Dad's wisdom rewind: On the farm with Jerry Meissner

Narrator: We are grateful that you are joining us for another episode of the Ag View Pitch, as we know that your time is very valuable. Our team at Ag View Solutions is always here for you for any questions or comments that you may have. Please feel free to reach out to us at cbarron@agviewsolutions.com. And now here is your host, Chris Barron.

Chris

Barron: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. This is a special Dad's Wisdom Rewind. And the reason I wanted to bring this back is we just had a peer group meeting in Wisconsin at Normie Lane with an amazing family. And back in 2019, long time ago now, in August of 2019, we had a conversation with a very special guy. His name was Jerry Meisner. They have a large dairy operation in Wisconsin and do a phenomenal job And in honor of Jerry, um, who they lost in December of 2021, we wanted to bring this Dad's Wisdom back and make sure that everybody gets an opportunity to listen to it, even if you listened to it before, Claire, back in 2019. Alyssa and I listened to it on the drive back from Wisconsin the other day, and it's just a great uplifting and just super informative conversation with Jerry about a lot of things and the wisdom that he got over his entire life.

And so there's topics including, you know, land purchasing, employee management, working with family, business development, transition planning, quality of life and family, and just so much more. So it's just a great conversation. It takes about an hour, and he just did such a great job, and we just want to honor Jerry Meisner, his life and his legacy, and the farm operation is continuing on and doing outstanding. And so we just want to honor the family and kick this Dad's Wisdom Rewind back out and hope you enjoy this and take a listen. I'd like to introduce Jerry Meisner. He's a dairy in Wisconsin, and they farm in Chile And, uh, Jerry, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about yourself, and we'll kind of get the conversation going.

Jerry

Meissner: Very good, uh, Chris, and good morning. And, um, yes, uh, uh, we have a dairy and crop, uh, farm here in, uh, central Wisconsin. We, um, milk about 2,600, uh, cows along with about 5,000 acres of corn, alfalfa, and a limited number of soybeans. We do all of our own cropping work. So along with that, we, we employ about 36 total employees with our, with our dairy enterprise and our cropping enterprise year-round.

Chris

Barron: Great. Talk a little bit about the weather challenges you've had this year. You guys have been wet all year. Everybody was kind of wet early in the season, and some of the people have really dried out. You guys have stayed pretty wet, haven't you?

Jerry

Meissner: Yeah, that's correct, Chris. And I have to say, I've been, I've been here on the farm my entire life, my entire career. And we've had some tough springs in the past and some tough summers. But this one is definitely, definitely far outweighing all the rest. And it's, it's been a challenge since, since day one. And for us right in this central area here, it is nonstop. I mean, we've, you know, our corn is doing fairly good considering we spread out our planting over about a 2-month period. And so we have corn all over the board as far as levels of maturity at this point. But Yeah, the rain, the rain just keeps coming, and it's kind of, kind of ironic because if, if we travel, uh, 70 miles to our northwest, they're, they're getting quite dry and concerned right now, especially with the shallow roots.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, this variability weather is pretty crazy, that's for sure. So, um, so now let's go ahead and kind of get started a little bit here. We kind of had a little bit of conversation of where we're at now or where your operation's at now. But what I'd like to do, and we'll work our way back to the present, but let's rewind a little bit. And let's rewind your operation back to, say, when you were a kid growing up. Tell us a little bit about your life, about your operation, and kind of what interested you in farming, what got you going, and give us a little timeline on that, if you would.

Jerry

Meissner: Okay, well, as far as timeline, my age, no big secret, so I'm 65 now, so you can figure back from that. But I grew up when, you know, farming was quite small. My parents had a dairy at that time with 160 acres that Mom and Dad had purchased back in 1946. And so then Dad was always a very aggressive and optimistic mentor and leader. And back in, I would say, in the late '50s, early '60s, we already had like 55 dairy cows, which was a large herd at that time. And then we had a barn fire in the end of May in 1964. So we went to work immediately and made plans to build a new barn back. And by November of '64, we had moved into a, at that time was a state-of-the-art tie stall barn for 80 cows and a double-8 milking parlor. And so mother and dad were also very aggressive with us kids and wanted us to get involved. We were fortunate that they got us involved in 4-H.

