Holstein World: Share with our readers a little bit about your background. What led to you being involved in the Registered Holstein business? What keeps you active in the business today?

Ryan Matheron: My grandfather started Hilmar Holsteins over 50 years ago. He always had and enjoyed working with good registered cattle. I believe this is where my family’s love for the Holstein cow stems from. When I was young I was very involved in the 4-H and FFA programs. I started out showing at our local fairs, then the California Holstein Show and even the Western National. While in high school, I was fortunate enough to be part of the state winning dairy judging team. After graduating from high school, I then went on to Cal Poly were I majored in Dairy Science with an Ag Business minor. While at Cal Poly I was the herdsman at the foundation dairy and was a member of the judging team. While on the dairy judging team we traveled to various places and visited numerous operations. During college I also had the opportunity to do a summer internship at Carrousel Farms, which was definitely an exciting experience.

The greatest part of being involved in the Registered Holstein industry is the people you meet along the journey. I have met some great people and even made some greater friendships all because of the Holstein cow. Currently I am the President of our local Holstein Club and I was just elected to the State Board of Directors, which I am very excited about.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 at 10:34 am by sschmidt and is filed under Guest Blogger Series. Hits for this post:1201 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.