Interview with Incumbent AAA Board Candidate Roger Wann

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This podcast begins with casual discussions about food and family dynamics, then transitions into an in-depth conversation with Roger Wann, an incumbent candidate for the American Angus Association Board of Directors. Roger shares his background, the dynamics of his family-operated ranch, and his commitment to the association. He outlines his goals for improving communication, focusing on commercial programs, and addressing competing genetic databases. The conversation also touches on topics such as data accuracy, member engagement, and the importance of retaining control over genetic information. 

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
I did eat before we startedthough.
You know, bistro, we welcome toaround the shoot, but I, I, so
we start this, um, podcast bytalking about food, which it's
gonna irk me.
It's gonna piss me off rightfrom the start because, um, are
you up diet or something?
No, I literally spend all daysmoking ribs.
Oh.

(00:22):
And I just didn't really havetime to eat'em before we came on
here.
Oh, you could have brought'emand ate'em while you could have
snack.
It's like, it's not really thattype of a, it's not really that
type of food where you're like,you're like sucking on a bone
while you're, while you'retrying to talk.
So it's not really the type offood that I wanted to, uh, I
wanted to start, start eatingwith sound.

(00:46):
I mean, I guess I could mutemyself, but imagine, there you
go.
Imagine the sound of me.
Like, so, so is this pleasantnoises?
Is this around the Traeger withCorbin around the green, around
the Traeger?
Um, I do, we do have a smoker,but it's, that's not for
Thursday evening though.
Sure.
I need to know.
Are those all the, is that allthe stuff?

(01:06):
Bennett one behind you?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
No, I'm in Bennett's room.
Yes.
That is awesome.
Uh, I'm going the wrong waythough.
Wrong way.
All that is, that is all.
He won all that crap.
Yeah, he won all that stuff atthat contest in North Carolina?
No, not yet because this came,and then there's just more
shipments of stuff just keepscoming.

(01:27):
I'd be like, minute.
I'm sorry, this is all thatcame.
Well, I don't know how to usethose tools anyways.
Vincent was like, oh, oh,Bennett, good job.
Let's put all these tools insidethe house in your room.
Yeah.
No, Abby, what are we doing?
Abby stored it all here for whenhe comes back or whatever, but
No, he did, I guess we didn'ttalk about that.
Huh?
He he had a good run.

(01:48):
Yeah.
We're really, really proud.
It's, I don't know.
We talked to Corbin about, oh,your life's gonna change with
these little kids and all thisstuff.
But it's like, man, every phase,it just always is changing,
right?
Yeah.
Like you move into a new phaseand now we're parents of adult
children and they've got theirwalk and, and I don't know, it's

(02:09):
just super interesting.
And then I'm not a parent ofthem, but my younger sisters
have little kids, and so they'reso little.
It's like, I'm not like agrandpa, but I'm also too old to
kind of be their uncle if itmakes sense.
And so just watching that, it's,it's uh, this whole being a
parent thing.
Isn't it funny too?
Fascinating.
First of all, isn't it funny how40-year-old Joe, actually, he's

(02:30):
too old to be an uncle.
Like, what the, did you realizethat, okay, our neighbor, I
don't think you're too old.
You can never be too old.
Oh, you need to, you need tohear about my generation
interval.
We turn it over now.
Our neighbor, our neighbor had achild at 66.
Holy old.
Crap.
It's, I mean, oh, bless hisheart.
Uh, Reba McIntyre's brother.

(02:51):
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, he had one, um, at 60.
Who was he named?
Pegu, Pete.
And then they had another one.
I was like 60.
He was, he was much, he wasolder.
Um, so yeah.
Joe, you're not old.
You need to quit acting like it.
No, I do think it's, I'm older.
I'm older than my dad was.

(03:12):
I'm, I'm quite certain I'd haveto do the math and I'm not that
quick yet.
But no, I'm quite certain I ameither the same age or older
than my dad was when I graduateda four year university.
Yeah, that is, that is, that issomething that's interesting.
My dad was, obviously, he was 25when I was born and I'm his
youngest.
And then I just had one at 30,well, 35 technically, but it's

(03:34):
right before my birthday.
So there's definitely, there'sdefinitely something where in
life, I think it was originallythe goal was like, well, I don't
want to, I wanna have kids atbefore 30 and then.
Not be a grandpa wheneverthey're graduating high school.
But I didn't, for whateverreason, my life didn't work out
that way.
It was hard, which is fine.
I don't care.
I don't care.
The timing can be hard.

(03:56):
I'll be 54, but I'll get somejust from in jail and nobody
will ever even know.
So Vince, did you know any ofyour great-grandparents?
No.
Me neither.
I did know one.
I did know one.
I only had one grandparent.
Oh man.
That was around.
I'm trying to think of what wecalled my great-grandma, though.
I only had one.
She died in 1994.
Whenever I was four, we called.

(04:19):
I can remember fourgreat-grandparents.
Great-grandparents died.
That's crazy.
Well, that And my children,children, you would've eight.
You would've eight.
My children knew.
Knew two of them.
Two of your great grandparents.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, wow.
Mine's on, uh, milah would knowtoo, would know.
Milah would know too.
So yeah.
And then when you get to like,great-great aunts and uncles and

(04:40):
great-great greats, oh, I had amess of them.
That's, I think it's funny thatwe we're, we're kind of talking
about family dynamic, and it'ssomething that's been really,
I've been thinking about it alot lately.
It's like, um, I kind of get inthe summertime, I do this
anyways, but I get to this pointwhere I'm like, the cows are
doing it for themselves.
I don't really see'em every day.
So I'm not, uh, I'm not asplugged in with everything

(05:03):
that's going on.
I'm like, my brain is, is onother things.
So, um, as the fall has gottenhere, I will say that I have
gotten to be so excited too.
Like, you start going throughcalves and you're, you're about
to wean.
Um, I, I, I'm seeing them moreoften.
Or their calves are gettingbigger, they have more

(05:23):
character.
You can kind of tell more ofwhat you've got.
And so I've kind of been re whatis it?
What is it like reinvigorated,like, I'm so much more exci.
It's, and I know I, I bring thatup because I know you guys go
through the same cycle whereit's like, oh, you know, cows,
whatever.
I don't care right now.
But then you hit this certainpoints in life where you're

(05:45):
like, you get excited again.
And I'm at one of those pointsright now.
I, I think one of the reasons isI got a calf that, which
whenever you have 150 of'em, youhave one that stands out.
You're like, oh man, you just,I'm just excited.
So like, I'm excited to beexcited.
I hope that everyone else outthere listening as excited as I
am to be in the business at thistime, they're not.

(06:09):
I'm kidding.
They're not.
I don't know.
I.
So I, I'd let you know somethingabout me.
The highs are high, the lows arelow whenever it comes to having
cows.
Like, I mean, whenever I'm high,whenever I'm like I am right
now, it's like I can't bestopped.
That's what I like about rowcropping too, because it gives
me the summer we make hay, wedeal with the crops.

(06:31):
I don't have to deal with cowstoo much, and it gives me a
minute for my brain to shut downand quit thinking about it.
Yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
And then now I think that'shealthy.
Yeah.
Now we're, and then when you,you get to calving them.
Yep.
We're Calvin and we're, we'reabout to wrap up harvest and
we're, we're Calvin.
And then I can start focusingon, you know, I'm starting to

(06:54):
think about bulls debris usedthis fall and things like that.
So my, my brain has had a timeto check out.
I need to use the, because Ihave been, been reinvigorated, I
have been enlightened and I dohave.
More excitement for the businessthan I've had over the past
three or four months.
I've just gone through a littlelull in the summertime, but I

(07:16):
need to use this time just tostart thinking about umm
decisions and what, what I wantto see outta certain cow
families and how I can make thathappen.
So I, I need to use my, use myhappiness to my advantage rather
than just going out there andbeing goof mc goober and looking
at the Cal and being excited,you know, need to use it to use

(07:36):
my, my rare time of clarity andmake some decisions.
So, um, Joe, what have you beenup to?
Well, it was, it's funnybecause.
What Vince just said is exactlywhat he said to me about every
three days for the past 45,where he is like, see, that's

(07:58):
what I like about row cropping,because I call Vince and I'm
like, yeah, I'm not looking fora tall building yet.
But things are pretty stressful.
And I'm said on this podcastbefore and another podcast fall
is absolutely since I, it has avery emotional deep trigger for
me.
I love the fall.
I've always loved the fall.

(08:18):
I love the fall.
It's going to the mountains.
It's the changing of the leaves,it's the calves coming, it's the
replacement heifers.
It's all those things.
It's, it's, uh, it's, how aboutfall baseball?
Like fall baseball is fallbaseball.
We got football.
We got, oh, Vince is freakingout.
Oh, he's talking about baseball.
He's like, you know, you knowwhat, Vince, just go for it.

(08:40):
I'm gonna kick back.
When we get to this time ofyear.
Go ahead Joe.
Just tell'em how great it is.
Fall is the best.
I, I love fall and honestly, ohman, my most stressful time of
year is this ball sale, thefall, which is in the fall.
And it's kind of just put adamper on that.
But I, I do wanna tell you, I'mnot watching the clicker.

(09:00):
I don't think I have one.
I think Vince has the clicker,like of time.
We just had a conversation aboutfamily.
We just had a conversation aboutseasons, bull sales, stuff like
that.
And I actually feel a littleguilty because we have a, a
special guest today.
Um, we've had a popular segmentwe've been doing for, or a
series of board membercandidates.

(09:20):
And Corbin.
I think some of this maybeintroduce our guest because some
of it's a little bit applicablewhere I'd like to hear him chime
in about family life and stufflike that too.
So, um, let's just go ahead andmove on and, and maybe when
we're done with that interviewat the end, let's go back and
revisit and we'll talk aboutsome more of our activities.
Is that, is that okay with youVince Corbin?
Yeah.
Or, or there's another day totalk about this because my

(09:43):
excitement's not going away, Ican tell you.
Yeah, no.
And I want to hear how otherpeople are excited.
I'm excited'cause I think that'sour listeners, our listeners go,
I, I guess the one prescriptionI'd have for you is easier for
me to prescribe than to do itmyself in practice, but smooth
out those highs and lows if youfigure out how to you it, to
where the highs aren't so highand the lows aren't so well, you
know what?

(10:03):
The highs can be high, but the,the lows of when I just, which I
mean, I'm gonna give myself alittle bit of credit here.
Um, we've been having a baby andthat, that's the type of thing
that I'm just, I, I, I, thistime going around, I'm older,
I'm more mature.
And so the goal is to be morepresent in that.

(10:24):
So that's a lot of the reasonwhy I just kinda was like, eh,
whatever cows are, cows arecows.
But, but let's get to the realreason why we're here.
Um, so I wanna, I wanna leaveyou with one more before we get
to Okay.
Go ahead to our guest.
I heard a great, great sermon.
Um, actually.
In the Catholic church, theycall'em homilies, but it's
preaching where, uh, they saidsuccessful people do not think

(10:48):
of problems as problems.
Problems are items that needyour attention.
And that kind of helped methrough this fall on this bowl
sail thing.
Like, let's not think aboutthese problems we have.
They're just an item that needsmy attention.
Correct.
And so with that, go for it,Corbin.
Let's kick this off and, andbring this nice gentleman in.
Well, like all of our, ourcandidates for the board.

(11:09):
I, I think, I think that weshare a lot of the same values
and a lot of the same views anda lot of what we've been
bantering about here to startthis podcast off.
Um, our guest, Roger Juan, isgoing to really resonate with,
I, I mean, I know Roger's afamily man.
I know, um, living in SoutheastOklahoma, there's gonna be so
many similarities between theway they do things and just,

(11:31):
just looking at Robert's faceand just knowing his background.
I know, um.
I know we've got similarbackgrounds and we've got
similar ideals as the way thingsgo.
Um, there's something a littledifferent about Robert.
Robert is an incumbent.
Um, Roger, not Robert.
Oh, did I say Robert?
I meant Roger.
Roger is an incumbent in theAmerican Angus Association Board

(11:53):
of Directors, which is somethingthat's really exciting for me
because, uh, we get a chance totalk to somebody that's been
there, somebody that's beenthrough it, somebody that knows
kind of what to expect.
Hopefully we can pick his braina little bit about what goes on
in there.
And, um, you know, um, I'mexcited for the future of
American Angus Association andI'm excited.
For, uh, our conversation withRoger.

