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January 2, 2015 CapitalPress.com Subscribe to our weekly dairy or livestock email newsletter at CapitalPress.com/newsletters Greener Pastures Doug Warnock Dairy/Livestock Glanbia Foods CEO retires By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Grazing cattle while serving youth 11 Capital Press Jeff Williams has been a part of Glanbia Foods USA for 25 years and at the top of the company’s impressive ride for the last 11 years. He doesn’t like the term “retire” but he is bidding adieu to an impas- sioned tenure as CEO to pur- sue other personal aspirations. He will, however, remain with the company in a con- sultant role on a year-to-year basis. The change is bitter sweet, he said. While his career with Glan- bia has been highly rewarding and satisfying, the role of CEO is also time-consuming, leav- ing less time to devote to his wife, Debbie, and three chil- dren — whom he credits with being “all in” on his commit- ment to the company. “There is only one thing I love more than Glanbia, and that’s my family,” he said. In addition, he’ll miss the relationships he’s enjoyed with employees, clients and sup- pliers. And he’ll miss being a principal in Glanbia’s contin- ued growth. “I won’t be part of that, but I’ll be cheering on from the sidelines,” he said. Williams has been an in- tegral part of the company’s phenomenal growth, hiring on in 1989 as administrative man- ager at Ward’s Cheese plant in Richfield, Idaho, a local com- pany that was the precursor to Glanbia’s U.S. business. That company was purchased by Avonmore West, an Irish com- pany, which later merged with Waterford Foods to form Glan- bia PLC. The U.S. operation has more than 1,200 employees with plants in Twin Falls, Richland and Gooding, Idaho; and Clovis, N.M. His role also changed over the years to include a bit of everything – financial, milk procurement, trucking, human resources, cheese and whey sales, supply chain procure- ment, logistics and finally CEO. Today, Glanbia Foods USA produces roughly 800 million pounds of cheese and 140 million pounds of dairy ingredients a year and process- es about 12 million pounds of milk a day in Idaho and about 4 billion pounds of milk a year in New Mexico. In 2013, the company built a headquarters complex in downtown Twin Falls with a 14,000-square-foot cheese in- novation center for new prod- uct development and purchased a cheese plant in eastern Idaho to take new-product devel- opment to commercial scale. Most recently, it announced an $82 million expansion project in southern Idaho to add value to its whey stream. The parent company’s mantra is you have to earn the right to grow. Glanbia USA has done that and earned the confidence of Glanbia PLC’s board, which sees opportunity and continues to make bets in Idaho, Williams said. By DOUG WARNOCK For the Capital Press T he Washington Family Ranch located near Ante- lope, Oregon, is the home of a Young Life camp that pro- vides youth a wonderful camp- ing experience in a Christian atmosphere. The camp facilities take up about 1,100 acres and the rest of the ranch, over 60,000 acres, is coming back into pro- duction for grazing cattle. After several years focus- ing on getting the camping facilities completed and the camping program running, Pe- ter Grubb and Andrew Harten- stein were given the respon- sibility to put the ranch back into a cattle production mode. They have been working at that zealously. Additional fencing is being added and a grazing plan developed to achieve proper utilization of the ranch’s forage base. Grubb, ranch manager, has established several moni- toring transects on the property and more are anticipated in the future. Both Grubb and Harten- stein come from livestock back- grounds and have advanced de- grees in animal science. The ranch has been known for a number of years as the Big Muddy Ranch, but it received national attention when it be- came the site of a commune for Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in 1981. Bhagwan with the 3,000 members of his cult took over the town of An- telope, causing much concern on the part of local residents. Four years later Bhagwan was gone and the ranch was for sale. The ranch was purchased by the Dennis Washington fam- ily of Montana, who gifted it to the Young Life organization in 1997. A subsequent monetary gift from the Dennis and Phyl- lis Washington Foundation pro- vided for the development of the camping facilities. Each year, about 8,000 mid- dle and high school students attend the weeklong camps at the ranch during the summer months. Grubb and Hartenstein work closely with Shawn Jones and Jason Davies of the Antone Ranch near Mitchell, Oregon, which provides most of the cat- tle that graze on the Washington Family Ranch. The WFR