Get to know your new Holstein Association President
A week from today, many Holstein USA members will begin their journey to Knoxville, TN, for the 2007 National Convention. There, Vice President Doug Maddox will assume leadership of the nation”””””””’’s largest breed association. Here”””””””’’s a recent article that appeared in the June issue of Holstein World as part of our “Day in the Life” series. I got to spend a day following Doug around - seeing what makes him tick, what keeps him thoroughly involved in his own dairy and how he keeps one eye on the future of this great industry of ours. Here”””””””’’s a quick look into the life of President-Elect Maddox.
Doug Maddox - husband, father, dairy producer, merchandiser, Vice President of Holstein Association USA
By Karen Knutsen
In an interview with California dairyman Doug Maddox in the March 2001 Holstein World, Editor Dan Bernick stated, “Veteran Holstein breeder Doug Maddox has never shied away from thinking big, thinking different or thinking optimistically.” Dan had interviewed Doug following the resignation of Holstein CEO Steve Kerr. Doug responded that Holstein needed to get a clear vision and direction of where the organization was heading. And since that time, he has helped the association tremendously by serving as its Vice President and soon-to-be President.
I first “really” met Doug at the National Convention in Sioux Falls. He’s always been someone I knew and admired, but that week, I got to not only talk with him, but hear him as he interacted with others in the room. He’s always thinking of the big picture for his own dairy and for our association. What a refreshing change of attitude it is to hear someone be proactive instead of reactive. I asked him if he’d like to be part of our new series and he graciously accepted. Following the California State Convention in Monterey in late January, I drove down through the Valley to Riverdale.
8:00am – I am lost. I lived in Hanford, CA, for a summer while interning at World-Wide Sires and drove to Maddox Dairy almost weekly with tours of international visitors. And yet, just a “few” years later, I can’t remember how to get there or to nearby RuAnn Dairy. After some apologetic phone calls with Gloria in the RuAnn office, I arrive. Doug has already completed his daily meeting with farm managers, his Monday morning phone meeting with Holstein CEO John Meyer and President Randy Gross, a weekly event for the three men, and a phone call with his representative in Argentina.
I asked him to give me a little history on the dairy, including the entire scope of what the Maddox family does. RuAnn Dairy has been home to four generations of the Maddox family since 1957. “We have always been a family partnership. First with my father and mother, Rufus and Annie (RuAnn), then with brother, Ed, and currently with our immediate family.” “We’re currently milking 4,800 cows at RuAnn and Maddox Dairy, with an overall herd average of 27,000M 3.7% 1019F,” Doug explained. “We have bred over 1,200 EX and 9,000 VG cows and Golden Genes and RuAnn have also exported over 25,000 head to more than 30 countries. RuAnn has also been the #1 honor list herd in the country six times.
In 1994, Doug and his brother and partner divided the property, and Ed is now farming on his own. Responsibilities are split 5 ways — Steve - Maddox Dairy; Pat - RuAnn Dairy; Jamie Bledsoe - Golden Genes; and daughter, Julia - office manager and chief financial officer. Doug is overall CEO and in charge of farm operations.
Maddox Dairy, a newer facility with four double-13 herringbone parlors, was built in 1982 and consists of 9,000 animals (80% Registered) and 10,000 acres. It’s a great setup for ET work with a fantastic pool of recipients to transfer nearly 4,000 RuAnn embryos into each year. There’s also RuAnn Sud America, Produgenes, who promotes RuAnn genetics and handles embryo and semen sales in South America for the Maddox family. I asked him why they chose South America as a place to sell their breeding program, and he explained that it’s the closest market to them. “It’s an immature market in my opinion, and in South America, the people relate to our business and dairy style. We’ve seen tremendous success with this venture. At one time, over one-half of the EX cows in Columbia were from RuAnn, and in addition, RuAnn cattle held national production records in six different countries.” The Maddox team also has trained over 200 veterinarians to do embryo transfer work in those same countries. “It’s important to not only give the people genetics that will improve their herds, but also train them to keep that genetic progress in motion.” Trainees are brought to RuAnn to get hands-on experience. In fact, there’s a visitor from Bolivia due to arrive today to continue his learning experience.
