Dad's wisdom: With Mike Oberbroeckling

Chris

Barron: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Ag View Pitch. This is time again for Dad's Wisdom. We haven't had a Dad's Wisdom for quite a while. Sometimes it's hard to get some of these senior guys to decide that it's time to talk, and sometimes we can corral them and corner them. And it's kind of what we did here today. We've got Mike Oberbrockling with us. Who farms in Garnaville, Iowa. He's a half a mile from the Mississippi River, and he just told me he can look out his front door and see the West— see Wisconsin. That's about a half a mile away, and you're about 50 miles north of Dubuque, Iowa. So that kind of gives people a little perspective of where you're at. But Mike, how's it going today?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Hey, great. We've had great weather out here. Kind of unusual, you know, we've got anhydrous done, you know, this early in March. I can't ever, ever remember putting anhydrous on in the first part of the month. Usually you hope to get oats seeded, you know, in March. I can remember once or twice, maybe that happened, and we were chiseling for corn back in the day before everybody did everything in the fall. But, you know, it's— it was 70 degrees here at the end of February, which is highly unusual. And And it's, it's nice out here now. The only thing is I hope you can make it rain.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we're recording this in the middle part of March and in 2024, we're facing, as we record this podcast, we're facing a pretty good downturn in commodity prices. And I'll address that with you, Mike, and handling challenges and that kind of stuff here in a little bit. But I want I want to start out with, you know, with every dad's wisdom, we like to discuss a little bit about the history. You know, I'd like to have you give us, you know, a couple minutes of, you know, your dad, how, you know, your family got to where they are and got started farming. How did you get going? Tell us a little bit about your dad and some things you learned from your dad and a little bit about your, the history of your family and getting farming in that Garnaville area.

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Okay, Dad was a Korean War veteran, and after he got out of the service, he utilized the GI Bill. I think it's like $5,000 or something. And, you know, as, as everything goes, it's who you know. Um, my gram and grandpa Krogman, Mom's folks, knew Doc Bromberg from Guttenberg, Iowa. He was a He was an MD. And they visited back and forth. And over conversation, one time, they made the comment that they were looking for somebody to rent their farm. So Grandma, Grandpa, you know, hey, you know, my son-in-law wants to start. So okay, that's what they started doing down there. It's just a miner's crick in Gutburg, Iowa on Havs. And the dad started registered Holstein herd. And he also farrowed pigs, sold them as feeder pigs. And then back in those days, you know, the hog market was known as the mortgage lifters. And Dad did real well down there.

I can remember him saying more often than not, I always had good luck, he said. And so, okay, well, and that farm was managed by a farm manager at the time. And Mom and Dad did well down there. Well, then farms here in the Garniville area come up. There were 3 of them that I recall at the time. and they ended up buying this one. And so Dad, he still milked and he still sold feeder pigs, farrowed and sold feeder pigs, did very well. So, but I can remember Dad did most everything himself back in the day, which nobody does too much anymore. This is back in the days when if you put up a building, I can remember the round roof building here, just to use that as an example. All the neighbors came and helped you, you poured cement, and they helped you put the building up and you return, you know, the favor likewise back in the day. You don't see that anymore.

So okay, they bought this farm and Dad always did like to work with wood. He did a lot of the carpentry work around here, especially remodeling the house and stuff. He remodeled the kitchen for Mom, made all the cabinets, everything himself, yada yada yada. And, but, but Dad always bought good. It wasn't necessarily new all the time, but he always bought good. And because you buy junk, that's just what you got. And so that, that kind of rubbed off on me. Like when I started farming, you know, I didn't always buy new, but I always tried to make sure that I bought good. Because what's it going to be like when I'm done with it? You know, and that, that tells me, roughly gives me an idea what it's going to cost me to own that particular piece while I'm going to have it. And so, okay, so we moved up here.