And we got in— we, at that time, we started in— we, we started acquiring some purebred animals and got involved in the registered Holstein business quite extensively, which we did very well with for about 20, 25 years. And then you know, things kind of turned commercial on that also. But it helped us all through our youth in that, and through 4-H, and I got very involved in, you know, 4-H and FFA leadership and became a state FFA officer back in 1970, and got involved in public speaking, which I felt helped me a lot through my career. But You know, I think, I think our parents, that they had the initiative to push us kids to get us involved like that. So, and then through my early career, I decided to go to Madison after high school.

And after about half a year at Madison down at the Dairy Science program, I— that was during the Vietnam protest years, and boy, Madison was a mess at that time. And I shortly abrupted my, my college career because I missed the farm way too much and did not like Madison at all. And I came back and said, told Dad I was going to become a partner of him, with him, if that was okay. And, and we did that. And, and in '74, we made plans to, to expand from 80 cows to about 420. And that was a time when I also had a full-time girlfriend. And in 1975, we married, my wife Diane and I. And it all, it all progressed from that point on. And we never looked back. So We kept acquiring land and growing herd size and to the point where, you know, lifetime goes pretty fast and our children grew up and we had a son that wanted to get also involved in the farm.

And so that meant more expansion, more land acquisitions, and we certainly you know, developed enough land that we built equity. And then in the year 2000, I believe it was, that we decided to build another milking parlor, a double 25 parallel, and we expanded to about 1,200 cows at that time. And from then on, we just added barns to our, to our current size of 2,600 cows, and my son got involved. Fortunately, and we have 3, 3 other daughters also that, that have taken other careers, but they all grew up on the farm and worked beside us and instilled a great, a great work ethic within all of them, and we're very proud of them. And we're very fortunate also to have Josh that's willing to step in and take over on all the day-to-day management today. And so that's kind of, kind of a little background, Chris.

Chris

Barron: Great, thank you. You know, every operation has its challenges along the way and has things to deal with. Talk to me a little bit about, you know, a couple of your challenges as you were going along the way. Anything that, that you want to talk about that might be useful for others maybe going through similar experiences and that kind of thing?

Jerry

Meissner: Sure, a couple things that come to mind, and I remember back in the, back in the '80s and that when we had that extremely high interest bump, and we were fortunate, we, I don't believe we ever got anything above 11%, and there was some numbers considerably higher than that. But a couple of things that come to mind is we, we always had the opportunity to purchase more land in the area, and the bankers, you know, it was, it was tough then. And so the challenges at that time were how do you convince bankers that you can pay for another land acquisition and So we struggled hard at that and we ended up, because of our goals and some of the banking limitations, we ended up changing banking institutions a couple different times just so that we could pursue the goals that we were very confident of doing at that time and trying to educate bankers was a challenge.

So, so we were able to accomplish that and along with, you know, keeping the nose to the grindstone and making that happen. But yeah, acquiring land and having a very low equity base for many years was a challenge. But we felt it was the right thing at this time. I know it's the right thing that we did because it, it grew us a lot of equity over the years. And one other challenge, or let's say, mistakes that we probably made, and that was back in the, in the early '70s when we decided to expand to 400 cows. That was right at the time when technology and automation and innovations were coming on board and the big blue harvester silos were the latest and greatest thing that ever happened to the dairy industry. And we fell into that, that tank, and we built about 4 of those Blue Harvester silos and put the latest and greatest automated feeding system into our new freestall barn.

And we all knew after about 10 years of that it was, it was a big mistake. But you learn from that, because had we known what we know about bunker silos and stuff like that today, it would have been would have been a huge, huge, huge advantage to have gone that direction at that time, but that wasn't even on the radar hardly. And, uh, and it just taught us one thing about, you know, technology and automation— to really do your research and, uh, and make sure that the, the payback is going to be there. Not saying that, you know, technology is not a good thing, but, uh, you can, you can really get caught up in the latest craze. And, uh, we learned a lot from that, and, and I, I'll never forget that. And trying to carry that on to Josh and the next generations also.

Narrator: Great.

Chris

Barron: Any other technology experiences besides that? Or, you know, if you were giving somebody advice, then basically you're saying maybe stay on the leading edge, maybe not the bleeding edge.

Jerry

Meissner: Correct. I mean, obviously, with our, with our dairy enterprise and cropping, technology has has done us extremely well. I mean, what we've done and what Jared and the guys in the cropping end have done with the technology as far as planting and, you know, putting the fertilizer on, the nitrogen on, and, you know, different rates on different parts of the field and all that is definitely been a great advantage to us. And as far as the technology and our milking in the dairy end, it's all been beneficial. But also, we, we keep, always keep, we're cognizant of the fact that there's always some that we have to, we have to pass by because of, you know, the ROIs and what the returns will be.

