, we are so busy on the farms that we don’t recruit or interact with the potential work force or expose them to opportunities in agriculture, specifically in pork. We have to do a better job of that going forward. I think you can go to a university or further education and they can teach you to think, but they can’t teach you how to work. The only way you can learn how to work is by working. A lot of potential employees or students that might entertain working in agriculture or in a pork facility, don’t really know about it so we have to open their eyes and explain what we do. It’s a great way of life with great opportunities and well-paying jobs.

During his role as president of the National Pork Producers Council, Herring enjoyed the opportunity to speak on behalf of U.S. pork producers.

Q. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received?
A. In the late 1980s, I had the opportunity to build a DeKalb pig farm in Oklahoma and met the founder, Mr. Roy Poage. One day, he asked me a question. He said, “David, could you describe the perfect market hog?” And I’m thinking, “O.K., he’s got 0.8 of backfat and he weighs 260 pounds.” I gave Mr. Roy my description and he said, “That’s a good description, but the perfect market hog has never been produced. And it never will. We’ll always be getting better and better.” I never forgot that. I took that as you strive to be better and better every day. I’ve used that mantra in our business ever since.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. I don’t think the business will change a lot in the next 20 years, but we need to learn how to do more with less. We need to learn how to take things that we consider negatives and turn them into positives. We manage our business on a cost basis, so we will have to dig in and figure out more ways to be cost-effective. I’m very bullish on the next 20 years for the pork industry. I think pork is a great product – people love consuming pork, especially bacon. We have the inputs and the technology to produce pork as efficiently as anyone in the world and I don’t see anything changing there. Unless we have unforeseen hurdles to cross, we should be able to sustain what we are doing. I think the business is very capital intensive, however, and will keep consolidating. I’m not saying that’s what I want it to do, but I think the more efficient producers who strive to be innovative will keep growing in the business while the ones who are not keeping up with technology will probably end up in another business.

Herring (left) meets with Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to discuss the pork industry.

Q. How do you think COVID-19 will impact the future of the pork industry?
A. COVID-19 has exposed the weakest links in the food chain. We have to address those areas and implement as many fail safes as we can economically afford. For true food security going forward, we’re going to have to create more flexibility in the cold chain, on the farm and in the harvest plants. It will cost us some economic efficiencies, but I think it’s probably the safest thing to do going forward.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. That’s easy – it’s the people. I love the interaction with employees and customers. I really enjoy getting out and meeting different customers and going to the construction sites and meeting all the employees. I don’t think you have to have a doctor in front of your name to be a professional. That guy who is swinging a hammer every day is just as much a professional as a surgeon is in my book.

Herring and his wife Lisa with their dog, Charlie. The Herrings have three children: Magdalene, Mary Ellen and William.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. There are always things you would like to change about your life, but I truly tried to make the best decisions I could every day throughout my career with the experience and knowledge I had at those times. I really don’t have any regrets and I wouldn’t want to change anything. I was fortunate to grow up with great parents, was lucky to marry a beautiful bride who has traveled all over the U.S. with me and is still my partner today, and I have a beautiful family.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Be flexible and don’t shy away from a challenge, take it head on. If you want to own your own business, have at it. You’ll have to put forth more than a 40-hour-a-week commitment. Understand there’s going to be a lot of downs with some ups. But I’m a firm believer that people can do anything they want if they put their mind to it. I have enjoyed the last 40+ years that I’ve been able to work in this industry. I think it’s a great life and a great opportunity for many young people.

Read more:

It All Comes Down to Pork

Herring Reflects on Whirlwind Year of NPPC Presidency

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with David Herring

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:56:29 GMT

David Herring considers himself one of the lucky ones, growing up on a North Carolina pig farm.

His dad, Billy, owned a Purina feed mill with his brothers and eventually got into the pork business through selling feed and growing pigs. In 1969, Billy needed some flooring products for one of his nursery buildings. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to purchase the products he needed so he made his own hog slats and that’s how his business, Hog Slat, got its start.

For David, the Hog Slat business and the pork industry have been his life for as long as he can remember.

“I actually looked up my hire date – January 2, 1978,” David says. “I was a junior in high school when dad officially put me on the payroll, but I’d been working for the company in the summers and on the weekends ever since I was 12 years old.”

When David graduated from North Carolina State University in 1981, he went back to work for Hog Slat. The company had around 30 employees. Nearly 40 years later, Hog Slat has grown from a small regional business to an international business.

In his role as vice president of the company, David supports all divisions within Hog Slat. He says he couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity to work for a family business and be mentored by his older brother, Tommy.

“My hero has always been my dad, but my mentor has always been my older brother,” David says. “He lives his life like a bulldog and will not take no for an answer. He is very determined and expects a lot from the people who work with him. I’ve always admired that and tried to work for this company like an employee and not an owner.”

In 1983, David and Tommy, along with their younger brother, Mark, started up TDM Farms, a farrow-to-finish operation. In the beginning, they were buying feeder pigs and growing pigs on the ground. Today, their business has grown to include 30,000 sows in North Carolina, Illinois and Georgia. They grow all of their market hogs in Indiana.