(12:16):
So without further ado, I justwanna kick it off to you, Roger.
Tell us a little bit aboutyourself, where you're from.
Uh, we've got Juan Ranch in JuanRanches in Podo, Oklahoma.
They've got a bull sail everyMarch.
Um, but, but aside from that,uh, I think Roger's got a lot
more to tell you, so, so I'llgive it to you, Roger.

(12:36):
Hey, thanks guys.
And it's, uh, thanks forinviting me on.
It's a pleasure to, to be hereand it takes a little while to
kind of get the scheduling andorganizational, uh, pre-work
done to, to get, get to thispoint, but I'm sure happy to be
here.
And, uh, you know, Corbin, when,when you get to be as old as I
am today, you can ramble along along time from about family and

(13:00):
kids'cause I've had a prettylong history with that.
But I grew up, I'm a native ofEastern Oak, Eastern Oklahoma,
born in la Flora County.
Um, so life kind of took me toStillwater for a undergraduate
degree in animal science atOklahoma State, and I worked for
about a year after that in theStillwater area.
Had a couple different jobsthere while I was kind of

(13:22):
sorting out my next direction, Iapplied to, uh, I really enjoyed
the repro class at, uh, as asenior at, uh, at OSU and, and I
ended up using, uh, Dr.
Rod Geiser was the physiologistthere at the time that taught
that senior repro class.
And he helped me organize some,um, applications to various

(13:44):
colleges, uh, to attend gradschool.
And I ended up at Texas a and mand, and got a master's in repro
there.
And kind of had the, uh, it'skind of, I've said this a few
times, but I, I kind of had theoriginal intent of maybe staying
for a PhD and having a career inacademia.
And about halfway through mymaster's degree, I realized, ah.

(14:06):
I don't know about that.
I could, I could see thatacademia is just gonna get me
further from a cow than what Ireally wanted to be.
And, uh, and I had, uh, three orfour different PhD programs in
front of me to kind of look atand consider.
And I looked around at what elsewas in the industry and, and,
uh, and I, whether you guys knowall this history or not, but

(14:26):
some of our readers may, orlisteners may, but I ended up,
uh, leaving grad school at thatpoint in academics and taking a,
a sales management job with,with a BS.
So I worked in the AI industryand actually just retired from
that job a few months ago, after36 years.
And, and, and very similar to,um, that decision of staying in

(14:48):
academia would get me too farfrom Macau.
Uh, every time I kind of had alittle bit of an opportunity to
maybe move up at a BSI, I wasasked recently, why'd you stay
in the same position for 36years?
'cause any other positionwould've got me too far from
Macau.
And, uh, so I, I stayed close tothe field.
I loved working with sales reps.
I, I loved, uh, working withcustomers.

(15:11):
My, my family background on thefamily ranch, there was all
commercial.
We had no registered cows atthat time.
And so my interest today isstill very commercial.
Um, even though I, you know,we're seed stock breeders and
how the bulls sound, all that,I'm very commercial in my
approach to the breed.
Um, so if I, if I back up on thefamily history a little bit

(15:33):
there, my, my great grandparentsmoved from northeast Texas up to
La Flora County.
I'm not, I don't think we'rereal sure what year, um, my
granddad was born in 1914.
We're sure of that.
My mom has a copy of a UScensus, a handwritten census
from 1918 that has my granddad'sname on it as being four years

(15:55):
old.
So somewhere between 1914 and1918, uh, they moved to the
Florida County and bought thefirst 80 acres.
And, uh, so over time might,that's an incredible timeline.
That's an incredible timelinewhen you get to think about it.
It's so, 1918, it's 2025.
So 107 years your family hasbeen where you're at.

(16:17):
Right?
Right.
It's incredible.
And, and some of that, Hey, wehave some photos of, uh, not
very many, of course, butthere's a photo of my granddad
as a young man and his mother,who as, as a great grandmother,
I do remember her.
Um, I was probably in fourth orfifth or sixth grade when she
passed away.

(16:37):
Um, but they were farming cornwith a team of horses in one of
the fields, which is one of ourfavorite hay fields today.
So we don't do any farmingtoday, Vince.
But, um, so kind of a goodhistory there.
All commercial cattle and gotinterested in, in registered
cattle when I was a student atOklahoma State.
I worked at both OBI, centralBull Test Facility and worked at

(17:01):
the OSU Purebred Beef Centerand, uh, actually started taking
the Angus Journal in March of1986.
And I moved to College Stationin the fall of that year to
start my master's program.
And, and I can tell you thatday, the, uh, when the, when the
Angus Journal showed up, I putthe biochem and the physiology
and whatever other books I had,they got stuck to the side and I

(17:23):
shut the office door and readthe Angus Journal.
So we bought our, my brother andI bought our first cow in 1989
and a cow or two along afterthat thinking, oh my gosh, it's
gonna take us forever to get bigenough to matter.
And it kind of did.
Uh, but it seems like once youget to a certain level and the,
the, you have more replacementheifers coming on, then growth

(17:44):
happens pretty fast after thatwith you wake up one day and
like, I'm not real sure whereall these cows have come from,
but that's kind of the, uh,kinda the history that sort of
has got us up to that point.
Had our first bull sail and.
2003 and I've had one every yearsince.
So you mentioned your, youmentioned your, sorry, Vince, go
ahead.
You mentioned your brother.

(18:05):
What does your family dynamiclook like as far as the ranch
goes?
Um, as far as the bull salegoes, is it just you two kind of
do everything together or doeshe bring his bull as you bring
everybody?
My, my parents are, um, my, uh,our, our mom and dad are both,
I'd say pretty well retired.
Uh, folks that know us willlaugh at the next thing.
I've got to say that dad's 86,he'll sure.

(18:27):
Show up on the John Deere Gatortotally unannounced and give you
orders or, or quickly point outto you what you're not doing
right.
So, uh, just he, I explained tohim, tried to explain to him one
time, daddy Danny, and I knowwhat we're doing here.
And, but I think he just can'thelp himself.
He's gotta be sure we're doingthings right.
But, so today it's my brotherand I, um, we have have

(18:49):
partnership cows.
We have.
Some property we own together inA LLC.
And then I have cows I ownpersonally, and he has cows he
owns personally, and it can seema little complicated, I think,
but it works for us.
And they're all registered underthe same member code and, and
uh, we know who, what belongs towho, and it just kind of works.

(19:10):
You know, you, you brought up aminute ago about the, about
growing and, and it seemed likeit takes forever and then all of
a sudden it doesn't.
Have you ever had you brought upyour bull sail as well?
Have you ever had a female sale?
Well, we have a female sale withour bull sail.
Oh, you do?
Okay.
Yeah.
So we in for, for the first oh,10 years, we sold our females

(19:31):
first.
And the bulls last and in thesale.
Um, but we made the change, Ithink in 2015 or 2016 that
really our bread and butter hereis, um, is selling bulls.
Uh, as we grew and the number ofbulls we had to sell to sell
grew, we attracted more and morecommercial bull guys, and we put

(19:54):
them to the front of the sale.
And, and today it's almostembarrassing to admit that I, I
never make one phone call withthe intent to sell a female
that's in the sale.
And, and I can tell you when thebull sale's over and those guys
get up out of the bleachers andwalk away, I'm always have a
little bit of a nervous momentbe, I hope, bet have people left
here to, to buy these 50 or 60female lots that we have teed up

(20:17):
to go.
And they, and they always do.
Maybe at not just astoundingprices, but prices that we're
always proud of.
Right.
Roger, I have a follow upbecause I think it's so unique,
the structure you have.
Mm-hmm.
And, and, and I'll tell you, theinterview won't sound funny
because if, if you'd rather notanswer this, we'll just cut her
off, cut her out, and nobodywill know it existed.

(20:38):
Um, because it, it would be sortof proprietary information.
Do those bulls get purchased bylike Juan Ranch and sold in a
cooperative fashion and then disdisperse funds?
Do you guys make cattle togetherand say we're using these sis?
Because I think we have a lot ofyoung listeners that would want
to do stuff with family and theysay, well, what happens if I

(20:58):
raise all the$18,000 bulls andmy brother's raising all the
$3,000 bulls and you know,that's, how do we do this?
That's absolutely part of it.
Um, so, uh, my brother and Ipretty well agree on, on our AI
sis.
Okay.
So we'll pick, I think we haveseven on our list for the fall.

(21:19):
And that doesn't mean he mightdecide at the last moment to buy
10 units on a bull he wants tokind of use, or I may do the
same thing, but we have thiscore group of bulls that.
That fits our selection criteriawith the sole purpose of these
guys can leave us.
Great.
I'm, I'm an optimist.
I believe we can, you can haveit all.
If we use all the toolsavailable to us.

(21:40):
We want great females and wewant great bulls for our
commercial customers.
And uh, and we have a lot oflongtime repeat customers that I
think say that what we're doingis, at least in some part,
right?
So we, we, we agree on thisgroup of bulls and then, um, and
then my brother kind of makeshis cows.

(22:01):
We work together on thepartnership cows, I'll make my
cows.
We kind of come up to about thesame, the same spot on those
matings.
And you know, I think one thingwe do, maybe it's a little
unique, we've become so muchbetter at selling bulls than we
are females.
We want more bulls than females.
So for the last half a dozenyears, we've been using a fair

(22:24):
amount of sex male semen and.
So our sex ratio is prettyconsistent at 60 40 bulls versus
females.
And we do use cleanup bulls.
So those are supposed to all besi 50 50, although some years
you wonder.
And, um, but we can keep that 6040 ratio and that seems to fit
us pretty well.

(22:45):
So that's another thing I'dthrow in there.
Some science.
We're, we're both science guys.
Uh, we both have master'sdegrees in different
disciplines, but um, uh, the sexsemen thing has been really cool
for us.
One piece of advice you'd offer,a quick, one piece of advice
you'd offer mm-hmm.
For anybody that wanted to go inbusiness with a sibling in the
bull selling world.

(23:05):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
You just, you just have to be onthe same page and you have to be
able to play to other, your,your, your sibling strengths and
he has to be able to play toyour strengths.
And, uh, we know what each otherdoes well and we stay out of
each other's way.
Uh, and let them let that persontake the lead when it's things
that he does well.

(23:26):
And you, you can't becompetitive against each other.
And well said, our customerswill tell us which bull deserves
to bring the most money.
I think it's, I think that'sbeautiful.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
And to be honest with you, it's,I, one of the things about
having a partnership bull sale,which I know it's something that

(23:46):
Joe has to deal with and it'ssomething that Vince has to deal
with, and it's something thatI've thought about, um, and
inviting some people to comesell some bulls.
It's like you have to get alongwell with the people you're
selling bulls with, and therecannot be any sort of animosity
because.
Um, the free market determineswhat bulls worth the same

(24:07):
amount.
I think it's important to havethose bulls be raised in a
similar capacity, but at, but atthe end of the day, we've got a
free market and whatever twopeople decide, a bulls worth is
what two people decide a bull isworth, right?
So, um, and, you know, and overthe years a lot of our customers
have, uh, come to trust us alot.
And so we, we'll get a fairnumber of bull orders at the

(24:30):
last minute.
I can go to bed on a Thursdaynight thinking I've got
everything lined out, all theboxes are checked, and then a, a
weather event somewhere, uh, afamily emergency somewhere.
Friday mornings, phone startsringing.
I can't make the sale.
I need two Kevin's bulls, or Ineed this, or I need that.
A lot of these guys, I know'emwell enough, I know what they

(24:50):
want.
If I don't, I I ask'em a handfulof questions to, to be sure I
understand as well as I can whatthey need.
And then at that point, you buythe right bull for them and it
doesn't matter who owns it.
So back to the partnershipthing, uh, if these two bulls
are the right fit for that guy,that's the two bulls I'm gonna
do my best to get for him.

