The Wisconsin Holstein Association Adult Convention will be held February 16-17 in Wisconsin Dells, WI. The Saturday morning roundtable discussion will focus on milking robotics system. It will discuss everything you need to know to start planning from the perspective of a banker, a sales representative for an equipment company, and a breeder that has gone through the process of installing robots.
Saturday Morning Featured Panelists
Kevin Coffeen is the Vice President of BMO Harris Bank, where he serves northeast Wisconsin as an agriculture banker. He has assisted several customers step-by-step in their journey to automated dairying, from the early financial planning stages to pushi
ng cows through at startup. Kevin grew up on his family’s Registered Holstein Farm, Jimdandy Holsteins in Chilton, where he spent his youth showing. He continues to fit cattle and raise a select group of show heifers and steers on his farm, Overland Acres. He’s bred several All-American-nominated Red & White and Black & White Holsteins. His highlight thus far has been successfully breeding two junior champions and one grand champion of the junior show at World Dairy Expo. Kevin holds a degree in agriculture business from the UW-River Falls. He serves on the Wisconsin Holstein Association show committee, Brown County Livestock Committee and is a member of the Dairy Cares Committee that raises money to benefit Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. He lives in De Pere with his wife Peggy and four children: McKenna, Coltin, Carter and Cashton.
Kelsey Hendrickson has been a long-time member of the Wisconsin Holstein Association and chores alongside her husband Trent, owner of Trent Way Genetics, a 180-milking cow operation along with over 350 youngstock. At Trent Way Genetics, they focus on show type cattle with a large focus in Red & White genomics. Off the farm she works full-time as a Capitol Sales representative for Argall Dairy Systems located in Belleville. Her main focus is robotic milking equipment, automation and large project sales. Kelsey finds a lot of pride and passion in her everyday work helping dairy producers draft from start to finish and provide the needs to make sure each project goes smooth Lely or Boumatic. Some prior experience includes working at the corporate Boumatic office as a sales specialist and as a calf nutritionist for a local milk replacer manufacturing company.
Larry Meyer, along with his wife Jennifer, own Jenlar Holsteins and Brown Swiss in Chilton. Jenlar is currently milking 120 cows with two Lely robots installed in March 2017. They milk approximately 100 Holsteins and 20 Brown Swiss. Jenlar has been successful in the show ring, garnering 13 All-American nominations over the last three years with their Swiss and had a class winner at WDE the last three consecutive years. They were Premier Exhibitor of the 2017 Wisconsin Brown Swiss State Show. All of their cows are milked by the robots including the show cows. In addition to the farm, Larry works full-time for MWI Animal Health as a Territory Manager for Livestock Sales. Larry and Jennifer have three children: Brianna, Austin, and Abby who are actively involved in the dairy.