Basically, I started on a third of the milk truck back in the day, paid a third of the expenses. And so, as it turned out, a neighbor approached me one day, wanted to rent me 70 acres, which was half of this one farm that he had. He rented the other half to his nephews. And I thought, jeepers, I'm really tickled because why didn't he rent the whole works to them, you know? And so there I had my feed. So then I went on halves and then did that for a couple, 2, 3 years, and then ended up renting, cash renting the whole farm from mom and dad. There was 340 tillable acres here at the time. And so went on cash rent, and mom and dad treated me well. I owe everything. When dad passed away, I told him that I couldn't have done it without him. And so got married in 1975, '76. And I married a darn good farm girl. And she stuck with me all this time. And we've stuck together. We had a great family.

Barb came from central Iowa, very few dairymen out there. Matter of fact, she made the comment one time, I'm never going to marry a dairyman. Guess what she ended up with? So anyway, we kept the cows until '91. And we sold the herd as a herd. and we still keep in mind we always did farrow to finish about 100, 110 sows. So I bumped that up to 150, 160 because I had to make that income back. And, uh, uh, we were involved in, uh, Swiss Valley Farms at the time. We were, uh, YC chair couple. And, uh, we, we head up the, the young, uh, the young cooperator program for YC, for, uh, Swiss Valley, which is Prairie Farms now. Um, we went to Nashville, Tennessee for the National Milk Producers Federation Convention, and we ran for and were elected National YC Chair Couple. So that was, was quite a, quite a privilege. And we were also active with Farm Bureau.

We were Clayton County Farm Bureau Young Member Chair for a couple years. And, uh, we had, I remember we had Jerry Passer, who was the farm director for for WMT Radio at the time, uh, was at one of our meetings. And that's one of the things I want to impress upon everybody that's, you know, if you're starting out farming or whatever, you know, you need to take the time to get away from the farm once in a while and do some of these things because that's, that's a chance that you can intermingle with other people your age and learn things that maybe they're doing a little bit different that you utilize in your own operation. That's awesome. And so then, like I said, the cows went, we got in, we just bumped up the hogs. And we, in the meantime, we were increasing our crop acreage. The neighbor over here was doing round baling business, he got out of that.

So I jumped in that, started with one round baler, and we're just running the living dickens out of it. I had to finally buy a second one. And my youngest brother Gary run round baler for me in the summer when he was going to Iowa State. So that worked out well. And then I run the second one. Well, then one day another neighbor rolled in the yard. He said, say, he said, I think, you know, how do you need another tractor driver, specifically round baler? I said, yeah, I can sure use one. And by the way, you want to rent my 150 acres? So that worked out well with Bob. And, uh, so we picked up some acres there and, uh, here and there along the way. And, um, we got 3 kids here, Eric, uh, Ashley, and Ryan. And, uh, the 2 boys farm with us. And, uh, Ashley is a registered nurse. She's got her MSRN. She lives in Garneville. Ryan lives in Garneville. And Eric is here on the farm.

So we're very, very fortunate to have, to be able to farm with our two boys and have all of our children and grandkids close by.

Chris

Barron: That's awesome. So that's quite a story, quite a success story. Let me back up a little bit to around the time when, when you got married, you married this, this farm girl. That, and I obviously, I know her. You guys are, you know, we've worked with you guys for a number of years and you guys are a group and stuff. Barb is quite the lady. She does the financial end of the things, probably keeps you in line. I happened to be lucky enough to be at a meeting just a couple of days ago, and she makes killer cinnamon rolls too. I'm going to— I don't know, I may have to stop in again. And next time that she makes cinnamon rolls too, but Talk a little bit about the importance of the spouse. So for those who are listening, um, you know, I have the same thing with Alyssa. I mean, we can't, we can't do the things we do without that support.

Talk a little bit about the importance of that and what people need to keep in their mind, um, especially the younger guys, the 20-somethings, the 30-somethings, the 40-somethings, and how important that is.

