This week, we”re visiting with the Executive Secretary-Treasurer and General Manager of the American Guernsey Association, Seth Johnson.  The association is based in Reynoldsburg, OH, and publishes a very informative and colorful monthly publication, The Guernsey Breeders” Journal.

Holstein World:  What are the current stats of the American Guernsey Association - approximate number of members, cows, etc.?  What are the key responsibilities of the association to its members?

Seth Johnson:  We have about 200 herds participating in our performance programs (TPE) and
have just finished up our second consecutive year with increased registrations, finishing with 5,224 in 2006. We have also just finished a strong year financially, ending up solidly in the black. We have approximately 750 active members nationwide with the largest concentration being in Wisconsin.

Our main mission is to promote and advance the Guernsey breed in the U.S. To do this, we are active in marketing cattle, organizing young sire sampling programs, youth programs and general promotion of the breed. Essentially, we try to do all that we can to allow our members to be successful in their ownership of Guernseys. Our most basic job, of course, is to work to maintain the integrity and accuracy of the pedigree records of the Association. Due to the smaller size of our membership, we work hard to try to give each member as much individual and personal service as we can. As the value of high-component milk has increased nationwide, we have seen our members being more successful and increased interest in working with Guernseys from others.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 8:31 am by kknutsen and is filed under Guest Blogger Series. Hits for this post:1606 You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.