David believes TDM Farms makes Hog Slat unique because all of the company’s products are tried and tested on their farms before they take them to the customers.

“We have a unique knowledge of not only how to raise pigs efficiently and economically, but also how to intertwine or create products that will bring value to the farm and other producers,” David says. “It’s one thing to create a product for a potential customer, but it’s another thing to make sure that product is doing the job it’s supposed to do and creating a value.”

He shares his views on leadership, business strategy, the pork industry and what he’s learned during his career.

Q. Tell me about your business.
A. Hog Slat is a family-owned business that manufactures products used in the production of pork. It was founded with an initial product, a concrete flooring, and has expanded to include ventilation products, equipment products, metal flooring products and more. Currently, Hog Slat has a footprint of over 100 retail stores in about 25 states and eight countries. We also have a construction division that allows us to build a turnkey facility for a small farm up to some of the largest farms constructed in the U.S. or internationally.

Q. What is your why?
A. My why has always been to protect and provide for my family – my immediate family and my business family. Even though we’ve grown into a multi-region business, we still manage this company as a family business and consider our employees part of that family.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. I don’t have a typical day and that’s probably one reason I really enjoy what I do. For the first 25 years I worked for HogSlat, my typical day was going out to a construction site or meeting with a customer who wanted to buy equipment. Today, my typical day starts at 5:30 with a morning workout. Then the rest of my day could take a variety of forms – I could be on a construction site, in Washington, D.C. meeting with a senator or meeting with a potential customer. There’s no doubt a typical day at Hog Slat starts early and ends late. We’ve always worn many hats and do what it takes to get the work done.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. First, the customer is the boss. Second, I coined the phrase about 25 years ago: “People buy it, people sell it.” I’ve used that with the sales force for over 25 years. What I mean by it is that you have to build trust and a relationship with your customer base. You have to know as much or more about their business to create a value, so you’ll have an opportunity to do business with them.

Q. How has the business changed since Hog Slat was created?
A. Fifty years ago, the pork industry was very fragmented and low-tech. Today it’s a very high-tech, intensive business not only from what happens on the farm, but also with what happens with feed ingredients, genetics, harvest plants and more. We’re producing twice as many pigs now and we’re doing it with less of everything. We have decreased our carbon footprint almost 8%, even though we’ve doubled the amount of pigs we produce.

The changes in the swine industry have also changed Hog Slat, too. We’ve had to be very innovative to keep up with our customer base’s desires and wants. We’ve had to grow our manufacturing facilities and our concrete facilities to keep up with demand. We’ve had to keep changing and innovating products as we find better and more economical ways to design products for our customer base.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. My number one concern as a pork producer is a foreign animal disease, something I have really very little control over. I think it would be absolutely devastating to the industry, especially since we are marketing close to 30% of all pork to export markets.

Q. How do you rate the industry’s foreign animal disease prevention and preparedness efforts?
A. The industry is taking steps forward to prevent foreign animal disease. It is hard to get the federal government, yet alone 50 state governments, to agree on everything. From a farmer’s perspective, we tend to make decisions and get results pretty quick. However, when you’re trying to herd all the states and government together, things just don’t happen as fast as you would like to see them happen. But progress is being made. From an industry standpoint, we’re just going to have to keep pushing like hell to get to the end.

Keep reading to find out Herring’s take on the labor situation in the pork industry, what HogSlat will look like in 20 years, the best piece of advice he’s ever received, what the future of the swine industry holds and more.

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Mark Hayden

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:56:02 GMT

For over three decades, Mark Hayden, director of sales for AP, the swine equipment division of AGCO Grain and Protein, has taken lessons learned from his father to heart.

“My father was the biggest influence on me as far as my work ethic and passion for the pork industry. He grew up on a farm in South Dakota during the Great Depression in a family of 12 children. His father died when he was a young man,” Hayden says. “He worked tirelessly to provide for our family and give us a better life than he had.”

Growing up, Hayden watched his father contribute to making agriculture better by teaching high school vocational agriculture and finishing his career leading the swine management program at the local community college. In addition, his father bought a farm in Emmetsburg, Iowa, at age 45 and began raising purebred breeding stock, too.

“My 4-H pigs paid for more than half of my college education. So, he taught me early by his example of working hard for everything he had,” Hayden says.

That’s just one of the reasons why Hayden has devoted the past 32 years to serving the swine industry and helping farmers find solutions to make their swine operations better.

“When I was in high school, it was the middle of the farm crisis and everyone said to get off the farm and get out of agriculture. I almost didn’t have a career in ag, but by the time I got out of college, things had turned around and I’ve been working in swine equipment sales ever since,” he says.

Hayden shares his views on leadership, business strategy, the pork industry and what he’s learned during his career.