Chris

Barron: Right. And back to the land for a minute, you know, you talked about having a low equity position throughout your, your career, really, as you grew the operation, because obviously it takes, it takes some debt and some leverage, and you got to spend money to make money. Talk a little bit about, you know, that experience, you know, how was that from an emotional perspective? Year in and year out? And was everybody on board with that? It sounds like some of the banks maybe weren't. And, and what's your thought about land moving forward? I mean, you know, it seems like land never, never does cash flow. Do you feel like that was, you know, obviously right now it looks like the right move. What do you think moving forward? For the listeners here, is that, you know, you think land's still the good investment?

Is it worth keeping that equity position down and having that mentally on you and the banks watching you all the time. What's your thoughts there?

Jerry

Meissner: Right. I mean, honestly, I can say we can save for our operation. And I think I told this to the group a couple weeks ago that there was times when a land purchase came available. And we felt the price was too high at that time, but it was such a good opportunity that we had to, we had to pull the trigger. And looking back at it, Chris, uh, I feel very, very confident that never once did we make a purchase that 5 or 10 years later we were sorry we did. And that being said, I feel that the land was such a, such a great addition to our dairy because, you know, the dairy for us is obviously the cash cow. And we weren't concerned with the up and down markets of what the, you know, the grain markets were so much because we were going to put it through the cows and focus on the price of our milk. But in order to grow the dairy, we somehow had to also build an equity base.

And obviously, a lot of the land we purchased back in the '60s, '70s, and '80s was, it was a very low discount compared to today's prices. We were, we were buying land back then for $400 an acre, $600 an acre. And, and then I remember in the late '80s, we had an opportunity to buy a tract of land, I think it was 640 acres. And the price an acre at that time was $1,200 an acre. And that, that was one of those, what I just spoke of, that, wow, there's no way we can do that. But it's probably the best investment we ever made to find one tract of land or one piece of land all contiguous that of that size. And boy, that, that's one of the greatest, greatest moves we ever made now looking back on it.

And, and if we ever do another, another dairy on another site, because we are maxed out at the current site here for, for dairy cows, that would be an ideal opportunity in a very nice rural location. But I feel the land was, was a huge equity builder for us over the years. And And you can tell why, because of the prices we bought a lot of those acres at, and, and it's been good for us. And in today's market, yeah, we're cognizant of the fact, again, but land in our area, probably $4,000 to $5,000 an acre right now in our current area. East of us, it's quite a bit higher than that. So We do, we do rent land. And also, so I think the combination of the two where we own and rent is, is an ideal way to be doing it.

Chris

Barron: What, what percent do you own versus what you rent?

Jerry

Meissner: Okay, so we rent about 25% of our crop acres, Chris.

Chris

Barron: Okay.

Jerry

Meissner: Yeah.

Chris

Barron: Okay, great. Well, thanks for that part. Let's, let's move into a slightly different topic here, and, and that's the topic of transition. It's always the, you know, the topic that comes up when we're working with growers, you know, when there's multiple generations within the business and things. What, you know, talk a little bit about your transition, you know, maybe even both from, from your parents and what you learned there in kind of how you've handled the transition into this next generation now. Talk a little bit about that, if you would.

Jerry

Meissner: Sure. Yes, back in, I think it was 1990, that we set up a retirement buyout of my dad and mother, and that actually got that was, that was done as a deferred comp type of payments. So it worked out really good for the parents as far as taxes being listed as a deferred compensation through our corporation. And that was actually a 15-year buyout, which made it very favorable to, to not put too much of a burden on the, on the business and to, to allow the business to still grow and still do the buyout in it. And, and also at that time we had, I think it was 1990 that we started the parents, and then I had an older brother that in '92 he wanted out. So we had, we were also, had his purchase at that time, a buyout. But it was all equitable enough that the, the business could continue to grow.

So in my situation currently, um, I should say my wife and I, Diane, um, we have kept that in mind and, um, we have, uh, been fortunate to have great, uh, people to work with as far as attorneys and consultants and, um, we have been working on for probably 5, 6 years, our trust and living wills and stuff like that to, you know, we've, we've transferred quite a bit of shares to our son Josh and already, and our trust is all spelled out. And we made that final in the past year. So we have living wills in place, trusts, and I would recommend to anyone listening that, uh, no matter what age you're at, to, to get some of that stuff started and, uh, and done. But I, I feel very comfortable with where we're at right now. If anything happens with myself or my wife, that there's no bumps in the road. The business will keep operating in a smooth transition.