10:00am – The embryo transfer team meets at RuAnn to discuss current plans and future ones. Danielle, one of the on-farm vets, just got back from a one-month training session in Brazil and needs to put together a program of what the rest of the team needs to do. She has just calculated the price of production to make one embryo and shared that with the rest of team, as they discussed ways to improve on that cost of production. Doug mentions that World-Wide Sires phoned and has an embryo order for China available. The team also needs to fulfill an embryo shipment to Argentina. They discussed at length ways to not only produce that many embryos, but what the health restrictions are and what additional screening they’d need to do.
11:00am – The embryo meeting is strictly limited to one hour, a good sign that the Maddox’s value busy employee schedules. I then visit with Pat and learn more about RuAnn’s Registered herd. “My dad always taught us that ‘like begets like’ and we’ve stuck to that,” Pat explained. “Over one half of our herd comes from five cow families – the Merla’s, the Gloria’s, the Dorinda’s, the Andrea’s and the Tauna’s. We select for elite type, milk and components and are really breeding for the true, total-balance cows. This wasn’t always the case. Twenty-five years ago, we’d use good milk bulls regardless of type. Now, we consider all traits, including health traits, with a heavy emphasis on type. We try to stay away from the extreme minus bulls. Bulls have to have a linear profile that I like, because it goes back to the ‘like begets like’ theory.” Bulls that were in the lineup in January at RuAnn were Marion, Bolton, Lou, Airraid, Damion, Aspen, Dundee and Bradley.
12:15pm – Doug and I hop in the car and head to town for some lunch. We pull up in front of the El Charro Café, a fantastic authentic restaurant with the hottest relleno & enchilada combination I’ve ever tasted…and it was good! We talked about issues facing the industry and the recently released McKinsey report, a document that analyzes the California dairy industry. “Everything the dairy industry does encourages overproduction, and it’s something the industry has to address,” Doug commented. “We have to look at the future to determine what we do in the present. No one knows for sure what opportunities will be available in the future however, continued growth is a must in any successful business. Right now, bigger is not necessarily paramount…but quality and being better is.”
After lunch, we take a tour of the entire farming operation of the Maddox family, which includes production of all the roughage (hay and silage) needs for the dairy operations, as well as, 1,600 acres of almonds, 3,000 acres of wine grapes, pistachios and olives (new this year), operated by a staff of 200 farm employees, 60 of which work on the dairy. Employee loyalty and longevity are important to Doug, as evidenced by some employees that have been there over 30 years.
We stop by Golden Genes Inc., on our way, which is now owned by Jamie and Liz (Maddox) Bledsoe. Golden Genes is home to 2,000 head of commercial replacement heifers and breeding age bulls. The business office of all family operations are located here, and Doug meets with his accounting department and daughter, Julia, and discusses financial matters, a common, albeit unpopular, task of every dairy producer’s day.
2:00pm – I take a walk through the RuAnn “boxstall” with Pat, which, according to him, is a living example of what’s happening there. “When visitors come to the farm, we can’t take them through all the freestall barns for practical and biosecurity purposes.” So they built an open-lot paddock at the front of the ranch that is easily accessible by car, bus or foot. In addition, the Maddox’s have made a video that gives visitors a virtual tour of the dairy very quickly. “The disadvantage of our size dairy is that it is difficult to take care of cows individually,” Pat continued, “but we use size to our advantage and make more good cows!” Among the boxstall cows we see are the 8 ½ year old Encore dam of Ruann Durham Lassiter 750-ET (EX-95), the sire of the unanimous 2006 All-American Milking Yearling, Ruann Lassit Dorinda-40775. There are 30 milking Lassiters in the pen right now, and Pat said there are nearly 400 more Lassiter daughters coming. Other highlights include a 93-point Astro Jet that has 43,000M and was All-California Jr. 3-Year-Old, a 92-point, second calf Hi Metro from a 15 year-old Blackstar that’s still on the dairy, a 91-point Rudolph with 42,000M, a pair of BW Marshall full sisters, a 5th gen. EX Rubens, a 93-point Formation and an 87-point Red Advent to name just a few. “We can’t sell many red animals to South America, but it’s been very easy to sell them domestically.” Besides the red market, the Maddox’s sell to junior Holstein breeders and also sell nearly 3,000 breeding bulls each year. Our bulls work well for commercial dairymen. Generally, they do not use the elite A.I. sires, but they can afford to use sons of the great bulls!”