Q. Tell me about your business.
A. AP manufactures feed storage, feed delivery, complete ventilation and electronic control systems for the pork industry. AGCO is a global manufacturer of agriculture equipment with the core brands of Massey Ferguson, Fendt, Valtra and Challenger.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. I would say there is no such thing as a typical day. Prior to COVID-19, I spent about half of my time working at our Sioux City, Iowa, distribution and technical support center – working with the various teams there, including system design, customer service, technical support, warehousing and shipping. The other half of my time was spent traveling to trade shows, meetings and visiting customers. Post-COVID-19, my role has changed, and I am now working from my home office doing a lot of virtual meetings ranging from marketing, product development, forecasting and working with the sales and leadership teams.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. I think the future is incredibly bright. The U.S. industry is well-positioned to increase pork consumption domestically and to serve more markets around the world. We have the infrastructure and the resources to be the best in the world. We are well suited to continue to grow and be the most efficient, safest, cost-effective pork producer for the globe.

From an AP perspective, I believe we have just scratched the surface in regard to what technology can do and will be able to do very soon. Our industry has a huge infrastructure of buildings and pigs, but the amount of data collection remotely in the U.S. on the farms is extremely low. I think there is still a huge opportunity to take technology and spread it across our industry so we can remotely access and manage our farms so much better. We know we have out-of-feed events, water spills, bins full at the end of a turn, and with technology, we can find ways to be much more efficient. I think the next big step is the analytics and actionable management that comes from the analytics.

Q. What is your why?
A. My why at AP is to provide farmer-focused solutions to sustainably feed the world. Everything our company does centers around providing equipment to the farmer and becoming a trusted partner for industry-leading, smart farming solutions.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. My number one concern is that people outside of agriculture will completely dictate how we raise animals. It’s just incredible to me that politicians and activists can pass measures that have a huge impact on our industry even though they have very little firsthand knowledge about what we do. So many resources are wasted on fighting and accommodating folks that simply want us to go away. From my perspective, all it does is make food cost more and it rarely benefits the pigs or the people that work with them. We have a growing global population that we need to feed, and of course our adversaries don’t want them to eat meat. It’s frustrating because we have a nutritious, delicious product that outside influences are trying to destroy. I don’t see this changing. I think it’s here to stay and our industry needs to figure out the best way to defend against it.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. Everything begins and ends with the customer. If you listen to what the customer is telling you and deliver what they need, everything else takes care of itself. One of our sayings is that “AP stands for almost perfect.” No company is ever perfect. We’ve definitely made our share of mistakes, but we own up to them. If we sold you a product that you had an issue with, we always try to go above and beyond to take care of that. That builds trust and loyalty and takes care of the customer.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. Our goal is to deliver the highest quality products in the industry by carefully listening to our customers and exceeding their expectations. We are continually striving to deliver smart solutions that allow them to improve their operations. Our technical support center is available to all customers that have questions on any of our products they may have purchased over the past 30 years. We offer system design for their feeding and ventilation systems. Our sales and tech teams do a tremendous amount of training for dealers and end users. We are also very active in state and national pork producer organizations to stay connected and to help support the industry in any way that we can.

Q. How has the business changed since you started?
A. The industry has totally changed from when I was a kid growing up on the farm. We had no ventilation or electronics, we manually carried feed and we pitched the manure with pitchforks. Today, a modern facility is state-of-the-art ventilated and computer controlled. Feed is delivered automatically, and manure is under the floor and pumped by machinery. The size of the farms, ownership structure, methodology – you name it – it’s a night-and-day difference. The transformation that our industry has gone through during the past 50 years has been incredible.

I used to work with lots of small independent farmers and built a lot of relationships. Today, the number of decision makers has been one of the biggest changes. It used to be if there were 100 barns being built, you would have 100 people involved in making decisions. Now, if a company wants to do 100 barns, the key decisions are usually made by a very small group of people. The work force has changed, too. Oftentimes the people doing the chores don’t own the farm – that’s tough when you sell a high-tech product into a workforce that may not stay on the farm for long. In the early days, you sold the guy a barn, he owned it, he did the chores, he fixed it.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I think the biggest lesson I have learned is to be more receptive to constructive criticism. When I was younger, I just saw it as criticism. Now I see it as an opportunity for growth and a way to improve your skillset. Its human nature – you can say 10 positive things and one negative to an employee in a job review, but the employee just focuses on the negative. For myself, I should have learned earlier that constructive criticism was for my benefit, not my detriment. Also, I’ve learned that change is one of the only constants and you better be prepared for that. Nothing ever stays the same. Be open-minded and don’t resist it. Expect it. Accept and embrace change.

Q. How can we do a better job of recruiting and retaining employees?
A. How do you attract good, young, bright people? It’s really challenging. A lot of my peers grew up on a farm and had experience with raising livestock. Most of us wanted a career in agriculture. However, we just don’t see a lot of that anymore. There are so many great opportunities in our industry. We need to do a better job of telling that story.

Keep reading to see Hayden’s thoughts on farms of the future.

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 Mark Hayden 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.

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Clint Schwab, Page 2

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:55:55 GMT

Continued from Page 1

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.