There will continue to be chair— shares transferred to our son Josh. And we have another— we developed another LLC with our dairy cows, which has given us a method to transfer funds to our 3 daughters. And we actually started that a year ago instead of waiting till death. So they are— they will be receiving part of our shares, not really shares, but it's just a monetary transition to the 3 daughters over a 15-year period, and which will make them somewhat equitable to Josh's share of the farm. But understanding that, you know, the old saying that fair is not equal, but Josh has been in the, in the business continuously and the 3 daughters haven't, and they're, they're They're all very, very good with the setup we have.

And, and that was always one of my goals from the time Diane and I were young, that when we started our family, we were going to work hard, grow our business, and have our children at an early age. But our goal was always, whatever we did in life was to hopefully make a better life for our family and the next generations and To this day, I'm extremely well how that all turned out and thank the good Lord for that. But yeah, all trusts, everything is in place and should be a very smooth transition.

Chris

Barron: Chris. Great. That's awesome. Talk a little bit too about, you know, what were the off-farm, you know, you talked about your daughters, so they're not not actively engaged in the operation, were, were their expectations different than you thought? Or how did that turn out when you actually sat down to start having that conversation? Because I know a lot of families, you know, you have, you have parents with multiple kids, some, some on the farm, some off the farm. You know, any, any advice, I guess, in that area to get that communication going? You know, because a lot of times That's something that's avoided. It's a touchy subject and you want to, you want to do what's right, but it's tough to have that conversation.

Jerry

Meissner: Yeah. And I'm very well aware of many of those scenarios, Chris. And the number one thing I would say is do not avoid it. It's not going to go away. And the longer you avoid it, probably the worse it's going to get without any communication. Some communication is better than no communication at all, because all it'll do is build hostilities. Um, in our situation, I can say we were extremely fortunate. Our, our family was a very close-knit family. Our kids all worked with us in the business at that time when they were growing up. Um, the daughters understand the business extremely well. And again, there's a lot of respect within each other. The family gets along extremely well. Josh respects the girls, his sisters, very well. The sisters respect him. And we sat down and explained how this was going to work out.

And the girls are all extremely good with it, very, very acceptable with it. We explained, you know, kind of how the percentages worked out, and they were more than happy of what they would be getting. And so I guess we're just fortunate with that, Chris, and everybody seems very pleased.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, and you— one thing that you mentioned that I thought was interesting too is, you know, we're 5 years into this, you know, It's— transition is definitely not something you get done in 6 months necessarily, is it? And, and, um, talk a little bit about that process too, you know, um, and let people know, I guess, that it's okay that it takes a while to, to, to work through this and to figure it all out, doesn't it?

Jerry

Meissner: Oh, it, you know, when we first started into it, I thought, you know, this is going to be a year project. And because of all the moving parts involved in it, you know, and basically starting out with a good appraisal and, and putting numbers on, on things, whether it's land or machinery or what, whatever it is, and then working backwards from that, you know, you get our, we get our CFO involved and our our attorneys and our, you know, personal attorneys, corporate attorneys, and getting them all to sit down together. And we fortunately to have some really, really good open-minded and great attorneys with a lot of advice on all sides. And, but it takes time. I mean, it just takes time to get it all all worked through and all set up and the numbers put in and by, by, you know, displaying and making everything transparent. And I'm speaking numbers and values more so.

It is so much better in the communication process with, with family members and for them to understand, you know, where the business was 20 years ago compared to where it was today. And for them to understand that the people involved in the business are, are responsible mainly for how those numbers grew and, and how a lot of the numbers grew through equity and, and hard work of those involved, so that they understand. Otherwise, all of a sudden they see this, uh, this, uh, multi-million dollar number at the end, at the bottom line, and they want a big piece of that. Well, that's not how it got there, Chris. I mean, there was a lot of different inputs that got that number to where it is today, and it wasn't just something that, that the entire family feels that, as some families do, they feel that they are entitled to a portion of that total number.

And it's just not, not the way that that it couldn't be looked at, but it does have to be explained.

Chris

Barron: Right, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get to that point by a few people that were key members in that process.

Jerry

Meissner: The boots on the ground people are the ones that, you know, fortunately grew it and were successful with it. And had they not been successful in working hard like they were, it would be a different story. On the bottom line.

