This past fall, All West/Select Sires held a number of district business meetings to elect directors and delegates for their particular region, get an update on current sires in the lineup and learn a little more about the expanding reach of the communications team!
One of the big focuses during the meeting was on the use of new technology that All-West is using to not only get information TO customers but to receive information FROM them, like the size of their dairies, what traits are important to them, etc. (You’ll see a full summary of the questions and answers in this month’s newsletter). As part of the information-gathering process, the All-West staff had everyone who attended the meetings register to win a free mini iPad mini. The winner was chosen from hundreds of names, and our grand prize entrant is David Vander Schaaf of Escalon, CA.
David works on the family farm, Vander Schaaf Dairy, with his father, John and brother, Joey. He has a younger brother who will also join the operation after he completes college. Together they milk about 2000 Holsteins.
David is a 2013 Cal Poly graduate, completing his Dairy Science degree this past June. Since returning home, he’s been managing reproduction programs at the dairy, as well as being in charge of sire selection.
“We use roughly 5000 units of Select Sires semen per year and my favorite bull in the lineup right now is 7HO8477 GABOR. We’ve used sorted semen on him and he produces daughters that really milk!” Incidentally, GABOR is +2348M and +2.50T, so the Finley son with limited semen supply is a logical favorite for many dairies!
David was pretty happy to be the lucky winner of the iPad mini and plans to make good business use of it. “An iPad will help with managing dairy files away from the office. Using “Team Viewer” allows me to look at dairy comp and feed watch while I am away from the office.”
The young dairyman sees himself still actively milking cows in the next five years, and “fighting world hunger one glass, and one block of cheese, at a time!”