(25:11):
And it doesn't matter whether Iown them or not.
'cause it all works out in theend, especially too, I think
it's really important.
Uh, uh, and I, I don't mean togo off on a diatribe on this,
but I think it's reallyimportant if you're gonna have a
partnership bull sail withsomeone, or you're, you're gonna
have, you have to have similarideas of where you want your
breed, you want your program togo, right?

(25:31):
So I mean, it's like you can'thave somebody that's raising,
um, ramala big muscular thingsand then somebody that's raising
jerseys.
I mean, you gotta have some,some, some like-minded, um,
ideas.
Mm-hmm.
So, so obviously you guys havethat, um, right.
Uh, I'd like to know more aboutlike, the family dynamic.

(25:52):
I mean, do you, have you havekids that are involved in the
program?
I mean, yeah.
And, you know, um, generationinterval of humans is about 25
years, so every 25 yearssomebody's gotta figure out
what's gonna happen next.
Right, exactly.
And that's just, that's, that'sjust biology.
And you can't get around, can'tget around that.
And we're, uh, Danny and I are alittle bit in the middle of that

(26:13):
now.
Um, certainly he and I are atthe helm, if you will, at this
point.
I have, uh, I have three adultkids and, you know, they one day
grew up and kind of found theirown way in life and doing a lot
of different things.
And Vince and I have talkedabout this a little bit.
Uh, my brother's kids are allcloser to home and likely the,

(26:33):
the next generation of.
Who is gonna make things.
Gin is gonna be his two sons atthis point, is my best guess.
He is a senior in high schooland, and his oldest son is a,
has a local, uh, he's CPA has alocal accounting business, but,
uh, he's very involved at theranch.
A very smart young man as youmight expect.

(26:53):
And so there's, there's somegood hands there.
And we're, we're at the point,uh, I'm, I'm three years older
than my brother.
I'm nowhere's near ready toquit, of course.
But, um, we we're having someelementary discussions of what
the next round needs to looklike.
And I think you just can't wakeup one day and say, okay, we've
got a month to figure this out,voice.

(27:13):
Uh, it's, yeah, you think aboutit, you have, they have to
evolve over time.
And, uh, so we're, we're kind ofat that point today, but we're,
I think we're all verycomfortable where we are today.
There's no emergencies in place.
So, um, so that, so, so allyour, your range stuff is really
exciting.
Um, I.

(27:35):
I love how you're, you guys areso family oriented.
I love how it's two brothers andthen you've got, you know, the
next generation.
It's not like you have itfigured out, but you guys have a
path to, to keep it in thefamily and it's Right.
107 years, it's so, it's soimpressive to keep something,
uh, that close to home in thatamount of time.
But yeah, if we can, if we can,I'd like to shift gears.

(27:57):
Shift gears.
Okay.
You bet.
A little bit.
Bet.
You bet.
Um, oh, I will, I will make onemore family point.
So my daughter who lives inColumbia, South Carolina, she
and her husband both have greatcareers there.
And that's where my twograndkids live too far from
home.
But it is what it is at thispoint.
And, uh, she turns in all of ourperformance data.

(28:17):
So.
So you do have some involvementfrom there?
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we take weights and, uh, youknow, once we do the electronic
having book, turn in the birthweight, get the parentage
correct.
Get the, the, the, theregistrations in place, which
also set your contemporarygroups.
Right.

(28:37):
So she doesn't have to worryabout that.
We've already de designatedcontemporary groups at birth
after that.
Man, you talk about the yellownotepads with weights written
down on'em.
Take a picture, text'em toBrittany.
It just happens.
She's got it done.
And she's good at calling intothe office if she has some
questions.
And you can bet if she can'tread the handwriting on the, on

(28:59):
the photo, she's gonna hustle.
She's gonna be asking me or heruncle Danny real quick.
Like, what is this?
And uh, so we have a, we have asystem that works pretty well.
It, it keeps Danny and I fromdoing something.
All Angus breeders love this,right?
You're tired from doing whateverit is you've done all day.
And you come in like, man, Ineed to spend an hour and get

(29:20):
some, get some Oh yeah.
Gets plugged in here.
Yeah.
She's does all that for us and ahundred times faster than I
could do it anyway.
Well, that might be, uh, I had,I had to kind of, I had to throw
that in there.
Well, and that might be, thatmight have, so I, I mentioned as
we, as we came on here about myexcitement and like how I'm
reinvigorated.
Part of the reason I might be,uh, sound a little bit like I

(29:42):
have a little more pep in mystep today is, is that Lucy has
actually decided, well, Lucy'smy wife, uh, she's actually
decided that, um, she might wantto start inputting all our data
and, and kind of taking the helmon some of that stuff.
And that's honestly, you know,kids are so technically
proficient today and I went toyou to see a kid Right.
But Right.
And she's younger than I kids.

(30:02):
So your kids will be, uh, um,you guys are just good at doing
stuff like that and can, can.
Find work.
I, I finally find a way to makeit work, and I'm gonna plink in
the same fashion forever.
But Brittany will discoverdifferent things behind the
Angus logging.
They're short cut stuff.

(30:22):
Oh, I can turn dating in fasterwith this spreadsheet.
I would've never even thought ofthat.
Right.
So, so it's nice to have thatyounger generation.
It's nice to, you know what, tobe honest with you, from your
perspective, it's nice to havethat involvement from your
daughter.
Perfect.
You bet.
It makes you feel good.
It makes you feel good.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
So, so if we may, now we'llshift gears.

(30:44):
Mm-hmm.
Um, so, so you've been in thatboardroom, you've been a, a part
of all of that, uh, process.
Um, so I guess, I guess we startoff with.
You've been there for the lastterm.
Mm-hmm.
What are your goals for the nextterm?
Mm-hmm.
And what goal, I'll start offwith that.
I'll start off, what, what goalsdo you have for the next term?

(31:06):
And, and I might be get out, getout, kind of order outta order
here.
But I'd like to say, I'd alsolike to know what you kind of
think you brought to the board,uh, in the last term you had.
Yeah.
A, a couple things there and I,I, that, that's a good, good
broad question to let me kind offind my own path, uh, to answer
that.

(31:27):
Um, I knew when my youngest sonplayed that last baseball game,
then I wanted to devote moretime back to the industry.
Off not just the ranch, butmore, I didn't know exactly what
that was.
I became involved with theOklahoma Cattleman Association

(31:47):
and in a couple of different, Iserved a term as a district
director.
Um, I, I served some time ontheir, uh, six years, in fact on
the production policy committee.
So helped, uh, lead, uh, policydiscussions that ultimately
would, would develop policy forthe OCA to tell that staff

(32:08):
Michael Kelsey, the CEO there,um, what we wanted him to go to
the capitol and lobby for us.
And so I hadn't thought aboutworking any outside the state of
Oklahoma that hadn't crossed mymind much.
Um, but, um, a couple of Anishbreeders here in the state did

(32:29):
ask me to consider running.
It took me two months to decideto do it.
I talked to quite a few people,wanted to be sure that I had the
right skillset that would helpAngus, uh,'cause this, this
wasn't gonna be about me.
And I think a couple of thingsthat, that I, I, as I've already
mentioned, I'm so angu, socommercial oriented, uh, that I,

(32:53):
I also was also on the, the, uh,board of the Oklahoma Angus
Association.
And we had developed a OklahomaAngus sponsored feeder kef sale
at Oklahoma City NationalStockyards.
And I just knew there was somuch more that could be done to
differentiate value of Angusfeeder Kevs sore by registered
Angus Bulls.
And so what really caught myattention is the, is the early

(33:19):
beginnings of growth with theAngus Link Program, the genetic
merit scorecard.
I am a science guy and I thoughtI could really play a part.
Making our industry better atmarketing Angus feeder calves.
And that was, that ultimatelybecame my, uh, my primary
reason, like, yeah, I think Iwant to do this.

(33:40):
Then once you've got on theboard, and we can come back to
other questions you may have.
Uh, you know, the American AngusAssociation is, uh, is fairly
complex.
It's got four entities.
Uh, those entities serve variouspurposes.
Uh, there's budgets and expensesfor each of those, and I just

(34:03):
spent, you know, 30 plus years.
Uh, as much as I love beingdirty and being right at the
field level of this industry,I've got a lot of training by
fire on, on corporate budgets,expense budgets, income budgets,
how things have to line up.
And I found that to be a reallyuseful part of my background as

(34:24):
I started sitting in boardmeetings to be sure that we were
keeping the fiscal part of the,uh, of the breed association in
place.
So a couple of things there thatI think address your questions
and if, if you wanna, you know,work on that a little bit more,
I'd be happy to, uh, continuefurther if I missed something
that you wanted.

(34:46):
I have one, Roger.
Sure.
How do, how does one balancethe, um, financial
responsibilities of the entitywith what the members need in
the organization?
That is incredibly greatquestion.
And, and I'll just, I'll startthat by talking about Angus

(35:08):
media.
So, so I've served two years onthe Board of Angus Media.
So the first year.
Almost all of that first year,we, we were at an interim place.
We did not have a president ofAngus Media.
We didn't have a leader.
Um, so for two leaders in a rowthere, you know, you could, you

(35:33):
could make a case that AngusMedia didn't have a great
direction.
It was just sort of sittingthere.
And so, you know, we get to getto looking at some of this.
It was not necessarily operatingin the black, it was close, but
it wasn't, and it's a for-profitentity.
I, I can't speak to why it wasset up that way, but that is the

(35:56):
way it is.
But when we got the opportunityto hire a new president, and I'm
very proud to have been on thatinterviewing squad and I was
very proud to, to bring him onboard.
I just thought he had the rightskillset.
Uh, but here's a guy that hadcome from a for-profit business
that was supposed to thank Sure.
Make money into a, I'm doingsome air quotes here for-profit

(36:21):
business that, yeah, but wedon't wanna raise all the cost
of our members.
You know, I told him, I said,you've got the funnest job in
the world.
You need to increase revenuehere, but I don't wanna pay more
for my cell catalog.
So how are we gonna get thatdone?
So some, some, there were a lotof duplication of efforts and we
could go into a lot, a lot ofthings here and, and, and kind

(36:43):
of streamlining services to, toconserve some of that
duplication of efforts being,which allowed us to be more
responsive to the members aswell as reduce cost in-house.
And then what can we do as a, asa large breed association with a
large number of members who allbuy ag products.

(37:05):
Uh, so we started attractingsome sponsorships from, uh.
From outside the Angus family,if you will, to help offset the
cost of, of running Angus media.
And, and today we've got AngusMedia in the black.
We feel good about that, butother than our postage costs,
which we all love, when we mailout, uh, a pile of cell books,

(37:27):
uh, we have an increased cost toour members.
And I think that is our goalthere.
That is a balance.
That's hard, that's hard tofollow.
Um, it is just a hard thing todo.
So of course, CAB is a nonprofitthat generates a lot of revenue
from, um, uh, from licensingfees and, and sales commissions

(37:51):
on CAB product.
And all of that is to be turnedback into promoting our product,
uh, keeping more, whether it's arestaurant in Oklahoma City or
Tulsa, or whether it's a.
Uh, a chain in Peru, or, uh, Ijust got to attend the CAB
annual conference, uh, inAustin, set a record, 800

(38:14):
attendees, uh, all from the foodservice restaurant business,
representing 16 countries.
And these people are excited toserve our product and very
willing to spend a premiumprice.
And, and for me, that tricklesdown to make my bulls worth more
money.
So the CAB revenue is all sentin, turned back around into

(38:36):
promoting our product.
Uh, so e each entity there has alittle different thing to do.
So I think this segues nicelyand I, sorry to step on you
Corbin, but, um, it'sinteresting to have someone who
has been there and experiencedit.
Mm-hmm.
And, and I know that there'spolicies and procedures and
plans and et cetera.
One of the questions we've hadfrom our listeners is, is what

(38:57):
is AAA's job?
What are things that a, a a areinvolved in and things they
shouldn't be involved in?
Because I think that that'sprobably a spectrum if you ask
any of these previous It is, itis.
And some people say Angus shoulddo everything, and some people
say, just do this or that.
So what guides that?
And then how do you sift throughthose decisions as a board
member?
Yeah.
I was trying to quickly scan andsee if I knew who submitted that

(39:20):
question.
I knew I knew a few people, fewquestions.
I dunno what question numberwe've got.
Was that got, who, who's therewere a couple on that one?
I, a couple down.
Alec tmi.
Alec Meyer, yeah.
Is the, is the one we have onour page here.
So I, I think you, you look athistorically and at its core,
um, AAA has to be a breedregistry.