Chris

Barron: Right. Another question. So that's kind of some conversation and discussion for, for some of the senior members and some of the operations listening. Let's talk a little bit about some of these younger operators. Was with a farmer yesterday, young guy, just full of energy, growth-minded, wants to get, get going on the operation. One of the conversations we had was about the importance of working on the business instead of in the business. And, and by that, what we always try to coach people on is the whole idea of, you know, going out and planting and harvesting and, you know, and tending to the livestock and just doing all of the things that you have to do in your business to be successful.

But a lot of times, you know, whether it's transition or whether it's marketing or whether it's finding new land, either rent or purchase, lender conversations, all those things that are involved working on your business. You know, one of the big questions we get from some of these young growers is, how do I, how do I find enough time? I'm so busy inside my business getting things done. Um, how do I have time to work on the business when I'm so busy in the business? What kind of advice would you give, um, these young growers that are, that's that struggle with this, as all of us have and all of us do to an extent. I mean, we do definitely, you gotta get the work done, but how do you have time to get outside of the business so that you can work on it? Any advice in that realm?

Jerry

Meissner: Well, I'm glad you brought that up, Chris, 'cause that was something I was gonna mention earlier on, but this is a better timing of it. Going back in my career, what I wanted to mention earlier was, One of the best moves that I made was making the decision back in the mid to late '80s was that we were, we were all family employees. But we were struggling. It was 400 cows, and probably at that time we had about 1,200, 1,300 acres of crops. And so we were doing everything and, you know, working 16 hours a day. And it came to me that, you know, we're just not going to be able to grow the way we are right now and still, you know, survive as a person and without dragging ourselves too thin and raising a family at the same time. But so what we did was we, back in, I believe it was about '87, we hired our first 2 employees, you know, non-family employees.

And we didn't think at that time we could afford them. But we, we made the decision to go at that time to go from 2-time-a-day milking to 3-time-a-day milking. And it increased our milk production probably somewhere between 12 and 14%, which we felt could justify the employees and, and that the to this day, that first employee that I hired is still with us today. And, but anyway, it was a decision we made that in order to, to try and work on the business, as you said, rather than just be dirty hands 16 hours a day. And that was the best move we ever made. Even when we thought we couldn't afford it. And that was the start. And I think it was 1 or 2 years later, we hired 2 more shop employees, shop/cropping employees, and, you know, continue to purchase more cropland and rent more cropland.

And, and what we learned how to work with employees, work beside employees, treat them with respect and great returns. But I guess that's the advice I would, I would give, Chris, is that you have to start out by looking at getting some, getting some bodies beside you. Try and hire people that are smarter than you are in certain areas, work with them, and then, and then decide on how you're going to grow to grow the business to, to justify. But you have to find the time to manage and create opportunities. And you can't do that with when you're, when you're in the tractor, or milking cows 16 hours a day.

Chris

Barron: So it's kind of a different mindset than is what you're saying. You know, nobody, you know, the one of the common things I hear people say is, well, they don't do it as good as I do. And so I, you know, I have to run the planter, or, you know, I have to, you know, be in the parlor, I have to, you know, walk through the hog buildings or whatever, because nobody else is going to see what I see, do what I do, know what I know. How do you respond to that?

Jerry

Meissner: Well, that's a tough one, because obviously, probably 90% of people in agriculture are of that personality, Chris. I mean, they probably wouldn't be in it, first of all, if, if they weren't. But, uh, I will tell you that if you completely change your mindset and realize that you can hire people that can run that planter better than you can, because that's going to be their focus, and there are people that will do that. You can hire a mechanic in the shop that is way smarter than, than you are as a mechanic. You can hire a dairy manager that will focus and be way more committed to the dairy than you are. And I guess that's the key, is, is the hiring part. But you have to let go of, of that control thing. And I believe If you, if you make that commitment and within 2 to 5 years after making that commitment, you will sleep better at night.

Chris

Barron: Gotcha. Um, one other piece to the, you know, working on your business instead of in your business all the time. And, you know, and people listening to this right now, I would argue you're working on your business. You don't necessarily have to be out doing anything, or maybe you're sitting there with your earphones on listening to the podcast while you're, you're out in the field or doing whatever. But, you know, it's continual education and it's thinking out of the box. It's keeping your mind open.

