What education are you bringing with you to this position?
I have an agricultural business degree from University of Wisconsin at River Falls.

Please describe your agricultural background.
I grew up on a small dairy in western Wisconsin and have been doing nutritional consulting for over 20 years with primarily dairy and beef herds in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota.

What territory will you cover?
I am responsible for accounts throughout the United States but will spend most of my time over the next year working with clients in the Midwest and High Plains.

What are your new responsibilities?
I am responsible for providing nutritional support for Vets Plus clients primarily in dairy and beef operations. I will also be developing products that will enhance the economic performance of these operations.

What previous positions have you held?
I started my career with Farmland Industries working in a small feed mill in Houston, Minnesota and proceeded to work as a nutritionist with companies that included Furst McNess, ADM, Land O Lakes and Renaissance Nutrition.

Who has made the biggest impact on your career?
The person that made the biggest impact on my career was Dr. Bryan Van Gorp. He worked as a veterinarian part time and as a nutritional consultant at the mill in Houston, Minnesota part time.

Bryan was very knowledgeable in all aspects of dairy and beef production, so I was able to use his knowledge to help producers increase performance while at the same time reducing metabolic problems in the herd. We also developed a commodity feeding program for the mill that helped producers lower their cost of production.

How can you be the most help to producers in your region or area of expertise?
I have experience in developing diets and programs that increase efficiencies of an operation. As a result, I can develop programs that increase the income over feed cost of the herds that I work with.

Why did you choose this company?
Vets Plus, Inc. is distributing products that help increase efficiencies in ruminants and, as a nutritionist, I believe that this is the direction that producers need to be headed in order to stay profitable. Working here will allow me to implement these feeding programs in more operations.

What goals would you like to accomplish while in this position?
I would like to help producers increase efficiencies in their operations with the use of products developed and distributed this company.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
I would like to be in a position where we have been able to document performance and efficiencies on herds that have used our feeding programs and to use that information to help other dairy and beef operations throughout the country obtain their goals.