(39:41):
We have to, uh, provide servicesto our members.
Uh, I, I can't calculate, Idon't even want to calculate
ratios.
Right.
I mean, I could, I could buildsome simple spreadsheets.
I can actually do that.
And, uh, but I would rather haveAAA do that for me and, and me

(40:02):
be able to access all of thatperformance data from my herd
through member login.
A lot of it I just access on myphone at any moment, any time.
And like probably half ourmembership that may be
listening, uh, the Angus app onmy phone is way the most used
thing on the phone.
I could get rid of almosteverything else on the phone,
but not that a absolutely somember service, member service

(40:25):
breed registry, and we can't, wecan't lose sight of that.
I, if I'm going to point to apoint for me, and I'm not
speaking for staff or otherboard members or previous board
members, but if I point to apoint for me, it would've been
at the formation of certifiedAngus Beef in 1978.
That board at that time feltstrongly that the association

(40:49):
could do more downstream topromote our product.
To promote the value of what wedo as Angus members, Angus
breeders at home in the field.
And so, of course, we all knowthe stories of rock CAB being a
little rocky road gettingstarted.
And, uh, but when it finallytook off, I think CAB has set

(41:09):
that path and a standard for theindustry that value and quality
go hand in hand.
We, we got ourselves out of thedoldrums of the nineties with
quality improvements.
Uh, there were, there werestudies from, uh, Texas a and m
from, I think they, some ofthose studies were repeated at
the University of Georgia aboutjust supermarket studies, about

(41:32):
what, what do our customerswant, what is creating problems
with our meat demand?
And we were competing with porkand poultry on price in those
days.
And.
Doing a very poor job of that aswell.
So we've moved forward 30 yearsand here we are today.
And I think some of theforesight ness of that board and

(41:53):
boards of that area, that ourassociation needs to do more for
us.
So my viewpoint today is that wecan't lose sight of providing
those basic services that ourmembers need, but we also need
to look to the industry.
Where can we touch consumers?
We already touch'em through CAB,are there other places to touch

(42:14):
consumers?
Um, and eventually, I talked theother day as a percentage of,
uh, of the overall USpopulation, those of us involved
in production.
Agriculture is certainly gettingnarrower, narrower.
And we can't just talk toourselves.
We've got to reach people thatis willing to spend a premium
price for our premium product.

(42:35):
So I think in that regard, uh,AAA needs to provide leadership.
And some direction and someforesight.
Uh, we've got some very talentedpeople on the CAB squad that
market beef around the world.
Uh, we need to take advantage oftheir expertise there.
The other thing I'll mention is,uh, if, if anyone listen to the,

(42:59):
the 10 interviews that AngusMedia put out from the board
candidates this year, I saidthree years ago that I thought
the biggest threat to AA todayand to its members or in that
day was competing databases.
Uh, that was my very firstanswer to that similar question
that was asked of all 10candidates, this year's

(43:22):
competing databases we cannotafford today to have a segment
of our commercial industry gosomewhere else for their genetic
information.
They need to come to us.
And then that geneticinformation needs to be equally
accessible to all of ourmembers.

(43:42):
And my, my still, my biggestfear today is that some other
entity, a corporate entity, uh,however you wanna look at that
starts doing a better job thanus describing the beef cattle
population.
And we lose that pull first off,as oust members, we won't have

(44:04):
access to that data.
Uh, that data will be out of ourhands and we'll have to pay to
use it.
I don't wanna do that.
Uh, but we also start them tolose control over our influence
on the cattle feeding industryand all the downstream people
that buy our feeder calves thatpay more for'em, that make our
bulls worth more money.
So there's a, there's an answerto your question, my viewpoint

(44:27):
on what I think aaa, what theirrole is today.
Pretty multifaceted role.
You know, you just, you justbrought up, um, the data and,
and all that.
What about the, what do, do youthink the data is highly
accurate as it is, or do youthink there's room for

(44:48):
improvement and how do you thinkwe get there when we use the
word data, that can mean a lotof things to a lot of people,
correct?
Correct.
So let me take a couple of shotsat that, maybe from a couple of
different directions.
Let's talk about the EPDs versusthe, and the, and the genomics.
Okay, good.

(45:08):
And first off, you guys, I, Ihave not served on breed
improvement committee and I'venot served on a GI board.
Um, I think those years in theAI industry, I was exposed to,
uh, quite a few pretty sharpdairy geneticists and beef
cattle geneticists, and.
And even had some exposure 10,12 years ago, and I'll, I'll

(45:30):
come back to that in a minute.
To support geneticists.
And there's something to belearned, particularly from
species, that we can gatherinformation from more rapidly
than we can.
The bovine, multi, multi, youknow, litter bearing species,
multi data points, and, and have'em fast, get pregnant fast,

(45:51):
turn'em over fast.
Uh, our, our model from aphysiology standpoint is pretty
slow, but it is, it is what itis what we have to work with.
So, um, so from my point ofview, uh, when we, when we, uh,
introduce a new EPD if we wantedto start there, uh, the, the

(46:11):
range of those numbers typicallyis very large.
Uh, our heritability estimatestypically will be fairly low,
and until we gain more data.
That's what drives accuracy ismore data in the database.
Then we start seeing the rangeof numbers come together.
We can reevaluate heritabilityas we get more data in the

(46:33):
system.
And so all of this hingesaround, um, producers like you
guys and myself turning inaccurate data.
Now, field data is differentthan science data.
So in my, my short career inacademia, when I was in grad
school at a and m, some of thetrue scientists really poo-pooed

(46:55):
field data.
You know, those guys out in thefield taking birth waves,
turning'em in.
Who knows if they're looking atthe scale, right?
And you know, did they pick thewhole calf up off the ground?
Did they look down there and besure both back feet were off the
ground?
And pure data really isdifficult to achieve from a
field standpoint.
So we have to make that up withvolume of data.

(47:17):
We all have to turn in as muchdata as we can, and then the
filters that are in place tothrow stuff out that looks
funny, like, yeah, the sy thesystem says those data points
from that herd don't look right.
We're just gonna disregard'embecause they're, they're gonna
be noise in the system.
So as we gain more data and wehave better animal breeding

(47:40):
technologies, it's all math toevaluate that data.
I believe our EPDs are gettingmore and more accurate all the
time.
So the highly heritable traits.
Um, here's a question for youguys.
What is the, the trait that thatis?
I, I, I think I'm right here, isthe most heritable in our

(48:01):
database is scrotalcircumference.
And I guarantee you, if you usea bull with the low scrotal EPD,
you're gonna move the bell curveof your population in that
direction.
And you're gonna end up withsome yearling bulls that won't
pass a BSC'cause their scurcircumference is too small.
So what could have been a$7,000keese bull gets banded thrown in

(48:24):
the feeder, and he'll be a$3,500fed steer in another a hundred
days.
And so my brother and I, that's,that's a kickout trait.
We try not to use any bullsthat's in the bottom third of
the breed for scrotal EPD'causethat's just, that's just one
failure we can avoid by usingEPDs to keep us out of that, of

(48:45):
that trap.
So those, those accurate EPDscarcass traits are very
accurate.
They're easy to measure, they'revery accurate.
And, um, we've made incrediblestrides in the last three days
through the last three decadesover carcass traits, uh, birth
weight's, highly heritable.
Is a, is a, with some effort,uh, a trait that can be

(49:06):
measured.
So the more data we turn in, themore accurate our valuations
will be, and we're in a greatposition compared to the other
breeds.
We just turn in a lot more data,have the ability to harvest a
lot more data.
And you hear on the topic ofgenomics, and we all know people
like this, that turn in almostno data.

(49:27):
Use genomics to fill in theblank.
And here's my animal with EPDsand, and I know it's there.
I wish those folks would, wouldreevaluate their thoughts and
turn in more data.
And that's a call I would giveto everybody in a challenge I
would give to everybody.
For, for Danny and I who are,are, we've turned in data since

(49:49):
day one.
Uh.
First gift that was born,temporary group of one turned a
weight in.
Now did it mean anything?
No, but that was the processthat was going to drive us for
the rest of our career in thisindustry is, is to keep turning
those weights in our, my beliefis today when we have any kind
of an update on the evaluation,whether that be the addition of

(50:13):
a big pile of genomicinformation, now we, we add that
in a lot quicker now at, at, atsmaller pieces.
So it doesn't have this bigeffect, but we've had some of
those larger effects in thepast.
Um, when we, we go to a singlestep evaluation like we did in
2017 and, and it changed thingsaround a little bit, it didn't

(50:36):
change our herd much.
And my belief is I've talked toa number of geneticists both
inside.
Angus and outside Angus.
Our herd is just tied very wellto Angus's database by the
volume of data we've turned in.
So our herd doesn't bouncearound much.
It's pretty predictable.
Well, we don't bounce around alot when we send genomics in,

(50:59):
you know, we'll get that calfthat, well, I thought he was
gonna be a CESE bull, but boy,genomics says he's not.
So maybe I should reevaluate howI market that kef.
So today, I believe the scienceand my first big belief in
genomics happened in 2016.
I was a bit skeptical at thatpoint.

(51:21):
I even called a, uh, a personwho worked with Angus in the
breed improvement and fussed at'em.
'cause I'd gotten a bunch ofgenomics back and had gotten
enrolled into the EPDs.
And I, I told'em, I said, man, Ifeel like I'm in the middle of a
Forest Gump movie here.
When I take that blood card andsend it in, it's like biting

(51:43):
into a box of chocolates.
I never know what I'm gonna getback on the other end, and this
is frustrating as I'll get out.
Then I set in a, a pork geneticsmeeting that I got a chance to
attend and they presented a pileof data that said, here's the
level of performance.
This will sound very familiar.

(52:03):
Conversion days on feed, thingsthat we measure our industry by.
When we were selecting based offthe data we had at the time when
we enhanced our selectionprocesses with genomics, that
curve turned straight up at amuch deeper rate.
They were able to, uh, toimprove efficiency of the traits

(52:26):
they were measuring.
So when we look at, and I thinkwe've greatly improved those
kind of performance feedefficiency carcass traits.
Uh, and we all want to improvematernal ability, and that's a
lot harder to get a grip onlower heritable.
We don't have as much data, uh,but I still believe in data and

(52:46):
managing by data.
And so I, I still look at thatvery closely.
If given a choice, I'd use abull with a higher heifer,
heifer, pregnancy, EPD than onethat's lower.
So maybe, maybe a long answer toyour question, but there was a
couple different points there Iwanted to hit.
Right, right, absolutely.
So you mentioned, um.

(53:07):
You mentioned as far as youhadn't been on a committee for,
um, certain things.
Right.
And that kind of got me thewheels turning for me.
Mm-hmm.
It's like, so, so I think it'sreally good for, we might be
able to gain some insight intowhat the, what the board of
directors is actually tasked todo.
Right.
So, so what exactly were youtasked to do when you were on

(53:33):
the board of directors?
Were there some committees youwere on?
And how did those committees goand what decisions did you end
up, uh, making and what progressdid you guys make?
Right.
So, so the process, um, uh, we,we have committee meetings about
two weeks prior to eachscheduled board meeting.

(53:53):
And they're all done on Zoom.
So at least you can run in andtry to get on a clean shirt and,
and, and pop up your, uh,laptop.
So we have, we have sixcommittees.
Um.
I don't think, I don't thinkanybody serves on more than
three.
I think I've never served onmore than two at a time.
I've always been on thecommercial programs committee.