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, Barb is a degreed accountant. And so that helps us immensely on the farm operation here. And she did work for New York Life for 8 or 10 years. So she knows the insurance racket inside and out. And I guess I'll back up a little bit myself here. On my education, I went to back in the day what they called then a Polytech School. And one fall I OJT'd for a fertilizer outfit, one spring I OJT'd— I take that back— one spring I OJT'd for a fertilizer operation. And one fall I OJT'd— I'm getting mixed up here— one spring, let's see, one fall for a grain elevator and one spring for a fertilizer outfit. Okay. And, uh, so, and then, uh, yeah, got married to Barb. She's a degreed accountant. Um, while I was in school, one of the classes I took was on insurance. So I had a pretty good idea where we were going on that, but she, she has done a lot with that. She's a great cook.

She furnishes anywhere from 6 to 8 meals in the field every spring and every fall for us and our, and our hired help. But the expertise that she brings to the operation is, is immense. And she knows what's going on. And I can't say enough good things about her.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And my observation, just watching you guys as a team work together, she's kind of the glue.

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No doubt about it. She's big on family and that comes from her family.

Chris

Barron: That's awesome. So, so now I guess I would ask you to talk a little bit about the boys. That farm with you. Um, you know, Eric and Ryan are both actively engaged in the business and working together. Um, talk just a little bit about the business structure that you currently have. You have several profit centers. Talk about that, and then I'm gonna just, just explain kind of how that structure is, and then I want to ask you a few questions as it relates to the listeners and how they may want to think about their businesses and some things in terms of structure and in terms of, of growth and those types of things?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, okay, we have, uh, 3 different entities here. There's, uh, Oberbrechling Family Farms, there's Oberbrechling Enterprises, which is the trucking end of it, and then there's River Ridge Pork, which is the hog operation. Um, we put up a 2,500-head, uh, wean-to-finish barn back in the day to allow our youngest son Ryan to, to join the operation. Eric and his wife Emily both graduated from UW-Platteville. And while Eric was going to school there, he took a couple classes on marketing and hedging and puts and calls and all that stuff. And I can remember when I was back in school, they were just talking a little bit about options and this type of thing. People were just starting to dip their toe in the water a little bit.

But as a matter of fact, one of the outfits that we broker with to this day, that gentleman that at that time— I don't know if he does anymore or not— owned or co-owned that enterprise. And he happened to be Eric's professor. So this guy was, you know, in the trenches every day doing this stuff. And so then Ashley and her husband— she's a registered nurse from— she graduated from the University of Iowa and her husband works for Moynihan Construction. He's a large, um, construction firm, does roads and all this type of thing. And then Ryan and Kristen are both our youngest son and daughter-in-law are both Iowa State graduates. And, uh, Kristen is a DSM for a seed company. And, uh, like I said, Ryan, uh, graduated from Iowa State, and we were able to bring him back in on the hog operation. And they have purchased their own farm. And that's all part of the farming entity. Awesome.

Chris

Barron: Yep. So thanks for explaining that. And one of the reasons I wanted you to kind of explain the structure is, as an observation, you've done a great job of delegating responsibility instead of work. You know, there's the dads that have the kids hold the flashlight. And then there's the dads that have the kids grab the wrench and figure it out. And there's somewhere in there that's kind of a balance. And it appears to me that you and Barb have really found a good balance there. And with that said, I guess the first question I have for you is, what is, you know, what is one thing you would tell younger producers with younger families and kids coming up and some that may be interested in agriculture, some that may not be?

What are some of the key things that you would recommend as, as people raise young families to be successful and to, you know, to either engage them in the farm or not? What are some suggestions you would give there?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, as individual farmers themselves, the first thing I would say is get an education. And that does not necessarily mean a 4-year education, especially nowadays. You hear a lot of people saying, you know, I don't need that. You know, what for? Why should I go into debt, you know, and come out of school and, you know, kind of be left, left high and dry? But I think you need to do something, at least 2 years minimum. Now, sure, I went to what was then called a Vo-Tech school, it's called a community college now. But Mom and Dad and I were sitting around one day when the fertilizer guy was out, and we got to talking about, you know, school and stuff. And because I was undecided where I was going to go and whatever. And the comment that he made was, the last 2 years are what I went for.