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Clint Schwab

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:55:55 GMT

Clint Schwab, president of Acuity Genetics, will be the first to point out the pedigree of swine industry leaders who have mentored him in his career. It’s something he doesn’t take for granted in his role leading one of the newest swine genetics companies in the country.

“I’m lucky to have had access to a lot of great people,” Schwab says. “It started at Iowa State where Tom Baas and Maynard Hogberg pushed me in ways that challenged me as a master’s and PhD student. Then I went to work for the National Swine Registry where Darrell Anderson mentored me in the next chapter of my career and exposed me to some really forward-thinking purebred breeders that shaped a lot of how I think about things today.”

He says purebred swine legends like Everett Forkner, Bill Temple, Mike Lemmon and Max Waldo who had “been there and done that” impacted his perspective. Although he says he doesn’t think about everything the same way they do, there’s tidbits from each of those purebred breeders in how he thinks about genetic improvement today.

Currently, he credits his boss, Bradley Wolter, for shaping him in a different way that’s probably having an even greater impact now because of the foundation that was set years ago.

Schwab shares his views on leadership, business strategy, the pork industry and what he’s learned along the way.

Q. Tell me about your business.
A. Acuity is a spin-off business from The Maschhoffs’ pork production system that has evolved rapidly over the past couple of decades. Innovation has always been core to The Maschhoffs, and the genetic program was developed internally as one of the ways that we can create extra value through the pork production business. For over a decade, those genetic resources have proven themselves. They’ve been tested within the system, and the lines have had to prove their value along the way. Recently, the decision was made to offer that to the broader industry as an additional solution for others in the industry. There’s also an element of gaining broader perspective from Acuity’s customer base to help guide future improvement.

Q. What is your why?
A. We wake up every day with the intent of making the industry more vibrant and profitable. As a genetics company, what we do is largely centered around an ability to harvest value from genetic resources. It’s not a surprise that genetics essentially sets the floor and the ceiling of what you can achieve in a production system. There is a wide array of how different genetic lines create value, but the ability for a system to capitalize on the unique differences is where you can create differentiated outcomes. That can occur from the time the animal is conceived all the way through the time that it is harvested. There are many ways a production system can impact gene expression, whether it’s through a nutrition program, gilt development system, or wean-to-market management program. It all has an impact on how much of that raw genetic potential we can actually capture in the form of profitability.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. It’s a mix, but most of my time is spent leading people and business strategy. I strive to make sure we have a model to compete in the industry, one that is differentiated and resourced appropriately in terms of the right people in the right seats on the bus driving that strategy. But also, that capital investments are oriented towards facilitating our competitive advantage and ensuring it is felt by the customer. I make sure our system of people, pigs and technology is pulling rope in the same direction towards one common goal that makes success more likely for our customers.

Q. What opportunities exist in the industry?
A. The concerns I have for the industry create the opportunities I see. The pork industry is as volatile as it’s ever been. If we think back to 2014-2015 when we had porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) hit the industry, it reminded us of how volatile the markets can be. We’ve seen several of those swings since then. That general lack of stability is my biggest concern. Lots of things go into that, but at the end of the day, what that creates is a concern of where capital is going to go in this industry. If you’re an outside investor looking in, you’ll see how volatile this is and that it’s hard to pull out stable returns. Because of that, capital could end up somewhere else. I worry if we don’t get ahead of it and fix certain things in our industry, that our kids and the next generation will not have the same opportunities we have. Not to mention, one of every three pigs is exported, demand hasn’t increased, viruses evolve faster than what we do, and labor issues are on the rise. Any places where we can solve some of those constraints and make things better are huge opportunities.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. At the core of my job, I get to innovate swine production. One thing I appreciate most about genetic innovation specifically is once you make the change, it’s largely permanent. Now, there’s a risk to that, too. It’s permanent change. Also, genetic change is not invasive to a production system, it happens in the background. In genetics, if you measure it and you focus on it, it will change. The inherent opportunity there is fun to me. Plus, I get to lead a team of people that are much smarter than I am, allowing me to learn every day. All of that together – the creativity, innovation and entrepreneurism – is what’s fun to me.

Q. Describe a time where you were stretched in your career.
A. The first thing Bradley Wolter did when I started here 10 years ago was give me production responsibility over a significant portfolio. Truthfully, I had no idea what I was doing. I thought, “I came here to be a geneticist. I didn’t come here to run operations.” But Bradley thought this would make me more grounded in genetics through learning the practical realities of production. I was frustrated initially but am so glad to have that experience and perspective now.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. The most obvious is how our customers directly interact with the supply chain of Acuity. This could be through semen supply, gilt supply or implementation of genetic programs in a customer’s herd. Our team is geared toward making sure each partner gets the tools they need, when they need it, and that they are harvesting the full potential. Customers’ needs change daily – they have pressures on their business that may result in them needing to elevate a gilt order or slow it down, or they may need a slightly different product. There are also a lot of boots on the ground within the customer’s operations to try to help them achieve their goals. It’s everything from technical support to research trials to data analysis aimed at ensuring customer success. Ultimately, we’re creating and delivering genetic potential to achieve an outcome. That outcome can be slightly different for each customer, which means they may need a little different variation of the product to get there.