man- agers are implementing Holis- tic Planned Grazing, which is designed to get the cattle to the right place at the right time for the right reasons. Getting good distribution of the grazing ani- mals depends on having ade- quate watering sources across the expanse of rangeland and the WFR managers have been working to develop additional water sources. One of the challenges they face is planning the grazing moves so that cattle are in an accessible location when it’s time to brand and vaccinate calves, sort cows for breeding or load and haul cattle back to the home ranch. While the cattle operation is not the only use of the ranch property, it is still a very im- portant one and Grubb and Hartenstein are committed to making the ranch pay its way and provide financial support for the camp. They hope to make the ranch a place where cattle producers will come for educational programs, field days and informative tours. Doug Warnock, retired from Washington State Uni- versity Extension, lives on a ranch in the Touchet River Valley where he writes about and teaches grazing manage- ment. He can be contacted at dwarnockgreenerpastures@ gmail.com. Six vie to become Dairy Princess-Ambassador WUD seeks new CEO By ERIC MORTENSON to re-energize base Capital Press Oregon’s 2015 Dairy Prin- cess-Ambassador will be se- lected Jan. 17 at the 56th annual coronation banquet in Salem. Six young women, who have spent the past year promoting dairy products and educating the public about nutrition and dairy farm life, will take part in a com- petition at the Red Lion Hotel. The finalists are Teri Mc- Gettigan of Columbia County; Courteney Ellis of Clackamas County; Emma Miller of Linn and Benton Counties; Sara Pier- son of Marion County; Megan Sprute of Washington County; and Charish Ingram of Tilla- mook County. The winner will be select- ed after three days of speeches, interviews and taking part in commercials promoting dairy. Danielle Bull, the 2014 Oregon Dairy Princess-Ambassador, and First Alternate Elizabeth Thomas will crown successors. Banquet tickets cost $38 per person and should be ordered in advance by calling the Oregon Dairy Women, 503-357-9152. No tickets will be sold at the door; any tickets available after Jan. 10 will be sold for $50 each. By CAROL RYAN DUMAS Capital Press Courtesy of Oregon Dairy Women The 2015 candidates are pictured with, seated center left, 2014 Oregon Dairy Princess Ambassador Danielle Bull, and 2014 First Alternate Elizabeth Thomas, seated center right. McGettigan, a 2010 gradu- ate of Scappoose High School, studies agricultural business management at Oregon State University. Ellis, a 2013 graduate of Country Christian High School, studies business at Corban Uni- versity and spends days off with her Jersey show cattle. Miller studies agricultural sciences at OSU. Pierson, a 2014 graduate of St. Paul High School, also stud- ies agricultural business man- agement at OSU. Sprute graduated from Banks High School in 2013 and studies biology and zoology at Portland Community College. She works on Schoch Dairy. Ingram, a 2013 graduate of Tillamook High School, recent- ly graduated is massage therapy at Everest Institute. She worked on multiple dairy farms. In a surprise move, West- ern United Dairymen’s board of directors ended the ten- ure of CEO Michael Marsh. Marsh had served in the lead- ership role since 1999. WUD President Tom Bar- cellos, a Porterville, Calif., dairyman, said there was ab- solutely no impropriety on Marsh’s part and the board wishes Marsh well in his fu- ture endeavors. Marsh, who served as CEO for 15 years, elevated the organization to new lev- els when he joined WUD, but board members felt it was time for a change and want to move in a different direction, Barcellos said. WUD’s membership has changed over the years, and board members felt the or- ganization needed to re-en- ergize its membership base, he said. “It’s a difficult situation. I really like Mike as a friend. The board chose to look for new leadership and is ending his tenure as CEO,” he said. Marsh said he was given notice Dec. 19 following a board meet- Michael ing. He said he Marsh was completely shocked, and neither he nor his staff had any prior idea of the deci- sion. He was told the board was going to go in a differ- ent direction, he said. The outpouring of sup- port from dairy producers, the broader ag industry and friends has been heartwarm- ing, he said. “We really do wish Mike well. He’s very talented,” Barcellos said. The board will be ad- vertising for the position following the holidays and would like to have a new CEO on board as soon as is reasonable, he said. Applicants will be thor- oughly researched to find the right candidate for the job, he said. John Deere Dealers See one of these dealers for a demonstration 1-5/#4N