And that stuck with me because, you know, a lot of 4-year schools, you have to do English and, you know, all this humanity stuff and all that, which there's nothing wrong with. But I, if I was going to make best use of my time, I wanted to go to school And, you know, I got right in the fertilizer end of it. I got right in on the grain end of it, the insurance end and stuff like that. And while you are at school, you definitely want to go to the trade, trade shows, because— or the trade fairs, I should say, because that's where the employers are at. And I remember at the time, I probably could have landed a job with, oh, what's the name of the office? They made the great big floaters and stuff, not AGCO, but whatever, back in the day for $30,000, which was real good money back in the day. And maybe I should have, but I, back of my heart, my mind, I always wanted to farm.

Chris

Barron: I have a question on that, not to interrupt you, but I want to ask you, what's your opinion of, you know, should, and I know it's different everywhere, but I kind of want to get your opinion from a dad's wisdom perspective of Kids come directly back to the farm from high school or college, or should they go someplace for 3 or 4 years and get yelled at by somebody other than Dad, or, you know, experience things in a different world? What's your opinion of one versus the other?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: I think they should. See, in my case, I had some of that already being— I OJT'd with a fertilizer outfit and a grain outfit, you know, And so I was kind of, rather than on the outside looking in, I was on the inside looking around. And that's where when you take these and do these internships, is what they call them nowadays, is that gives you the kind of the foot in the door or the inside track to see, you know, is this where I really want to, is this what I really want to do, or is this where I really want to end up? Because a lot of times these internships If you do well, they will offer you a job before you're even done with school. So you can hit the ground running upon graduation. And that's huge. And that's huge.

The other thing to keep in mind is, you know, nowadays I think probably— correct me if I'm wrong, but I'll bet 50% or more of college graduates are doing something other than what they— what their degree is, you know? Yeah. And there are headhunters all over the place looking for people.. And, uh, but you, while you're in school, you're young yet, you're not tied down, you don't have a family necessarily. Um, that gives you the opportunity to scope these places out and, and see what's really going on.

Chris

Barron: Right. Um, I want to ask you another thing too. So that has to do with, with kind of like how you guys have set your business up, you know, you and, and both of your boys are are pretty, um, outlooking. In other words, you guys are more than willing to look outside of the box to see, okay, what, what is out there. For example, you know, to give you credit on, you know, you talked up, you know, you talked about your trucking enterprise. I mean, a lot of farmers look at trucks as a necessary evil. You guys have figured out how to make trucks probably your number one profit center, maybe even over the farm, as far as It's the core business of your operation and it's massively successful. Talk a little bit about growth.

How should the average listener here, ranging, you know, especially the younger guys, you know, under 40, how should they be thinking about growth and how much risk should they be taking, you know, in a high-interest timeframe and stuff? And what are some of the things they should be thinking about?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, you talk about high interest, you know, back when earlier on, you know, when Barbara, I started farming, you know, 9, 9.5% was very common. I mean, you— there was no such thing as 6 or 7% money. It just wasn't there if you were borrowing. But the difference between then and now is we're dealing with way, way, way more dollars than we were then. And the thing I would want to emphasize is You need to know your cost of production. Obviously, you hear that all the time, and that's very important. Don't be afraid to use some of the tools, and one of them is credit. As an example, I was fortunate that I could borrow way more money than what I personally wanted to, and you need to use that as a tool. I always looked at it as such. Yes, it's an expense,, but is that going to better me? Is that going to get me further ahead?