(54:16):
I've been on the communicationscommittee.
Um, you know, I think I'vebounced back and forth between
those two.
Then we have junior Activitiescommittee, uh, breed
improvement, uh, foundationcommittee, uh, I'm kind of
missing one there, but you guysget the idea.
So after each convention, theincoming, the incoming executive

(54:39):
staff, the new, the newpresident, vice president and
treasurer as the nominatingcommittee.
But it's basically at the newchairman of the board's
discretion, they make thosecommittee assignments and board
assignments.
So you'll be, you'll be expectedto serve on one or more of the
entity boards as well.
So you really, then you focusyour attention.

(55:03):
On those boards.
So this last year I've been onboth the CAB board as well as
Angus Media Board.
And, uh, have very different,very different things to do on
those two boards.
But I've really enjoyed both of'em.
Angus Media hits close to home'cause it's, they're a, they're
part of my management team, mymarketing team.

(55:24):
I, I can't imagine doing what wedo to promote our sale without
being able to pick up the phoneand, and, and, and get, uh,
whatever Angus Media staffmembers been assigned to me to
help me get that sale bookpulled together and keep me on
task.
Keep me on time.
And they're very, I've had acouple of those, those girls and
there's some guys that workthere too, but those girls that

(55:44):
they'll call me up and fuss atme like you are getting behind.
Yeah.
Okay.
Alright.
Alright.
Alright.
Let me refocus.
Let me refocus here.
So.
The Quad Angus Media does for meis direct, right?
I mean, I, I need direct thingsthere to get ready for my bull
sale.
What CAB does for me is createvalue for our product.

(56:07):
And I guarantee if you get abull buyer that feeds cattle,
maintains ownership and isreally wanting to gain CAB
premiums at the other end of thedeal, they will spend more money
for bulls.
They'll become your very bestbull buyers.
So, CAB affects me indirectly,but it gets there.

(56:27):
I see the path.
Uh, Angus media affects medirectly'cause I need the help.
I think Corbin cracked a really,really good little nut here of,
of exposure to the, the boardgovernance and how that works.
I want to take a, a further stepback.
We probably should have startedwith this, I apologize.
How long or how many terms haveyou served Roger?

(56:49):
Oh, okay.
Yes.
When were you elected?
Start with that and then Corbinwill have probably a follow up
from there.
But, but start how long you beenon?
So the, the timing of all ofthis, I, I don't think it's ever
really changed, at least not tomy knowledge.
Any, anything in any recentyears.
And I've been a, uh, startedbeing a, I was a delegate a few
years before.
I had kids in the earlynineties, late eighties, uh, not

(57:15):
for a few years, maybe one ortwo years.
And those conventions werealways in Louisville during the
stock show.
And then I got busy with kidsand I, I let some of these other
activities get away from me.
And then I started being adelegate again in 2014.
And I think I have been adelegate every year since,
except for one year.

(57:35):
I went on a deer hunt with myoldest son and didn't go to the
convention.
And when he drew that tag hardto get New Mexico tag, um, I
quickly called up and I was ableto get my name off of the
delegate list.
I didn't need, didn't needanybody voting for me if I knew
I wasn't gonna be at theconvention.
So during this timeframe, thesystem has remained the same.

(57:57):
You can serve two, three yearterms.
So I got elected in the fall of2022.
The convention was in Salt LakeCity.
Uh, then the next conventionwould've been in, um, Florida
Convention last year in FortWorth.

(58:19):
Now it's been three years.
So my term is up and I'm due forreelection convention in Kansas
City.
Um.
I think next year it's back inLouisville for a bit of
nostalgia during the show.
And I think the year after thatit's gonna be in Oklahoma City,
and the year after that is gonnabe CA's 50th anniversary.

(58:42):
And I think the convention'sgonna be in Ohio.
So it just gives you a littlesomething to look for there too.
So you can get reelected, servea second three year term, and
then unless, uh, you throw yourhat in the ring for an office
and the officers are elected bythe board, um, then you can, you
can go on and, and be atreasurer, vice president and

(59:05):
president.
So if it lines up, right, youcan serve a total of nine years,
but this two, three year, twothree year elected terms and
then you're done.
To be, to be clear, once you,um, you can be a delegate as
many as many years.
Oh yes, absolutely.
And then, and then, and thenonce you've served as a board

(59:25):
member, you can then be adelegate for as many years
after.
Oh, absolutely.
As, absolutely.
So, so I will say, I will say asa, uh, person who is very.
Involved in very, and, and like,it, it matters to me.
I would like to see the, like ifyou're on the board again, I
mean, I would like to see somechanges to that structure.

(59:49):
I think it's kind of unfair thatin order to be a delegate you've
gotta be in person.
And I mean, I, I know ofneighbors that I have that have
a bull sale that falls on thatsame weekend.
And then I also know that, thatit, that this weekend, uh, this
year it's on Halloween, sothere's gonna be a lot of people
that that's gonna conflict with.
Um, right.

(01:00:11):
I I, and, and I guess, I guessif we had more conversations
about it, I'd like to hear some,some reasons why we couldn't
push some of the delegate votingto Zoom and some of that stuff
online and, and do a lot morecorrespondence that way.
Um, right.
Would, would you be opposed toany of that sort of, uh,
adjustment that if, if it wasbrought forth?

(01:00:31):
Because I, I just think it'simpossible for, for a lot of us,
28-year-old man men who have4-year-old kids to, to make it.
Yeah.
Well that's the timeframe when Ikind of ducked out of these
kind.
I'm just kids.
Yeah.
Just like you had to do.
I mean, you had to do it toothing, and that's unfortunate.
So let, let me, uh, let me besure I'm clear on your question.
You mentioned delegate voting,but I think you were talking

(01:00:53):
about board voting.
So that's two different votes.
The de the delegate votes can bedone on a paper ballot.
Right.
So, so as far as accepting yourrole as a delegate, having to be
in person, right.
I think that's kind of archaic.
Correct.
I mean, if I'm being honest,right.
Um, my viewpoint has been, andthat question was asked me

(01:01:17):
during, uh, caucuses, it was afairly popular caucus question
when I was elected three yearsago.
And my viewpoint on that hasbeen, help me be sure that the
person that owns that membercode is the person sitting
behind that laptop.
I don't think there's any way wecan do that.

(01:01:37):
And so folks that are, I don'twanna pick on any particular
group of people, but folks thattouch large numbers of Angus
breeders from an advertising,marketing promotion standpoint,
it to me, it would be not out ofthe realm of possibility that
they could gather up passwordsfrom a lot of different people

(01:02:00):
and, and cast a fairly largenumber of votes.
And I feel good.
And we did have, we did have,uh, zoom voting during the
convention of 2020.
So we did not ask everybody tocome to Kansas City.
I did.
I drove to Kansas City and itwas a shortened convention, just
about a day and a half becauseof COVID.

(01:02:22):
Uh, but I did drive up there tocast my vote in person and oh,
my belief is, it's, it's a, it'sa great place to interact with
other people.
There's so many things to learn,so many connections to make
things that you can follow upfrom after that, that someone
that feels like it's just notworth their time, if that's the

(01:02:43):
reason, that's a differentreason than you're talking
about.
If it's not worth their time togo to a convention.
Then are they really dialed inenough to, to do a serious job
of evaluating candidates?
That's my belief.
It may not be everybody'sbelief.
It does make it hard on, onfolks with young families.
And I do get that one.
What, what would your thoughtbe?

(01:03:04):
So with that said, I guess youprobably wouldn't be in favor on
just doing away with delegatesand doing a, a log in login and
doing member voting for, for alot of the same reason.
I would not.
And, and also I think there's alot of, lot of folks that aren't

(01:03:28):
as dialed in as we are to thebreed, as interested in the
breed.
And if it, we, I was asked theother day, well, what about one
member one vote?
Well, I mean, we do have onemember, one vote during the
delegate election process.
Everybody, no matter if you'vegot one cow or a thousand, you
get to vote for the delegateslate from your state.

(01:03:49):
So, and we do in fact have a onemember, one vote system.
But I think our system todaygives us greater assurance that
the people voting on boardcandidates, or if we were to
have a, a bylaw, uh, changeneeded, which I don't think we
have anything coming up thisyear, but there's, there's been

(01:04:09):
years we've had, and thosethings have to be voted on by
the representatives of themembership.
The delegate process gives thebest assurance that we will have
people that's really dialed intothe breed there, or you probably
won't get elected as a delegate.
So I've had some, uh,correspondence with people and

(01:04:31):
I, I won't name names, but, ummm-hmm.
It's kind of floating aroundthere that attendance and
engagement has been incrediblylow comparative to other years,
or there's a trend towards lessparticipation.
Um, how do we encourage morepeople to be interested in
participating?

(01:04:51):
Yeah.
Encourage to grow that portionthat you mentioned of people
that are knowing what's goingon, how do we grow that pie?
Right.
It, it is disappointing to seethe, the low percentage of
people that participate in thedelegate election, the low
percentage of our membershipthat respond to member surveys.

(01:05:12):
So it, it's, it's all across theboard, you know, people are busy
and I, I, I get all of that.
I would love to see thosepercentages at least double what
they are today.
Um.
Being, being on thecommunications committee this
last year, I'm not saying Iaccomplished a whole lot.

(01:05:33):
I learned a whole lot and, and Iwill ask if I get reelected to,
to get to serve on thatcommittee some more.
Uh, how do we reach out topeople to get people engaged?
Uh, our member survey just comeback.
I think that information's beenreleased, so I don't think I've
been talking outta turn.
But the, um, of all thecommunication things we do with,

(01:05:56):
with podcasts and Facebook postsand things on the website still
yet, the Angus Journal is, isregarded by the members that
respond to the member survey asthe number one method of
communication.
But not all people take theAngus Journal.
So it's a, it's a, it's a headscratcher as to how to reach

(01:06:17):
people and, and frankly, onsome.
S it's, it's on, it's on ourmembership to want to be
engaged.
There's information out there tohelp them get engaged if they
want to access the informationand to be engaged.
Uh, I think the delegateprocess, if, if your name's on
the delegate list, uh, to, forthat election, you know, those

(01:06:42):
folks can, can set back and hopethey get elected as a delegate.
And maybe some of'em are puttingtheir name on the delegate list
just out of habit.
I always have.
And they don't hear a whole lotone way or the other.
But I think there's, there'sroom to, uh, for those delegates
to talk to the other breeders intheir state and say, Hey, I, I,
I, I saw a letter last year,maybe two years ago, uh, in

(01:07:04):
Texas where somebody reallywanted to be a delegate and they
sent a campaign letter out toall the members in Texas.
Now that cost some money.
Some POEs postage.
It was a nice letter.
It had been printedprofessionally.
Uh, that cost a little bit ofmoney, but that guy was serious.
He wanted to be a delegate.
And those are some of the kindof things I think we need to

(01:07:25):
have happen to get more membersto participate in that process.
We're we, where are the, youmentioned some surveys.
Where are those surveys?
Like where could we find them?
Because I, I rarely ever see asurvey.
Yeah.
The, uh, the survey, the membersurvey was emailed to all

(01:07:46):
members.
It was posted on our website.
I know those two things fromlate April to about early June,
may, June, close to 60 daysthere, 45 to 60 days.
And, um, and I think there wasa, a blurb in the April Journal

(01:08:07):
that the survey was about tocome out.
I don't remember exactly wherethat was printed.
Um, so again, people are busyand they miss these things and
Right.
You don't, and I think there's alot of people, I'm not a big fan
of surveys, you know, but, uh,there's a lot of people that
say, ah, I don't wanna take thetime to deal with that.
And I would love to see moreengagement from the membership

(01:08:30):
on those things.
It would help us.
Roger, do you think, uh, do youthink some might not be engaged
because they feeldisenfranchised?
Yeah.
You know, that disenfranchisedword's been thrown around a lot
since the George Bush, Al Goreelection, and I'm not getting
into politics here and I'm notalways real sure what that, what
that word really means, but, um.

