June 2, 2017
CapitalPress.com
15
Brett Tallman/For the Capital Press
Ryan, left, and Kevin Pierson in the pasture with a herd of Holsteins and Jerseys.
Three generations work together
By BRETT TALLMAN
For the Capital Press
ST. PAUL, Ore. — On any
given day, three generations
of one dairying family can be
found at Sar-Ben Farms.
This afternoon, Steve
and Susan Pierson are in the
shop. Their son, Kevin, 29, is
feeding cows before milking.
Their other son, Ryan, 25,
is in the heifer barn feeding
calves.
Susan’s father, Marlin Ras-
mussen, though retired, acts
as a sounding board for ideas.
Only their daughter, Sara, 21,
is away, finishing her junior
year at Oregon State Univer-
sity.
“Our kids grew up on this
farm, went to college and
did well,” Steve said. “They
could have done anything,
but they chose to come back.
We’re very proud of that.”
Kevin graduated from Or-
egon State in 2010 with a de-
gree in agricultural science.
“Even back in high school
I knew I’d want to come
back,” he said. “Part of it was,
I like the work. But the other
part of it was the hard work
put in by my great-grandfa-
ther, my grandfather and my
mother and father. I wanted to
continue that.”
Ryan also went to school
in Corvallis, graduating in
2014 with an animal science
degree.
“By the time I graduated
from high school, I wanted
to do anything but work at
a dairy,” Ryan said. “I tried
out a couple things, but after
awhile I missed dairying.”
Sara was Oregon’s dairy
princess ambassador in 2016.
She’s in her third year at Or-
egon State, working on a de-
gree agricultural business.
“Sara always said she
wanted to work in the dairy
industry, but that she didn’t
want to be a farmer,” Susan
said. “A few weeks ago, she
told us she’d changed her
mind. It looks like she’ll be
back, too.”
“It makes you kind of
proud to see your grandkids
coming back to the farm,”
Marlin said. “I guess as a fam-
ily and as a farm we’ve done
some things right.”
Marlin’s father, John Ras-
mussen, came to Oregon
from Nebraska in 1959. With
his inheritance and the profit
from a proven breeding bull,
he bought 180 acres south of
the Willamette River. Marlin
worked 45 years at Sar-Ben
Farms before leaving the day-
to-day decisions to Susan and
Steve in 2004.
“I think of succession as a
30-foot rope,” he said. “You
give ’em five feet and, if they
don’t hang themselves, you
give ’em a couple more. The
older generation has a hard
time letting go, but if you
don’t give up any control until
you die your kids are going to
get all 30 feet at once.”
When Sar-Ben Farms start-
ed grazing their cows in 1997,
Marlin, Steve and Susan had
all talked to advisers, pushed
pencils and deliberated. They
made the leap together.
A few years later, Susan
and Steve approached Marlin
about going organic.
“I told them it takes three
years to transition the land,”
Marlin said, “and I’m retir-
ing in two. You guys figure it
out.”
Steve has a similar plan for
handing Sar-Ben Farms off to
his own children, though he
uses his own analogy.
“Kevin, Ryan and Sara
have always had skin in the
game,” he said. “They need
to know how fragile this can
be — because pretty soon
it’ll be up to them to make it
work.”
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