And because some guys, you know, they just absolutely don't want to borrow money because my mom and dad never did, I'm not going to either. I'm scared of it. You know, they're going to bury me. Um, my motto always has been everything in moderation. Um, you need to, you need to, uh, if you need to go out and buy something used, uh, but it better be good used. Don't be— you don't have to have the newest paint on the block. Work, especially when you're starting out. You know, don't, don't be afraid to, to pick up a good used piece of equipment and, and make it work. Because machinery costs, especially the last couple, 2, 3 years, have just gone astronomical. You know, you just can't, you just can't even think about keeping up with it, right?

Chris

Barron: What about land? I mean, land is something obviously we have to have on the farm. Do you rent? Do you own? How do you, how do you decide from your perspective and in your career what, what has worked? I mean, what, how far out do you extend yourself? You know, if it's, if it's that farm that lays right next to you, do you, do you reach out and really, you know, really add some risk to the, to the balance sheet? Or do you, how do you, how do you handle that? What are some of the things you, you would recommend?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, first off, you need to know what your numbers are. And you probably should go to your banker ahead of time because they're the number crunchers. And it used to be, you know, profit and loss statement. Well, now anymore it's working capital. And I can remember reading magazines years ago when I was 30, 35, 40 years old, they recommended, you know, rent an acre for every acre you own. Well, I don't know if that necessarily holds true anymore. But You need to know your cost of production. If part of it also is your psyche or your philosophy, and yeah, that farm across the fence, everybody's always looking at that all the time. And you need to know your borrowing capacity. And also, you need to know your own— you need to know yourself. Are you willing to do what it takes to make that fly.

Now, you know, if you're milking cows or if you're having, uh, uh, stock cows, when the name of the game is getting those girls bred back, especially, and especially also if you're farrowing sows, you need to put in the time and the effort to do what it takes to, to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Um, money-wise, yeah, right now land costs are just astronomical. It is a bearcat.. And you need to use all the tools at your disposal. Go to FHA— not FHA, but FSA now it's called. They have programs there. They work with lenders to help you make deals, make things happen. And obviously, and everybody says this, don't get overextended. Well, on a land purchase, you know, you're sticking your neck out there. And I had a guy talk to here a few weeks ago. He works down at CGB in Clayton. You know, he'd like start farming and stuff, you know, how do you do that?

And I recommend him, you need to sell yourself, go out there and talk to some of these gentlemen that have no, no heirs behind them. And, you know, put a bug in their ear. And maybe you should start working for an existing farmer, you know, a couple, 2 or 3 years out that is looking for help. And to prove yourself. And maybe there's a chance that you could slide in after, uh, after he retires, you know, that type of thing.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. Or even a collaboration with, you know, if you are already kind of structured, even like you guys are, it's finding those guys that don't have anybody to, to pass the farm on to and, and beginning some sort of a collaboration or alliance to help them transition as opposed to having a farm sale all at once and paying the big tax bill.

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Yes.

Chris

Barron: Yes. I want to, I want to transition over to another question. I forewarned you about this question. I forewarned you about a couple of them. The first one I'm going to throw at you is, what is the biggest mistake you made in your entire career of farming that you learned from, and why? And how will this apply? How can others apply this to their lives?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, several years ago, when we were still raising our own hogs, I had the opportunity to become an investor. And one site was a 1,000-head nursery, and then we had obviously two 1,000 finisher sites, and that worked out well. And then I put the bug in someone's ear that, you know, maybe we can expand that. And, uh, so there was a large ag conglomerate out there that had a program, and, uh, we, uh, it was like, uh, approximately X number of dollars per head guaranteed because the pig price would fluctuate based on the market price. And, and this was going to take us up to 30,000, uh, finished hogs a year. Well, to make a long story short, it did not work out. There too many unseen costs in order to source that many pigs, even though everyone is on the same protocol, you still have different bugs to put up with and yada yada yada. So that didn't work out.