(01:08:55):
I think all members can calltheir regional manager.
I think all members, we field300 phone calls a day into the
office for a variety of things.
Um, there's ways to reach outand get answers and be a part of
what's going on.
And I think some people choosenot to, um, for, for a variety

(01:09:16):
of reasons.
I don't know that I can get into what those reasons might be.
I've always been a person thatI, I try to meet things head on.
Uh, the only mistake is to neverdo anything and, you know, like
told my kids.
And Corby, you'll get to thispoint too, like, you know, the,
if you wanna show me somebodythat's never made a mistake,

(01:09:38):
I'll show you somebody thatnever gets off the couch.
Yeah.
And it just goes hand in hand.
It goes hand in hand.
We don't sit.
So I think some of our, we don'tallow couch.
Some of our members just, justdon't.
Don't really try.
Yeah.
To get engaged for whateverreason, for whatever reason.
Do you know, think that's a,hang on one more second.
Corbin, do you know, sorry If,um, te like receiving text

(01:10:02):
messages is an option instead ofjust emails because like I told
you earlier, and I thinkCorbin's about the same way, if
you could, Angus could send me aemail saying I want a million
bucks and I would never know itfor, for six months, you know?
Um, but we all received textmessages and unless we opt out

(01:10:25):
of them.
Right.
So do you know if that is anoption or, and what, what would
you like to have, uh,communicated on those text
messages?
Well, that's what I, you onething.
We'd have to have some work doneto get our phone numbers updated
a little bit.
I kind of went through myaccount the other day and.

(01:10:46):
Oh, for, for our membershipcode, for my brother.
And I like, oh, my dad's phonenumber's still on there.
Boy, nobody needs to be callinghim.
He'd just tell him to, what areyou doing?
You need to get busy.
Right.
And my brother's home phonenumber was still on that
account.
Well, he don't even, he hadn'thad that phone in a few years,
so we'd have to clean up and besure we specifically knew the

(01:11:07):
right phone number to get to theright people.
But that's doable or I thinkthat's important.
I think that's inevitable.
Yeah.
Right.
Mm-hmm.
Or they could sign up for it.
Like if I wanted to sign up foropt in, opt in sort of thing.
Yes.
Instead of them just maybe doingit, uh, on their own.
And it might be a thing thatthey could opt in.
And I'm sure you're right.

(01:11:28):
I'm sure there's a whole lot ofphone numbers that are not
right, but.
There's probably a whole lot ofthem that are, and it may, it
may already be set up.
That's why I'm asking if it is.
I'm aware.
'cause there could be, I'm notaware of it.
There could be a lot of peoplethat would be interested in
doing it if it's there and theydon't even know if, if it is,
I'm not aware of it.
I will, I will do some checkingon that.

(01:11:53):
So I wanna, um, I know you'remaking some notes there, but
I'll, I'll take a second to askthe question.
Um, the big T word, I'm gonnajust ask it because everybody
has it, is been thrown aroundfor six months now.
Transparency, this or that.
Right?
Right.
It's obviously a concern of themembership.
Mm-hmm.
Do you have any idea or, or waysto change transparency of the

(01:12:17):
association?
Yeah, or I, I'm, I'm reluctantto say improve because I sort of
feel like maybe some folks thinkwe don't need to improve.
Uh, the member needs to improve,but, but is there a way to
change how transparency works?
Yeah.
So, you know, I thinktransparency can be the word in
and of itself.
Uh, transparent transparency andcommunication can mean very

(01:12:40):
close to the same thing.
So I'm gonna talk broadly here.
Um.
Up until about, and I actuallychecked up on this one a month
ago,'cause I wasn't certain whenthis started, up until about
2018 or 2019, uh, all the boardinformation that was
communicated out to themembership was written up in the

(01:13:02):
journal.
So depending upon how the timingof a board meeting versus the
production of the next upcomingjournal, that could be as long
as six months and I'm, I'msorry, six weeks.
So as long as, um, unless youknew somebody on the staff or
knew somebody on the board thatyou could call and say, Hey,
what'd you guys talk about lastweek?

(01:13:23):
That was really the level ofcommunication that existed up
until 18 or 19.
Then as, as technology beganimproving and more options, were
out there available.
You know, today we have apodcast we didn't have.
Then after the board, we have aboard agenda that's out prior to
the board meeting than apresident's letter that's out

(01:13:44):
after the board meeting.
So that communication is a lotbetter than it was, and I still
think there are some membersthat just choose not to access
any of that.
And if you don't, and we stillprint it in a journal, of
course, then I don't know whatmore somebody wants us to do.
But I was, and I've had a few,few nights here in the last,

(01:14:07):
let's say three months, whereI've fared at the ceiling half
the night trying to like, well,what have we missed?
What can we improve for this,for that?
And, uh, I want to do a good jobwhere I wouldn't, I would never
run for this board to beginwith.
And it, it occurred to me, and Ibrought this up in our last
board meeting that.
We have all these activitiesthroughout the year that the

(01:14:29):
association does that boardmembers attend.
And if I start with June boardmeeting, and then, you know,
some board members may go toNCBA summer policy meetings, a
lot of board members go toJunior Nationals.
Some board members go to uh, CABannual conference, some, then we
have a September board meeting.

(01:14:49):
And, and then pretty quicklythere we have an annual
convention that we're all at.
And then, uh, there's a CAB, uh,annual board meeting that occurs
in December.
That's a little tough for thoseof us with fall Calvin cows that
breed all of our cows inDecember to get to.
But with the beauty ofsynchronization, I can pair this

(01:15:10):
out.
And the fact that my brothersees value in me being at these
places and he's home and we'llget the work done when I'm gone.
Uh, okay.
And then in January we've got,uh, the Congress in Oklahoma
City.
We've got the National Westernin Denver.
Then we have a February boardmeeting, and then we have our
Zoom committee meetings.
And then it dawned on me at thatspot from February board meeting

(01:15:35):
to June board meeting, we don'tget together.
And I think it was set up thatway, uh, because most folks are
busier in the spring.
We're Kevin heifers, we'rebreeding cows.
So we've got bull sails and thatfour month gap, I think we have
done a poor job ofcommunicating, uh, and that
that'll be one thing.

(01:15:55):
And you'll, you'll hear this inmy, my speech at the convention,
uh, on the candidate forum.
That if I get reelected, thatwill be, I've got three things
that I'm gonna commit to workingon pretty hard.
One of those things iscommunicating, particularly
during that four month gap, howdo we reach members?
'cause we are not doing much inthat four month gap.

(01:16:19):
It's kind of self, a little bitself-inflict, inflicted by the
way our meetings are scheduled.
I understand why they'rescheduled, but we can do better.
In that four month gap you had,you had brought up the, the
newsletter and the podcast.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, for the transparency.
So how much is shared, how muchof a board meeting is shared in

(01:16:47):
those?
Uh, you think it's 80%?
50%.
20%.
I know there are certain thingsthat can't be right.
Just talked about and, andshared, but like.
How much of it do you think isshared?
Because the, the reason why Iask is because a lot of people
probably think it's very little,and if, if it is a lot, then

(01:17:10):
they need to know, you know?
And, and if they know, thenmaybe they can understand it.
So if we, if we take a three anda half day type board meeting
situation, we don't always, I'm,I'm sure every one of'em is a
little different as far as theyare.
They are.
So, and, and we try to condensethat down into a one hour
podcast.

(01:17:31):
Certainly you're not gonna geteverything jammed in there.
But no, some of these topics,you know, the CAB portion of the
board meeting, if there's some.
A lot of activity going on therewith, with new products to drive
more consumer demand.
Uh, uh, the, you know, their CABhas is had an amazing, uh,

(01:17:51):
increase in their brandrecognition in the deli cases.
Well, I never would've thoughtI'd look for Boar's Head or
something.
I wouldn't think to look for theCAB logo there.
So some of those discussionstake quite a while, and you can
cover that in maybe 45 secondson the podcast, right?
But we may spend two hours inthe board meeting talking about

(01:18:12):
how do we get from where we areto where we want to be.
So obviously everything isboiled down a little bit, but
I'm gonna say two thirds tothree fourths of the topics we
cover in the board meeting areat least mentioned substantively
in the podcast.
Okay?
And some of the other topicsthat may not make the podcast.

(01:18:35):
And, and Miranda, she's out onmaternity leave right now, but
she, she typically runs ourpodcast and she sits there and
take her handwriting isimpeccable.
Takes page after page after pageof written notes throughout the
board meeting.
And then she pulls together thebullet point list of what needs

(01:18:56):
to be covered in the podcast.
And then she goes to MarkMcCauley and says, what have I
missed?
Here's, here's what I think arebig bullet points, and they'll
discuss it to try to get thepodcast as.
Keep it succinct so we're notasking people to sit there
forever, but also keep it asinformative as possible.
So there is a process there tomake that good.

(01:19:18):
And I will assume that there'llbe some things.
I really haven't thought aboutthis as much, but there's
probably things on thepresident's letter that's
typically posted on the dayafter the board meetings.
There's probably something onthat that may not be covered in
the podcast that may give aanother broader effort at
covering everything.

(01:19:38):
Roger, have you Go ahead.
Corbin.
Corbin.
I'm gonna steal Corbin'squestion.
And he, go ahead.
Mad.
No, no, you ask it.
You ask it.
You ask it.
I'm the host.
You're the question asker.
Go ahead.
Okay.
Have you guys ever consideredusing Zoom technology?
What's the downside of that?
Because, um, I'll also tell youI'm part of other boards.

(01:19:58):
Mm-hmm.
And you can take a wholemeeting, run it through AI, and
it'll come up with those bulletpoints for you.
Yeah.
You could even, you could evenhave like video tidbits of like
the points that you want to getacross.
Like, it, it would just, and youcould still say, you could still
say, Hey, did we miss this?
Or whatever.
But, um, I, I would just, just aminor little, maybe it's a

(01:20:19):
nugget that'll help you guys.
And maybe it's something, youknow, maybe you don't know.
I just figured I'd share.
But what is the downside ofoffering Zoom through member
login?
Um, that obviously you couldhave spots where a banner would
come up and say, board and closesession, and then mm-hmm.
We all understand how boardgovernance works and you're
obligated to come out ofexecutive session with the

(01:20:40):
motions that you made, but youdon't have to Right.
Share the sausage making.
I mean, we know how boardgovernance works.
What's the downside of that?
I'm, I'm making a note'cause Ijust had a thought cross my mind
that I actually had nott.
Don't worry.
This thought before that pause,that pause isn't gonna hurt
anything to, to me, this is a,this is a maybe a, a bit of a

(01:21:01):
different discussion today thatI'd have with you four guys than
what I would've had in, inFebruary, let's say.
Uh, I do have a Facebookaccount.
I did look back, uh, you know,some of my family members will
make a post and tag me in it.
I couldn't remember when thelast time I actually posted
anything.
So I did look back recently andit was for Kathy's birthday in

(01:21:23):
February.
It was a happy birthday post.
You can go back and look at thatif you want to.
Uh, we ended our birthday datenight out that, uh, uh, we ate
a, had a good meal.
We went to a Mark Chestnutconcert and at midnight we were
back home checking heifers thatwere Kevin typical date night
out.
Right.
That's, you guys would recognizesomething like that.
So I don't post a lot.
I don't interact with Facebook alot.

(01:21:44):
Um, uh, but having said all ofthat, the downside, the quick
downside I see and having directZoom into board meetings would
be, there would be a group ofpeople and we could come up with
some names.
There's no purpose to do that,uh, here.
That would be sitting on theedge of their seat, waiting for

(01:22:07):
a part of a sentence, a phrase,something that they could take
outta context.
And by noon on the first day ofthe board meeting, Facebook
would just be alive and as wouldall other social media.
And it would just make itdifficult to have a productive,
focused board meeting.

(01:22:28):
And today I'm just kind of a noon that, but.
You said segmented and I hadnot, I had always thought of, I
had always thought of what ifwe're gonna zoom the board
meeting, we zoom the wholething.
Right?
And I've got a couple of friendsthat are Charla breeders, and I
think their board meetings areopen for members to attend.