We believe a boar is not a boar is not a boar. For example, you may have a boar stud that has 300 boars in it that all meet a certain index threshold, but there’s still considerable variation amongst those 300 boars that can be leveraged. Some of them may have reached an index because they’re an outlier for feed efficiency. For others, it may be growth or survival. Customers may prioritize these differently, so it’s important to help customers leverage the resources that meets their objectives best. It’s not simple but creating tailored genetic solutions where needed is something we believe in and focus on.

Keep reading to learn what Schwab wishes he would have done differently in his career and where he thinks the swine genetics business is going to be in 20 years.

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.

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Gene Spellman, Page 2

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:55:39 GMT

Continued from Page 1

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. I see the U.S. pork industry doubling or more in the next 20 years in terms of production. We are the safe protein producer for the world. In light of that, we will grow in providing solutions to help make our producers have that reputation as the safe protein producer for the world. I believe Central Life Sciences will continue to grow as the industry grows in providing solutions that improve working environments for pigs, people and our neighbors.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. There’s not a lot I would change. I come from an old era where you could target one company in your career and stay with them until you retire. If I could do things differently, I wouldn’t have bought into that mindset and looked for more experiences in different areas with different companies. As the saying goes, “Your job is to do as good of a job as you possibly can, but in addition to that, your other job is to find your next great job.” To me, broadening your experiences and stepping out of your comfort zone into different positions would benefit a person.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Emphasize the sciences: math, chemistry, statistics. What I do is evidence-based research for proving that something, when implemented, will have a return on investment. Develop a strong foundation in financial and statistical analysis and understanding how research is conducted.

Q. How do you think COVID-19 has and will continue to impact the future of the pork industry?
A. As we work more remotely, cyber security will become a bigger issue. I think it’s going to impact us in a way that’s going to force us to analyze the interaction of our employees working around our animals more, including more scrutiny on interaction for employee relations, employee health and the impact on their network of people after they leave their operation.

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 Gene Spellman 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.

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Gene Spellman

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:55:39 GMT

Defeat is just a temporary situation. That’s just one of the lessons that Gene Spellman, regional sales manager at Central Life Sciences in Mount Horeb, Wis., learned from his experience as a wrestler at the University of Wisconsin – Madison that still inspires and motivates him in his career in animal agriculture today.

“Through wrestling, I learned over and over that defeat is temporary. It’s a time to reflect back on good and bad, yes and no evaluations of what to do, what to avoid and what to think about going forward,” Spellman says.

He credits his wrestling coaches for having some of the greatest influence in his life.

“Wrestling taught me that you win as a team through individual excellence. That’s something that I’ve tried to stress to the companies I’ve worked with, especially in this last career position. Individually, you have to perform to your best to make sure that the team succeeds,” Spellman says.

Those are just a few of the reasons why he flourishes in his role at Central Life Sciences. Spellman shares his views on leadership, business strategy, the pork industry and what he’s learned during his career.

Q. What is your why?
A. We are searching out answers for the hard production issues that affect neighbor relations. We are solving some of the real challenges regarding production agriculture’s relationship with its neighbors on farms and in rural neighborhoods. I’m passionate about solving some of the issues around odor, pests and insects. I believe this is becoming more important as the boundaries expand on urban areas and more people move to the country.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. Pre-pandemic, a typical day was face-to-face with customers, vets, nutritionists and customer influencers implementing a treatment program or a control program for flies and pests on the farm. I think the thing that makes my job unique is the time spent in the barns implementing our products and making sure our industry partners are holding up their end of implementing their programs.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. One of the platforms I’ve tried to bring to this company is to lead with science. You need a valid business reason to implement a control program. One of the thrusts of our company today is seeking out the answer to this question: Is there a risk for disease transfer? We know there are so many other problems caused by insects, flies, roaches, etc. We’ve discovered through a lot of research that these pests, in addition to neighbor relations issues, are really overlooked as an animal health risk to our biosecurity protocols. We’re learning more about what these pests can do as far as spreading and being a vector of disease. I try to emphasize that, whatever solution we offer, it has to be led with research-proven science. I think that has been well received by our customers and our customers’ team of influences.