And one thing that I think is interesting with your operation, Jerry, and with Josh and Jared there as leadership team members in your operation, You guys have some really high-skilled, high-level managers as you've grown your operation, but the other thing that I noticed you guys do is you still lean very heavily on coaches, consultants, mentors, other people in, you know, other peers in agriculture. Talk a little bit about that. Why is that so important for your operation to, to rely on, on those coaches and consultants and stuff? Because some, some operations will look at that and say, well, I could save, you know, all that money you're spending, I can save that by not spending that money on that stuff and, and just kind of handle it myself. What's your response to that?

Jerry

Meissner: Yeah, I'm also glad you brought that up, Chris, because that, along with hiring extremely good employees, that's probably the, the next best investment we've made here. And I've always been a big promoter of that. It took a little while longer to get it into our operation. But the consultants that we brought on board in the last 10 years, I wish I would have brought in at least 10 years earlier. They're not cheap. But we have a consultant that is like our CFO. He's not full-time. But one of the— it's probably without a doubt, one of the best investments in our business we ever made. It gives us an opportunity to see so many aspects of our operation and entities that we could never see before. And we do a lot of benchmarking now, on the dairy side, the crop side. But, uh, so we, we have this, uh, financial consultant.

We also have a crop consultant, and we also have a nutrition consultant on the dairy. And I mean, for Josh at his, at his time in his career, for me, this has just been a an excellent opportunity for Josh to, to grow his management abilities and to, and to have help along the way doing it. And I'm extremely pleased with all aspects, and I would recommend good consultants at any level. And also along that line would be ongoing education, Chris, because we don't get enough of that. And we like to send our crop guys to to different educational seminars and our dairy guys. And I'll tell you what, every time they come back, they're, they're pumped up and, and they have new ideas. And if you don't get out and rub shoulders with, with your— I'm going to say competition because we're all in competition.

And because if you're not keeping up with whether it's milk production or crop production, you're falling behind. So You have to get out there and rub shoulders and get involved with peer groups. We are involved in a dairy peer group that is about 40 dairymen and allied industry across the entire United States. We meet twice a year, extremely good peer group. And now with this cropping peer group, it'll be another great, great addition to our ongoing education.

Chris

Barron: You said you were involved in, you know, that you've been involved in the Dairy Peer Group, and then obviously your farm operation was involved with our new peer group that we went with. What, what do you see as the advantages for other farms to consider peer groups? I mean, what, because, you know, you have, like you said, you and I have watched you guys, you bring in, you know, with your, your financial advice and, and with the cropping advice and with the livestock advice and with being very closely connected on the veterinarian side of things for herd health and cow comfort and everything. You guys are just trying to cover every angle and trying to remove the emotion in that. And then you were involved in this, this dairy peer group along the way. Um, just real briefly, tell, tell us a little bit about the peer group experience on the cropping side.

What did that, did that bring anything different or show you anything different? And why would that be something others might want to consider?

Jerry

Meissner: Well, yeah, absolutely, Chris, because just like in the dairy peer group, um, you— and this is, this is a good, good part— if you're going to be a peer group member, you have to be willing to share. And, and when I say share, that's sharing advice on financial numbers. You have to, you have to basically pull your pants down once in a while to be a good peer group member. And allow people to see what's working for you, what's not working for you, where, what investments have worked, what have not worked that well. And I'm, you know, in the cropping business, it's kind of a struggle for us with the dairy here to separate our two entities. But we're really working hard on that. And we have to make sure that our cropping enterprise in the manner that we are managing it currently is a profitable entity.

And that being said, I'm speaking in terms of the huge machinery investment nowadays, you know, and more so for dairy because we have the investment in the alfalfa equipment, you know, the hay bines and the mergers, the, uh, forage harvester, which we, we also have to have obviously for the, for all the corn silage. But, uh, the, the investment today in this machinery is, um, as everyone knows that's listening probably, but, uh, you have to keep crunching numbers. And, um, and it's great to, uh, be able to sit down with other people in the, in, in the cropping business also. And hear them talk about the different machinery investments. And, you know, whether it's planters or harvesters, or sprayers or what it is, and how they view those different investments, and how their, how their yields are comparing to yours. Of course, different areas will, will have an effect on that.

But you have to know what your competition levels are. a great way to rub shoulders and have a chance to, and to speak with other people in the same businesses. And I said to Josh after our first peer group meeting here, I said it was extremely encouraging for me to see the age of these people, these younger people, and how aggressive and how full of questions they are, and it's very encouraging to see that, Chris.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, that's awesome. And I think that's a key, a key thing is, you know, is getting the right people together with the right mindset and a common vision for growth. And not just growth and more acres or more head of cattle or hogs or whatever it is, but, you know, growth is really us as people— is us just continuing to learn, like you said, Jerry. I think that's really important. So any, any other comments or any questions that I haven't brought up that, that you would like to touch on in your farming career? Or, you know, if you could go back and give your 25-year-old self advice, what would that be? Or any thoughts that you have? That you would like to discuss that I haven't brought up?