3:15pm – Doug finishes up returning some phone calls from people looking to buy bulls. He then calls son Steve and grandson Stephen, a 3rd generation Cal Poly graduate and 4th generation dairyman, to RuAnn to meet with Pat and himself. It’s sire selection time, and now the real business of the day begins. There are 2,500 total bulls on the dairy and with a number like that Pat explains that it helps with the selection process. “With having a large number of bulls here, we can really pick out the good bulls by sheer numbers alone. In fact, we have a bigger selection of bulls than most AI companies, and only select the top 1% of bulls to use.”
Doug continued, “We try to breed RuAnn bulls that represent the best of what AI can do. The dairymen who buy bulls from us reap the benefits of us spending all the time that we do to study pedigrees. There are no real secrets, we just take the time to care enough about the results, and we throw in a little bit of common sense. Because we merchandise, our reputation is important to us and is based on factors that are important to our buyers, cows that will milk with high components, and especially they are concerned about feet and legs. With ‘like begets like’ as our motto, we select young bulls with style, excellent feet and legs…things we can see. We combine that with top AI sires of the breed that excel in linear traits and balanced with a high production index (things we can’t see), to produce young sires that give us a lot of information to project the performance of our next generation.”
Doug begins the weekly meeting by driving around the bull pens and doing a visual inspection. By the time the other Maddox men arrive, the pedigree books are pulled out, and a discussion on each bull ensues. The main focus of the meeting is on bulls separated in a barn that houses elite bulls from yearlings to full-aged service sires. The quartet decides which bulls to sell, which to use on the herd, and which to cull. It’s very interesting to not only scour each pedigree and talk about each cow’s performance, but to also get in the pens and see the bulls move, listen to each man’s evaluations and hear the friendly banter of making the final decision. It’s serious business, not only reflecting how the next generation of Maddox cattle will turn out, but also in realizing that these decisions impact our customers, both domestic and international.
Even though I worked in California for a summer and have visited many large dairies since then, the sheer size and scale of these operations never ceases to amaze me. As Doug states, “really, there is very little difference in the type of problems encountered on dairies.” “Whether its 50 cows, 500 or 5000 the major difference is another “0”, and he’s right. The most fascinating thing of all is the progressive minds of these dairymen to not accept status quo, to not rely on milk pricing only and to always look for a newer, better, more efficient way of doing things. The Maddox family is extremely active on and off the dairy, realizing that without being involved in local, state and regional organizations, they won’t have the most accurate “big picture” of the dairy industry, and an industry this family has a deep commitment to.
So as I leave, the four men head into the office to continue their sire selection discussions. Another project, another meeting, another set of daily decisions to be made! I am more impressed than ever with scope and scale of RuAnn and Maddox dairies.
Doug Maddox at a glance
…On handling adversity – how badly do you want it?
…On commitment to the dairy industry - it’s a 24/7 passion
…On their breeding program - work at it every day…there’s no quick fix
…On managing such a large farm – we’re a one cow at a time, one acre at a time management team
…On his grandfather’s best motto - when a potential problem is brewing, you’d best fix it now. Not later. Later may be too late.
…On Holstein USA programs – we classify four times a year on Holstein Complete, meaning we score 1,000 cows every three months
…On flushing cows – we flush 4-6 cows every day, 5 days a week