(01:22:48):
And I think sometimes that turnsinto some di pretty serious
distractions for the board.
But, you know, maybe there'ssomething we, I don't think a
lot of our members don't evenknow when board meetings are
happening.
Maybe that could be a way wecould engage, uh, if I get
reelected, if I'm get back oncommunications committee, there

(01:23:09):
may be some sections where wecould devote what we're
discussing and talking todirectly to the members instead
of maybe to the staff that'spresent or, and, and do you guys
have a time and agenda?
Do you have a time excuseagenda?
Do you have a timed agenda orno?
Uh, we have an agenda.

(01:23:29):
We don't always stay with it.
Uh, we, we typically scheduleThursday as fairly light, and we
like to try to get out of there10 or 11 o'clock on Thursday
morning so people make, peoplecan make their flights.
I drive five and a half hourdrive from, for me, uh, but

(01:23:49):
sometimes we run through lunchon Thursday and people are
scrambling to get to theirflights.
So we have an agenda.
We try to stay pretty close ontime, but sometimes discussions
get longer.
So, um, I, again, just anotherone of my little bullet points
for you is a lot of the boardsI'm involved with have timed
agendas.

(01:24:10):
It helps with the efficiency ofthe flow of the meeting.
Mm-hmm.
And then other members will say,well, I know that at 9 45
they're gonna talk about rateincreases.
Um, in our irrigation district,for example, I don't need to be
there for the first hour of thelitigation stuff that we have
going on.
That isn't pertinent to me.
But, um Right.
And it's also, I, I do know thatthe board offers, if members

(01:24:30):
don't know this with X amount ofnotice, you can go talk in St.
Joe.
Right.
You absolutely can.
You can, you can.
What an opportunity.
So we, what an opportunitythough.
Um, if, if I could ask this,sorry.
Um, no, go ahead.
To submit the same process andbe given two minutes to ask via
Zoom, um mm-hmm.
That might be an opportunity toincrease the engagement of the

(01:24:53):
membership.
I just a thought and sorry I cutyou off there.
You were kind of bouncing intothat reception too.
We were, we were both on thesame typical thought process.
So in my three years on theboard, we've had two members
take advantage of that 30 minutetime slot and come address the
board.
Uh, and I think both, bothaddresses went very well.

(01:25:15):
I think both sides were veryhappy with it.
So, um.
Roger, there's one more questionI wanna ask, or maybe not one
more May, maybe a few more, but,and I wanna circle back to that
time agenda thing for a moment.
But go ahead, Gordon.
No, no, you go ahead.
You go ahead.
Okay.
We'll cut all this out and we'llroll back.
So there'll be segments on ouragenda where we will have hard

(01:25:37):
stops.
Like if we have a, a scheduledconference call with an, with an
out of town speaker, or if wehave a scheduled slot for a
member to come address theboard.
If the discussion previous tothat is running over, then the,
the chair of whatever's going onat that point, whether that's

(01:25:57):
chairman of the board or anentity chairman, we'll say, okay
guys, we're, we're coming up ona hard stop.
Hold those thoughts.
We've got something else we haveto do there, and we'll come back
to that later.
So, the really serious thingsthat involve outside people's
schedules, we will put hardstops in there for those.
So a pseudo timed agenda maybe,if you will.

(01:26:19):
Sure.
Okay.
Go ahead, Corman.
So I, uh, you know, going onthe, uh, the transparency
mm-hmm.
And the, just the, the, justbasically, um, I think it's a
downright question on, uh,transparency.
I think this, I think this fallsright into it, even though it's

(01:26:42):
not directly correlated.
Do you believe the membershipshould retain ownership on their
DNA once it's sent into a GI,which is, it's a very good
question.
I think it's nuanced, but I'm,I'm, I'm, um, excited to hear
your opinion on it.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I'd be very happy toaddress that one.
And I, I have some background inhistory with that sort of thing
that I think gives me a good, agood perspective.

(01:27:05):
So I, I'm going to bring upprobably, probably three points
here.
I have a friend turns in bloodcards.
He takes duplicate blood cards,so he has those other samples at
home if he ever needs them forwhatever reason.
And it's, for him, it's turnedinto a bit of a nightmare for

(01:27:28):
storage and how to keep thisorganized.
Me personally, I don't know whatI'd do with them.
If, if the samples and, and the,and the, um, actual genotypes
belong to me, I'm not sure whatI'd do with them.
I have no way of using thosegenotypes personally in an
evaluation, and I think many ofour members would not.

(01:27:49):
Uh, so that, that'd be my firstquestion, my first thing I would
go to.
Then secondly.
With the association owningcontrol of those genotypes.
And it's this, the association,not a GI, it's, it's housed
right there with the associationand owned by our members.

(01:28:10):
Then if a, if a new geneticdefect were to arise, then they
could quickly start matching upgenotypes on file and getting to
the source of this defect andcoll and likely could clear
thousands of animals from beingcaught up in that defect.

(01:28:31):
All to the benefit of ourmembers, largely across the
breed.
And I, I think that's a, a verygood point to consider.
The, the third point, I'mactually gonna have two more.
The third point is, is that youguys are gonna get to enjoy.
I don't know exactly what thisis gonna look like.
Uh, we're in the kind of theprogramming and developing

(01:28:53):
stage, but I would hope by all,let me just pick a date and you
can't hold me to this'cause thisis just Roger talking by our
February board meeting.
Um, and you're gonna be able todo parent matches on your own
calves online with the genotypesthat we have on file.

(01:29:14):
And so today, I mentionedearlier, we, we field 300 phone
calls a day in the office.
A a very large percentage ofthose phone calls is going
straight to the girls and the aGI staff because to help get
parent verification straightenedout.
And, and as close as my brotherand I feel like we watch stuff,

(01:29:35):
we still have mysteries happen.
Cows switch calves in the middleof the night.
Uh, we have a 70 pound kef bornright on due date.
We call it an ai.
And, and, and, uh, dang.
It was, it was, uh, cleanupstarted kef that was born way
early and we missed that one.

(01:29:55):
So you'll be able to go in whenyou sit down at your convenience
a Saturday afternoon or aTuesday evening and clear up a
large part of that yourselfwithout having to make notes.
Oh gosh, what's up here?
I gotta call in.
I need to ask this question,this question, this question.
I think it'll cut the phonecalls we field in the a GI by

(01:30:16):
half and improve customerefficiency on getting these
things cleared up very rapidly,and we couldn't do that if the
association didn't have allthose genotypes on file and
control level.
And then lastly, this one'shistoric and it is the largest
one for me.
Working for an AI company, allAI companies are dominated by

(01:30:38):
the dairy side.
That's the largest portion ofthat market share of that
business in the AI industry isdairy.
So even though 90% of my careerat a BS was in beef, I did do
some dairy work in the ninetiesand, and, and got tuned in a
little bit.
So along in 2005, 2006, genomicsstarted arriving.

(01:31:02):
The Holstein Association did notmaintain control of those
samples of those genotypes.
That control fell into the handsof the AI industry at that time.
At that time, there were a lotof, I would say, medium sized

(01:31:22):
family owned dairies.
I'm, I'm gonna speak to.
The vertical integration word,words, or phrase here for a
moment that made a fair portionof their income.
They was, they were allregistered cows.
They may have exhibited them,show they may have been more
performance cows.
Does this sound familiar?
We have those factions in arbbreed.

(01:31:42):
Right.
Um, they sold bull contracts tothe AI studs off of their top
end cows.
I had a chance in those yearsto, uh, I became, uh, fairly
close to a couple of dairyfamilies.
I had a chance to invest in acouple of young hosting cows
that we thought had quite a bitof promise and.
And was fortunate enough to getto participate in, in selling a

(01:32:05):
couple of bull contracts, andthey, they worked well.
Uh, that part of the industry isreally gone today because the AI
companies really own all ofthose genetics.
Very few bull contracts arepurchased from family dairies
for the usage in ai.
And I, I think it's 100% becausethe breed association lost

(01:32:27):
control of genomics.
And I want the genomics andgenetic evaluation housed right
in my breed association that I'ma member owner of for the
benefit of me not worried aboutgoing to some outside company
for that data.
And I fear that's where thatwould end up if we did not own

(01:32:50):
that.
As a breed did not own thosesamples and own those genotypes
so they could still do all thestuff that you just talked about
without owning them.
If we owned them ourselves, wecould still go on there and do
parentage.
We could still go on there and,and do any defects because we

(01:33:11):
have to go on there and do anydefects anyway.
Mm-hmm.
And I don't, so I don't seewhere that is a huge issue.
They could still store all thestuff, everything, exactly how
it is, except we own it and theydo not.
You do.
You see?
And then how would that changewhat you would expect from the

(01:33:33):
association today?
Because I think a lot of things,if you, if they're using my DNA
for something that I didn't,okay.
I don't think that that's right.
And on top of that, I had to pay'em.
To take my DNA.
Right.
Um, so I, I don't know thatthat's really right.

(01:33:56):
The other thing too is why arewe forced to only use a GI?
Why, why can't we use outside?
Uh, if we wanted to use Neogenor whoever, like, I just, I
don't understand why a GIcouldn't work or, or whoever

(01:34:18):
couldn't work with, say, Nigensays, okay, we just ran this
data, here it is.
And then you could incorporateit in the EPDs or whatever.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, today eitherNeogen or Zoetis runs all of
those genomics.
We, American Ag Association, norits members, do we own a lab.

(01:34:40):
So if I wanted to send mine toNeogen mm-hmm.
And pay Neogen and not pay a GI.
They, I could do that and itwould still go into my APDs.
No, no.
It comes through a GI.
Yeah.
We code all of those samples.
We barcode all of those samples,maybe I shouldn't say barcode.

(01:35:03):
We code all of those samples.
So when they're sent to eitherZoetis or Neogen, they come back
to us, identify the genotypes,are identified to the code we
sent.
Those two outside corporateentities do not know the actual
pedigree of that animal whodon't know anything about it.

(01:35:24):
So there's that shield in placefor to to, to keep those two
outside labs.
And there's other labs out theretoo, from learning any more than
absolutely necessary about whatour members have.
So again, I would rather that beheld in.
Angus's hands than in an outsidefor-profit corporation's hands.

(01:35:50):
And, and we have members todaythat are having genetic
evaluations run at Zoetis.
Uh, and I'm fearful of that.
I don't want that to be the, themainstream of our industry.
I want the genetic evaluationthat we all own to be the
mainstream of the industry.
So, is everything perfect?
No, but I think we have toidentify where the, the biggest

(01:36:15):
wolf to keep it away from thedoor is and not lose, not lose
sight of that.
How accurate do you thinkparentage is?
You.
And, and the only reason I askedyou that is'cause you brought up
a minute ago about us being ableto go online, which I do think
would be very helpful, by theway.
Yeah.
I, I think that's gonna be beingonline and, I mean, there's a,
there's another it thing I'mgonna have to learn how to do

(01:36:37):
right.
And Right.
I don't strictly care for that,but it's gonna be incredibly
useful.
And once I learn how to do it,uh, we're certainly gonna keep
Right.
Uh, take advantage of that.
Uh, I, I think parentverification, uh, has, has
always been pretty accurate.
So I, I'd go back to the midnineties.

(01:36:58):
There were some unscrupulousfolks said they imported some,
some full blood cemental semenor embryos or something.
Uh, and were pro promoting themas such, selling them as such.
And some of the members here inthe US became suspicious that
this was not as it wasrepresented.

(01:37:20):
This was really before us doinga lot of parent verification in
cattle and the CEO of Semial atthat time, I remember very well
a, uh, a discussion I had withhim and it was at a Beef
Improvement Federation meetingin the nineties, um, about, Hey,
how's that going?
And he had contracted with a, ahuman genomics lab in California

(01:37:44):
to help sort all of that out.
But he says we are getting tothe bottom of it.
So I think the parentverification thing is, is pretty
bulletproof today.
I think it's one of the mostimportant things that can be
done, for sure.
Yeah, I agree too.
It, it, it still gives me a fairamount of heartburn today to, to

(01:38:06):
think of the fact that six 7% ofthe bulls my brother and I were
selling in the early days of ourcareer, we didn't have the
pedigree right on'em.
We thought we did, but wedidn't.
Right.
So I wanna follow up, um, giveyou a few, we've, you've been so
gracious with your time andwe're approaching an hour and a
half right now, but youmentioned you had three things.