Jerry

Meissner: Good question. I guess, you know, the big thing is we touched quite a bit on adding employees to free up your time and that for management. You know, get yourself good employees. But also treat them with respect and let them know how valuable they are to your business. I look at our business today and without the employees we have today, we would not be in business, plain and simple. But let these employees know that they are also responsible for how our business is growing today. And that we're going to grow together as employees, as a business, as, you know, as employee families. And the other thing is, you know, like I said, treat them with respect. We treat them as part of our family. Make sure they get time away. And the other thing is that I would mention as owners as managers.

Make sure you're getting away, make sure you get away as a family, and make sure you and your wife get away. My wife and I have been taking at least a week winter vacation since 1987 was our first, first time we, we got away in the winter and we took a week's vacation to Mexico. And after we come home, I said to my wife, I said, we're never going to miss a year again, because it was that valuable to our relationship and to getting away from the business also. And, uh, but take time for your family. The family grows up fast. Diane and I are fortunate. We have 8 grandchildren right now, and we're getting away more than a week at this point. But, um, the grandkids are fantastic.

Um, the other The other piece of advice I would say is we are extremely fortunate to have a family member, and that being a son that has been wanting to be in the business and has been very active and has been a way smarter manager than I am. And I feel that's extremely fortunate and we're blessed to have that opportunity. To continue the business in the family. And it looks like we probably have a grandchild or two that are very interested at this point. But yeah, I guess those are the things and you have to be willing.

I think I've done a pretty good job of stepping back and letting Josh manage and, and that, that is a huge, huge part of the equation there that, uh, that Dad has to be willing to, uh, to relinquish management and let— and, and I feel fortunate that I've been, been here to, to be there in the background for Josh with questions he has and, and, and managing, you know, the, the bigger picture of the business as chairman of the board and that, but, uh It's, guys, it's a perfect opportunity. If you have a family member out there that wants to step up, let them step up, let them fall down a few times, and you're still here to help them through it.

Chris

Barron: That's great advice. And one of the things you said there that I think is a, is a touching point there for a lot of dads in transition, as we talked about even the employee side of things, when you bring somebody in, they don't do it the same way. You know, and our expectations are pretty, at a pretty high level, especially for our own kids, you know, when they're coming in. Real quick question there. How do you, how do you handle your mindset when, you know, that's kind of a tough thing to do for a lot of people to, to just kind of pass it over and let them fall, let them make some mistakes. You know, the margins are really tight and A lot of people really worry about that kind of thing. And you know, how much rein do I give them? Do you give them all the reins? Or do you, you know, how do you, how do you handle that? How do you handle the emotions of that too?

Jerry

Meissner: Well, and, and that's, that's huge, Chris. You know, and I know there's dads out there and there's, I'm sure there's granddads that are involved in businesses yet. Yeah, I mean, we're all, we're all that way that, you know, and I've seen that many, many, many times where, yeah, this employee isn't doing it the right way or the way I feel it should be done, but it's, it's the new way that it's getting done. And in a lot of cases, my eyes have been opened up that the new way is a better way. And I can say that at first I didn't feel it was But I'm still learning also. So like I said, the best thing we can do is hire employees that are smarter than I am in different areas. And if we can continue to do that, I'm a very happy owner.

And I guess, you know, that's— and again, like I said, I'm fortunate to have Josh and We, we, we probably won't see everything 100%, but we, we at least talk about it. And the other thing is the consultant or consultants that we have added to our, to our business, uh, have been huge in that transition also. So it's not just myself and Josh and, and our top managers working things through, or, or I'm going to say arguing or having different viewpoints. But when you bring in that third party, whether it's the CFO, the financial side, or the nutrition guy or the crop guy, that brings a whole new voice to the table and really, really helps the conversation.

Chris

Barron: Right. Yeah, that, that kind of evens the playing field and everybody has to be respectful and professional with each other, as opposed to sometimes it might be easier to fly off the handle or not be as professional as you would otherwise be with that third party there, that's for sure.

Jerry

Meissner: Absolutely. And it also— the third party can, can bring out the tough questions also, Chris, and I think the tough questions are the ones we have to get on the table.