Q. How has the business changed since you started?
A. Leading with science on research and connecting a valid business reason to a return on investment has been a more emphasized platform in the past few years. We are not relying as much on a demonstration, and instead are getting scientific research and study-based science, validated with statistics.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. Through this position, I’ve become more aware of the industry’s reputation within and around their neighbors. I think assumptions are made that our rural neighbors understand production agriculture. I don’t think everyone understands as simply and clearly as they once did. For example, I’m an ag person. I grew up on a farm. However, I’ll tell you we’ve had some courageous conversations around my family’s dinner table about environmental issues and production practices – particularly agriculture’s impact on the environment and on production issues with neighbors. It strikes me how in one generation, ag has been removed so much from their daily lives. That could be the case with our other neighbors. We need to be more sensitive to what effects our production practices have on our neighbors. That may be a tough message to deliver, but I think it’s reality. Farms will get bigger, urban areas are growing, more people are moving into the rural areas near our farms. Long-term, that’s the biggest concern I see in the industry.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. On the production side, emphasizing all of the good things we’re doing and educating immediate neighbors is a great opportunity. I think it would go a long way to broadening the number of voices we have that would defend our industry. I also think there’s going to be great breakthroughs in production practices that will allow us to still work, live and produce pork around our neighbors.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I like winning. Winning doesn’t always mean selling product. I like the great feedback we get when you put in a program that you hope improves the total environment around producing pork. That’s what really makes me happy – when you can offer something that reliably works every time that it’s implemented. The feedback from a satisfied customer is the tops.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. Start with the end in mind. Then, work back from that situation and never give up on the ways to get to that end. For example, what would a problem look like if it was solved? Then back-engineer it from there, developing solutions and processes to get there in a safe environment that is also cost-effective for producers.

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 Gene Spellman 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.

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Mark Hayden

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Pat Joyce

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:55:22 GMT

Our life experiences are constantly shaping and molding us. For Pat Joyce, president of Standard Nutrition Services, that accumulation of experiences has helped him become who he is today both personally and professionally. Because of that, he says there’s not a lot he would go back and change.

However, Joyce admits if he could change one thing, it would be to have been even more aggressive to impact pace and advancement of change earlier in his career.

That’s why he encourages young people to be aware of their own natural style and find an environment where they are surrounded by people who challenge growth and advancement.

“I have learned I have a patient style naturally. Pace can often be affected by those around you that are challenging you and/or making the resources available to you to take on an aggressive pace,” says Joyce, a resident of Algona, Iowa, who received his CPA and bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa.

He shares his views on leadership, business strategy, the pork industry and what he’s learned during his career.

Q. Tell me about your business. What is your why?
A. Standard Nutrition Services is an animal nutrition consulting business providing products and services to independent swine and turkey producers. Our services go beyond nutrition products and consulting to also meet specific needs of each producer’s business. We engage our consultants and specialists that can deliver expertise (and services) for production management, risk management and marketing, and financial reporting and analysis. Our mission is to be the most trusted advisor assisting the producer find a pathway to profitability. Our scope of services is designed to bring integrated value to the independent producers. This is our “why.” Our “super why” is to preserve the fabric of agriculture.

Q. How has the business changed since you started?
A. Our business has increased its focus on development internally to ensure we are a business that retains and attracts great talent that is passionate about the “why.” In addition, we have been focused on more research and development, analytics and work to refine our services and process to be more efficient and more targeted to drive value deeper into our organization, consultants and employees, and our customers. By day, this seems slow, but looking back only a few years, we have made great progress.

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. I think this is always a difficult question to answer because we always think about the risk first. If I step back and look at a more macro picture, I believe the swine industry, and livestock agriculture in general, has a great opportunity to tell its story. That story weaves into it how nutrition from livestock has provided the most essential nutrients to the human population, allowing us to thrive through evolution to today. Our modern production systems continue providing this valuable and amazing source of nutrition in a very sustainable way. The industry will need to debunk and fight the competing forces that threaten livestock production, but also the industry must also highlight the value our industry contributes to the well-being of our world population and the environment.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. My concerns for the swine industry are consistent with our independent producers. The potential for foreign animal disease introduction continues to be a headline and a very complex and scary contingency for all to consider when planning their business.

I am concerned about state-by-state legislation that creates interstate-commerce barriers and hurdles, such as Proposition 12. These issues force confusion and increased cost throughout the supply chain and ultimately to the customer based on new markets that are hard to understand, predict or plan.

I am also worried about the level of consolidation that will occur should independent producers be pushed to the side. I believe the impact of consolidation could affect the balance, innovation and stewardship of the land that affects agriculture long-term. We must remember that our farmers are the stewards of our land, which has always included livestock production as well. Further disconnecting our farmers from livestock agriculture has the potential to change incentive and focus creating other challenges to overcome and manage.

Q. How does the threat of foreign animal disease impact the future of the pork industry?
A. I think it really impacts the planning of an operation. It forces producers to truly understand, not only obvious things like biosecurity practices, but also recognizing concentration risks within their business and engaging in conversations. It forces a lot of important conversations.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. My typical day ranges from being in the field with clients and consultants, strategic planning, evaluating opportunities, planning for development of our leadership team, administrating and communicating with our team as well as partners and clients.