(01:38:29):
You basically said you had threethings on.
Yes, sir.
If I were to call it yourplatform, right.
And you mentioned one was, um,committing to communication in
that four month gap period.
Right?
Right.
Would you, would you care to usesome of this, um, wrap up time
here to share number two andnumber three?
Yeah.
And, and we've already talkedabout it, so it's not gonna be

(01:38:50):
any surprise.
And I, I, I've hesitated to usethe word platform'cause I, I
don't wanna be a politician.
I'm not a politician.
Sure.
But I You didn't use it.
I did.
I'm sorry.
Having, having said that, and Ididn't mean that as a correction
either.
Uh, I want to continue to workwith the commercial programs

(01:39:10):
committee.
I want to continue to find waysto refine our genetic merit
scorecards.
Uh, to refine how we reach thecommercial bull buying customers
out there with that value,encourage them to use that, uh,
to help them differentiate valuein the marketplace.

(01:39:31):
On our Angus feeder cave, we'vegot a fair amount of data and
we're in the database is growingrapidly about the calves that
score high on the genetic meritscorecard.
They end up performing better inthe feed yard days on feed, uh,
cost of gain, uh, conversion,however you want to look at
that, as well as carcass valueat the end.

(01:39:51):
So, I wanna keep hammered downon commercial programs.
I, I love it.
It's what I've always done and Iwanna stay, stay with that.
That's what I did through mywhole career at a BS, was to
find ways for my customers to bemore profitable through good
repro management.
Um, and that was just my focusthen.
And finding ways for commercialcustomers to be more profitable

(01:40:13):
will continue to be that focuscommunication as we've just
discussed.
And then that, that, that threatthat I see to our members and
our association of competingdatabases, we have to be the
best genetically described breedof cattle in the world.

(01:40:34):
And that description has to bedone by us.
I don't want anyone goinganywhere else, but when we do
it, I want it to be right.
We don't have to be the first tothe, to the party, but when we
get there, we have to be right.
I, I'll give you an example.
There's, there's, there's someheart health test out there
today.
We don't have one.

(01:40:55):
We have a database, it's agrowing database, and we will
get a handle on.
My original thought was, well,this is simple.
We already have a Pap, EPD.
I live in Oklahoma.
I don't sell bulls at altitude.
Joe, you might sell some bullsat altitude.
Um, but if Pap EPD is the sameas the, the late term heart

(01:41:17):
mortality in the feed yards,then maybe I should watch Pap ED
at Pap EPD in my breedingprograms.
Well, they're not the sametrait, and they may be related.
We'll get that figured out.
Uh, but I want accurate geneticdescriptions for our members to
use and for the commercialindustry, whether that's feed
yards, whether that's ranches,farms, everywhere to look to AAA

(01:41:42):
as the source for the accuratedata.
Here's my three things.
Well, thank you for beinggracious with your time.
I think, uh, yes, sir.
I think you've done a good jobof letting our membership know,
um, who you are about yourprogram and, and the things that
make you comfortable inrepresenting the membership and

(01:42:02):
the vision of the, the, theassociation and the future.
And, you know, I, I really,really hope, um, Mr.
Juan, I, I really hope that Oh,please call me Roger.
Roger.
There is a Mr.
Juan, I call him dad and he'llshow up at your house on his
gator and tell you 86 whatyou're doing wrong.
But please call six.
You need a gator old.
Yeah, I heard about at thebeginning, 86 years old.

(01:42:23):
So, so Roger, I, I, I hope, um.
I hope that you're a goodexample, uh, for, for other
folks who may be interested inrunning for another term that,
um, we'll ask the questions asthe conversation goes.
And, and please come share whoyou are, come share about your
program, come share about yourinvolvement with the
association.

(01:42:43):
Let our listeners meet you as,as a director.
It's a great first step in a lotof these communication gaps.
It's an, it's an opportunity.
It's, it's, so, I, I reallyapplaud you for, for being the
first incumbent to come on andthank you for the time you've
devoted to us and giventhoughtful answers.
Um, really, really appreciatethat.

(01:43:03):
I hope to meet you and shakeyour hand someday.
Hope Meet.
Do you have any questions forus?
Uh, you know, I hope to, to meetas many people as I can at the
convention.
I try to do that at everyconvention.
It's, uh.
I, it's a bit of a challenge toget to meet people when there's
that many people there together,but that the, the people aspect

(01:43:24):
of this business is as importantto me as the cow aspect of this
business.
And, and, uh, so, uh, my, my, mycontact info, uh, has printed in
the Angus Journal every month.
Vince didn't know that'cause hedoesn't read the journal and I
get that.
But, uh, uh, feel free to callme, uh, if I'm, I don't, I'm not

(01:43:45):
one of those guys that have myphone glued to my ear twenty
four seven.
I'll leave it in the pickup orI'll leave it in the house if
I'm outside doing something.
But, uh, I do try.
It may take me a day or two, butI do try to get all calls
returned.
What, uh, what's the best wayfor people to reach you?
I mean, I mean, short of leavingyour phone number on here, your
phone's obvi.
Is, is there a way for people toaccess your program, um, for

(01:44:07):
them to get ahold of you?
Yeah, we, we have a, a websitehoused at Angus Media and it's
just one ranch.com.
Uh, we add a lot of info to thatwebsite from, from January
February through our bull cellin March.
Uh, but our contact info isthere, both myself and my
brother.
Um, so the website will probablylook a little out date now.

(01:44:27):
It'll have last year's bullspreadsheet on it.
And, uh, it's just, that's just,just what that is.
Uh, uh, my phone number is ninefour zero.
I still have my Texas phonenumber seven two seven eight
four nine two.
And I'm not gonna change thatnumber.
Uh, I, Kathy and I just movedback to the ranch.
Uh, we bought, we bought a housein 80 acres.

(01:44:49):
How often you get a chance to dothis Right across the road from
our sale barn facility fromproperty.
Oh, wow.
Original property in our family.
It's been there a hundred years.
You don't get a chance to dothat very often.
And so we bought that eightyears ago, but I still have my
Texas phone number.
Well, that's exciting.
I'm glad you, I'm glad you'reable to live there and, and, and
be kind of where you're meant tobe.

(01:45:11):
I think that's, yeah.
That's where you're meant to be.
Yeah.
It was a pretty long circle.
A lot of things happen in those40 years and I loved every
minute of it, but it's funnythat you end up right back where
you started sometimes.
I'm assuming.
I'm assuming I'm, I'm, I don'thave to assume.
I don't even really need to aska question.
I just can tell everybodyRoger's information is available
in the, the journal.
Um, so, uh, he did do a bio, uh,that's out'cause that's out

(01:45:36):
right.
It is out.
It is out.
Yeah.
Because I've mm-hmm.
I've listened to your mm-hmm.
Your, um, interview on Angus,and so Yeah.
We don't, we no longer have toask if, if the, uh, interviewer,
interviewee is, is in thejournal.
'cause they are, they are.
And everybody should know thatRoger's in a candidate and an
incumbent candidate.
But what can I, I I, this is aninteresting question and this

(01:45:58):
will be the last question.
I, you're, so how has it beenfor your wife?
So you, you've accepted thisrole, you've been doing it for
three years, and you're goingfor another three.
Has she just, uh, it's been thebest experience of your life?
Or is she's kinda like, oh mygosh, I'm, you know, it's kind
of a big commitment.
Well, as you, my thought, whatshould not come as a surprise

(01:46:21):
to, as an answer to thatquestion.
I, I needed a pretty strongfirm.
Yes.
From two people.
That would be my wife and mybrother and I got that quickly.
Um, so while my brother and Iare almost always on the same
page, and when we aren't, itdoesn't take us long to do some
negotiation and get on the samepage.

(01:46:41):
We we're not the same person.
I, I like travel, I like goingplaces, seeing people, meeting
people.
So as you might expect, I'm kindof the marketing person.
I put all the sale booktogether.
We manage our own sale.
Uh, and, and he likes being athome.
He's exceptional at, at foragemanagement, at Hay production.

(01:47:03):
Uh, he's an expert at gettingheifer's, keve out and keeping
babies alive and bad weather andall of those things.
So I had to have a strong yes,from Kathy, uh, and from Danny
and, uh, uh, quickly got that.
And, um, I think both of themwould say in different ways that
it's, it's brought things to ouroperation.

(01:47:24):
Uh, having me a little moreexposed.
'cause you know, I didn't comefrom a multi-generation Angus
family.
I don't have a, a name like someof them have we, Danny and I
have built that name ourselves.
Uh, I think we have a very goodname here in our state, and we
sold Wills into Arkansas andsome in into Texas.
But other than that, we don't,we don't, we're not national in

(01:47:46):
scope.
Uh, so we've worked hard tobuild that and I had to have his
support, uh, to run for theboard and to run for a second
term.
I, I don't like leaving thingsunfinished.
I think there's more I can docommercial programs, more I can
do on communication and, and Ilook forward to, uh, if the
delegates so choose to theopportunity to, to work at that

(01:48:07):
another three years.
Roger, I would like to say, orwe're wrapping up, aren't we?
Corvin?
Yeah.
I, I wanted to say thank you forcoming on here.
Yes sir.
Thank, thank you for donatingyour time to be on the board.
And, and I appreciate yourunning again to, to keep
everything going where before weget off those 10 interviews of

(01:48:31):
all the people running, werevery good interviews.
Of all everybody, where couldthey, Miranda is exceptional.
Where could she did Great job.
Way better than we do.
Where could people find thosethat have maybe haven't listened
to'em?
Do you know where Yeah, they'rethe, I found the links on, um,

(01:48:53):
Angus, it be angus journal.com,so it'd be the journals website.
And so I would listen to acouple, then I need to do
something and I'd go back tothat and scroll down and, okay,
this is where I was, so I'dlistened to a couple more.
Oh, I, I know where I went.
I went to Angus Journal.
They have a podcast too on, theydo Spotify and they just played

(01:49:16):
all.
They played over.
Ah, I could've used that becauseI was on the, um, Facebook and
you kept get out and you gottaget back.
And then, and then if I had aphone call come in or Yeah,
same.
Had bad service, I found youwould have to start all over.
Found that.
You're exactly right.
I had that same issue, uh, uh,getting into it through
Facebook, but I knew where itwas and I knew where I could

(01:49:38):
find it there.
Right.
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely.
Well, uh, Roger, I, I can'tthank you enough for coming on.
Yes, sir.
Um, I, I hope you can go tellthe other four that, Hey, we're
not that intimidating.
Uh, it's gonna be, it's be fair.
You know what, we're just here,Vince, I, this morning, I, I do
things my own way.

(01:49:58):
Always have, I wanted to do thisregardless of what anybody's
decisions may or may not havebeen.
I can tell you there was a timeor two in my corporate career
that caused me a little bit ofgrief.
I was told more than once Ineeded to be a better corporate
citizen and like, nah.
I think I'm right where I wantto be.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak mymind.
And so, and I hope I came acrossthat way.

(01:50:19):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Well, I can't thank you enoughfor coming on and spending,
spending so much time with us.
Uh mm-hmm.
I, I think everyone's gonna cometo find that you're, you're a
friendly guy and they'll be,they'll be, uh, they'll feel
compelled to walk up to you ifthey're at the convention with
you, and I hope they do.
And I look forward to, I lookforward to meeting you and
shaking your hand at theconvention and getting to know

(01:50:40):
you and, and you're close enoughwhere, uh, I'll probably, I'll
probably attend that sale thisspring, so it was, let's, let's
try to get each other's bullsail on our books.
Absolutely.
So we can make both of them.
Absolutely.
It was nice to have met you andI really mm-hmm.
Enjoyed this process and, um, Ilook forward to many more years
of Angus Prosper.
So there you go.
Thank you.
I do as well.

(01:51:00):
So, Joe, what do we say whenwe're done?
Take it away.
Tumor.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
That's it.
I'll see you guys next time.
Thank you guys.
Thank.
We will see you next time aroundthe shoot.