Chris

Barron: That's right. Um, I just want to finish up with one last thing. You brought up the importance of time with family and getting away. You know, what is, what is the recipe for that? You know, did you start that too late? Did you start it just in time? You know, if you were to give advice, you know, specific advice on what do you need to do for that, that quality of life and that, and that quote unquote life balance. I mean, we all work hard. We know we are going to get the work done. Um, but at the end of the day for us as producers, that's hard to, to do. You know, it's hard to say, you know, we're going to take off at this time because there's always 1,000 things that need to be done. Um, any final advice on, on quality of life?

Jerry

Meissner: Yeah, I mean, um, obviously the generations before me, I remember My grandfather also was a hard worker that didn't believe in getting away. And I think I'll never forget one of the best advices I got from my dad was in the '80s there. He came to me and he said, Jerry, he said, you need to get away. He said, take a vacation with Diane. I'll never forget him telling me that. And, uh, we planned a vacation, and, uh, the day we left, he said to me, he said, enjoy your vacation. He said, you deserve it. And I'm gonna say that you guys that are out there working hard 24/7, 365, you deserve it. You need to get away You need to respect your wife to the point that she needs that time with you and you need that time with her other than, you know, dinner time at night. And it's extremely important to the family, extremely important when your kids are young.

The kids grow up so extremely fast, believe me guys, they grow up extremely fast. And, and, uh, You don't want to look back and say, I'm sorry, I didn't spend more time with them when they were younger, because it goes so quick. And, uh, we are fortunate now to be able to spend time with our grandkids because that's valuable time also. But the time away is more valuable than that business will be for that week or two out of the year. Way more valuable.

Chris

Barron: That's great advice. And to tack on to that, everybody comes home a little bit more energized, don't they?

Jerry

Meissner: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I see it myself. I've seen it with our family. I see it with Josh. I see it with our employees when they, when they go.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. Exactly.

Jerry

Meissner: Very, very important. You need a great fuel.

Chris

Barron: That's right. Well, great, Jerry. This has been an amazing, amazing conversation with you. You're a testament to the strength of agriculture, the people, the amazingness of what you've done in your career to grow your business and to feed the world. I think more people need to hear these stories because, you know, you worked your entire life. You are in the process of getting that passed along to the next generation. And you're here educating people and helping others. And I think that's great. And that's really what we're trying to do here with this podcast, with with this series that we'll be doing here with Dad's Advice. I want to call it Dad's Wisdom, but I think, Jerry, you were one of them that said, "I'm not sure you want to call it Dad's Wisdom, maybe advice." But, you know, Jerry, you do have a ton of wisdom.

All of you dads out there and all of the grandpas out there and moms and grandmas that have helped get to the next generation and helped us all the next generation sincerely appreciates that. And I can probably speak for your family too, Jerry. The, the respect and everything to you and everything you've done is well appreciated, that's for sure.

Jerry

Meissner: Yeah, it's been a, it's been a great ride, Chris. And again, I say we're so, so fortunate to have a great family and wonderful daughters that are not on the farm. But, you know, I've learned— I as a dad have learned so much from our kids growing up. I've learned much from them. And I think a lot of dads can say that also. And now I'm learning from the grandchildren. And these young people today are amazing. And a lot of times we hear so many bad things, but there's, there's so many great young people out there today. And yeah, it's, it's been a great ride and things turned out extremely well for Diane and I throughout our career. And the only other thing I'd say is, you know, always treat people with respect and, and always be humble and kind. Couple of things that I always kept in my mind throughout my lifetime.

Chris

Barron: That's great. And your work's not done. You know, you're expected to be in that advisory role and everybody needs you guys. That's the thing we've seen over the years is those operators that retire and walk away from it, they don't last long. And the problem there too is, is we need that advice. We need that other set of eyes in the operation. You know what's going on, you know the history, and you're an amazing asset, just like all the other senior members in the operations. As you transition out, you officially never transition out, um, and we appreciate that. So Jerry, again, thank you so much for the conversation today. This was amazing. Like I said, um, We will be doing some, some more Dad's Advice and Dad's Wisdom conversations each month, and we may do a couple a month.

We may just do them as we get these opportunities to visit with these great dads and grandpas with awesome wisdom and those kind of things. And with that, again, Jerry, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Jerry

Meissner: Thank you much, Chris.

Chris

Barron: You bet. And we will catch everybody next time on the Ag View Pitch. Thanks for listening.