Q. Who inspired (or inspires) you?
A. The people I get to work with daily inspire me by their passion for what they do. Additionally, independent producers inspire me greatly as well. Recently, I met a new producer under the age of 40 who carried a level of experience and wisdom that only comes from learning from the previous generation, taking on the risks and challenges today and concern for the future – just like his father most likely did. He referenced how his dad started farming and raising pigs many years ago when he was in high school through a 4-H project that he got to farrow a sow and keep a couple of gilts, to which he bred and started from there. For 30 years, they could trace the lineage of their herd back to this one sow. Today, this young producer’s farther is preparing to retire, he is leading the operation growing corn and beans, owning nearly all the real estate and barns which are aligned with his farrow-to-wean operation. While he speaks fondly and proudly of how his father endured so many challenges and changes, this young producer has already survived the COVID-19 disruption in 2020 and is in position to take on another generation of similar, yet new challenges. To me, this goes back to our “why” and continues to inspire me to do what I do.

Keep reading to learn more about Joyce’s business philosophy and his thoughts on what’s ahead in the pork industry.

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Greg Simpson, Page 2

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:55:10 GMT

continued from page 1

Q. What keeps you up at night?
A. African swine fever (ASF) concerns me immensely as it has potential to devastate our industry in North America. Seeing how Europe has had to battle it, seeing how Vietnam, the Philippines and China had to battle it, unfortunately it feels like it’s just a matter of time before we have to battle it. It will not be pretty.

Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. Business to me is about finding a solution to somebody’s problem within the product range you have to offer. It’s about finding the right mix, the right package that fulfills somebody else’s need while making a little bit of money at the same time. It’s really about helping fill an unmet need.

Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. When I look at the swine genetics industry, there’s a cornucopia of genetic companies out there. There are a few big, large global players, but there’s literally hundreds of smaller, family-run genetic companies that are out there around the world. So, 20 years from now, I would assume that the industry is going to look a lot more like the layer or turkey industry where there’s a handful, maybe five or six, very large global players. There will still probably be a few more beyond that, but most of the genetic world I think, will be in the hands of a few of companies.

Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. Take more risks early in your career. I started off in the animal nutrition world and I enjoyed that. I probably could have taken more risks earlier in my career which could have led to different or more opportunities. I learned that lesson later in my career than I should have. If you always stand on the sidelines and don’t take the risk, you’ll never reap the rewards. If you have an idea or get presented with an opportunity, go for it. What do you have to lose early in your career? We all want to play it a little safe when we start out, but the reality is there are opportunities out there. If you don’t put your hand up or say, “Here’s an idea,” you aren’t learning. You are being too safe.

Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Learn as much as you can about the industry you want to be in. Participate in the industry you want to be in. Be on committees. Work with the National Pork Board. Volunteer for things in your industry. You’ll meet a whole host of people and learn a whole lot. The more that you do that, the more valuable you are and more skill you’ll have to help our industry.

Q. How do you think COVID-19 has and will continue to impact the future of the pork industry?
A. COVID-19 kicked us in the butt last year with the slowdown of packing plants and getting hogs to market. Economically, it was devastating. We are reaping rewards at the moment while the rest of the world languishes with ASF concerns. COVID-19 has changed the way we do business in terms of being able to do face-to-face stuff. Our business has changed a lot, too. We used to travel a lot, but that’s not happening and is not likely to come back at the same pace either. Good or bad, COVID-19 has changed our industry and a little about how we approach things. Are we out of it? I don’t think so, but hopefully we will be soon.

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Pat Joyce

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with John Waddell

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Frank Brummer

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Mark Bienhoff

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Martin Enderink

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Greg Simpson

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:55:10 GMT

Growing up in Burlington, Ontario, Greg Simpson never imagined he’d be doing what he does today serving as the general manager for Hypor North America, a swine genetics company. He always envisioned himself becoming a bovine veterinarian, but later became interested in swine nutrition while attending the University of Guelph and thought he might become a university professor. However, an opportunity arose with Hypor that he couldn’t pass up to join their team as a nutritionist in 2012.

Over time, his opportunities grew within one of the top five providers of swine genetics in the world to land him in the role he is in now. And he says he couldn’t be happier.

“I love solving problems, finding solutions and providing answers to people,” Simpson says. “The variety makes it interesting for me.”

He shares his views on leadership, business strategy, the pork industry and what he’s learned during his career.

Q. What is your company’s why?
A. At Hypor North America, we see ourselves as being part of the solution to the global food challenge that we are facing. We support that through our genetic solutions. Our philosophy is there isn’t a magic bullet when it comes to feeding future generations. It’s going to take a consistent effort from many different stakeholders on a global scale to be able to feed everybody in the world, both today and in the future. We contribute in our own way through high-quality animal genetics. We are part of the solution to help overcome this big threat for the future.

Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. There isn’t much that’s typical about my day. Most of it is spent finding and providing solutions to problems or various issues. One day, it might be around some production-related problems. Another day, it might be more finance-related, and sometimes it’s tech service in nature.

Q. What helps you flex between challenges?
A. I draw upon my team. I have a really talented team in the U.S. and in Canada that I work with. If I need help with a problem, I can call on any one of them and they can help me out. I have colleagues that are in different time zones around the world that may have experienced a similar issue and have a partial solution or a thread that I can pull on to help find something that will fit to solve a problem here. That is the nice part about being a global entity. We have resources all over the world and someone’s probably had a similar problem somewhere else and may have part of the solution.

Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. As a genetic provider, we want our clients to experience the most they can out of our products. In some cases, there’s a limitation to that. Whether it’s nutrition, management, environment, health or meat quality, we have a host of regional and global experts that we can draw on to help clients get the most out of the products that they’re using from us.

Q. How is your company using technology to speed up progress?
A. We’ve been playing around with virtual reality technology, using the Microsoft HoloLens, for over a couple years. We actually have clients selecting animals virtually. In Japan, for example, we have a client who wants a very specific confirmation on boars. He can be sitting in his office in Japan while one of our staff on the farm can be wearing our HoloLens. He can literally see everything that the person wearing the HoloLens can see so he can do selection remotely from his office. Technology is changing the interaction. However, at the same time, in-barn help is a necessary thing to provide. We’re using every tool in our toolbox to try and make sure that our clients get the help they need at the time they need in the manner they want it.

Q. How has the business changed since you started?
A. Some of the trends continue like integration, concerns around animal welfare, meat quality discussions and globalization of our industry, but at the same time, they seem to be moving at a faster pace. Ten years ago, we were just dreaming about the technology we have today like being able to control your barn remotely. The other thing we are seeing is a shift in messaging – more discussion around sustainability in our industry not only from an economic point of view, but also an animal, social and environmental point of view. We’re thinking more about how we raise pigs and how we can do it in a profitable way while considering the other needs of both society and environment.

Q. Who inspired (or inspires) you?
A. I come from a family of teachers. My parents instilled in me a lifelong interest in learning. I’ve always tried new things. I’ve always encouraged others to learn new things and to be open to learn. It’s amazing what comes to you when you’re open to the opportunity.

Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. How big is too big? That’s my main concern. I have kids in college who are interested in agriculture, but I don’t know how they can afford to get into agriculture with the way the industry has increased in size and scope. It’s difficult for people who want to get into our industry as a primary producers without finding a niche or some type of specialized product. Also, at what point is it too big that we can’t provide all the things we need to provide to ensure that we are producing a healthy, safe product to the consumer?

Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. There will always be opportunities in agriculture because people need to eat. We’re blessed in North America with an overabundance of food. The world will always have an appetite, so there will always be opportunities in agriculture. The cool thing is now that we have this complex technology with primary production, there are IT jobs in agriculture, jobs in technical developments, jobs in engineering and of course, primary production. There are spots for all kinds of people with a whole variety of skills and talents to fit within agriculture.

Keep reading to learn about Simpson’s business philosophy and what he would do differently in his career.

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Lori Stevermer, Page 2

Thu, 22 Sep 2022 00:55:05 GMT

Continued from Page 1

Q. What’s one of your pet peeves?
A. If I look farther down the road and try to be optimistic, I think agriculture is going to own more of the conversation about sustainability and what we’re doing. I’m tired of everybody saying, ‘We’ve got to tell our story.’ Why? Because everyone has a story, but I don’t necessarily want to hear everybody’s stories. It’s more about those shared values. I think we will connect better if we take that information that we’ve learned over the last 35 years and what we’re learning today and communicate better with people about how we are not part of the problem, but rather we’re part of the solution.

Q. What would you do differently in your career?
A. I met my husband because of my career so there are definitely some things I would not do differently. One thing I would do differently is take more chances early on and not be so afraid to fail or make mistakes. When we’re young, and especially if you were a good student and never wanted to get a B, you maybe didn’t take that chance with a project or situation because you didn’t want to fail. I think I would have tried to do that a little more – take a few more risks. I probably would have had a deeper experience because of that.

Q. What advice do you have for the next generation?
A. Be persistent. When I look back, I was a shy, introvert coming out of college. I took a job in sales which I never perceived myself doing. It was hard, but I stuck with it. I had people supporting me along the way. I would also say be open to opportunities along the way. It’s that willingness to say, ‘O.K., I’ll give this a try.” That’s not always easy for me. Sometimes you have to let go of the familiar in order to reach for the unfamiliar.

Q. How has and will COVID-19 impact the future of the pork industry?
A. When you think of the swine industry back in April of 2020, when those packing plants shut down and we saw people scrambling for food and meat in the grocery store, it was a wake-up call for many people. It made consumers pay a little more attention to where their food was coming from and to see all the people along the way that helped get food to their table. I would hope consumers would keep farmers more top of mind as one of those changes. I also think we grew our ability to have conversations and conduct business. I did two virtual Operation Main Street presentations during COVID-19 that have been a lot harder to do pre-pandemic. Face-to-face relationship is important, but I think we learned we can find other ways to communicate when we can’t be face-to-face.

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 Lori Stevermer 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.

More from Farm Journal’s PORK:

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Greg Simpson

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Pat Joyce

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Mark Lyons

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with John Waddell

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Frank Brummer

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Mark Bienhoff

PORK Perspectives: A Minute with Martin Enderink