And so what I learned from that is you need to micromanage something like that much more than I did. And how did it make us better? It made us better because I realized my extreme, I guess, if you will. And I've heard it said that a lot of times after a major— I shouldn't say a major, but a setback— you come out a lot stronger. And that definitely was the case here. We got— the lender was putting the bug in our ear that this is not working, you know, we need to change things. And rather than forge ahead and make this work regardless, I decided that was the best thing to do was to exit the program.

Chris

Barron: Sometimes I suppose it's better to cut bait and just be done with something instead of riding something out too long too, because you can spend— you can put a lot of good money after bad money after bad money, you know. And exactly, I guess make sure I understand that correctly, but one of the things you're saying is not only don't micromanage, or you kind of said don't micromanage, but I think the way I'm going to take this is step back and make sure your due diligence is as best you can. Or you did say micromanage, you didn't say don't micromanage, you said do micromanage your decisions. But I take that as doing your due diligence upfront to the extent you can.

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Uh-huh.

Chris

Barron: But I'm ask— I would ask the question, how much do you, how much can you measure and how much do you go by your gut? Because you probably did some measurements there, but sometimes your gut is right too. So how do— any, any comments there? Do the math and then go with your gut or, or, or do due diligence to the depth you need to?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, see, this wasn't something, uh, this, I mean, I raised hogs anyway, so I still had a, a background there. Whereas if this was something totally different, that'd be an altogether different ballgame. Right. So, yeah.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. So it's like, you know, the other thing I would say too is for a lot of operations, I think especially as we record this and commodity prices are tight, sometimes we look at negative margins coming up and we start thinking, okay, what else can we do? But I think we got to be careful with those other things that we choose to do, right? Or we call it sometimes the shiny things. Hey, we should do this, we should do this, we should do this, as opposed to staying with your core competencies. Any comments on that or any lessons there?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, in my case, you know, during that hog deal, you know, I had all my machinery paid for and that helped, you know, I didn't have any outstanding notes anywhere else. So it took us a couple, 3, 4 years to get through that, but we come out of it, you know, okay. And the big thing is, you know, just, you know, don't tremendously overextend yourself, I guess is what I'd say.

Chris

Barron: Gotcha. One of the last questions and maybe a couple more, but towards the end of the conversation here, I would want to ask you, and I ask every time we do a Dad's Wisdom, ask this question.

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Yeah.

Chris

Barron: If you could go back and tell your 25-year-old self something, knowing what you know now, what kind of conversation would you have or what would you tell yourself?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, I probably should have went out and tried to buy a little more land back then. We didn't really buy anything until I was— other than the home farm— until I was probably 55, 50 years old. And back then, and hindsight's always 20/20, no matter what you're doing. But yeah, I wished there was a couple farms in the neighborhood I should have— one we did actually bid on, and the husband would have went along with us. But it was a divorce deal, and the wife wouldn't— didn't want to go along with the bid. So it fell through. But that's something I wish we would have done.

Chris

Barron: Is there anything else you would tell yourself?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Stick it out. Know where you're going. And the big thing is why and how, what are your plans to get there?

Chris

Barron: So know your why, basically.

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Why are you doing what you're doing? You need to know yourself. And of course, you know, we were married then, so I had a real good partner at my side that stuck with me. And that, that, that means a lot.

Chris

Barron: Well, Mike, I think unless there's anything else I haven't asked, is there anything that you're like, well, I thought he was going to ask this, or I've got this information yet that I'd throw out? Are you good, or is there anything else you'd like to leave? Leave what, you know, or I should ask it that way. What would you like to leave the listeners with from a wisdom perspective, from somebody that's been very successful?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Know yourself. That's where do you want to go? Be willing to do whatever it takes to get there. You know, if you, if you're doing stock cows, you gotta go out there in March when it's snowing and it's muddy and stuff and calf cows. And if you're dairying like we used to, you've gotta get, those cows bred back, obviously just like if you're doing stock cows. But, you've got mastitis to put up with sometimes. You just kind of, eh, you know, but you gotta, you gotta look ahead, way, way past your nose.. And if you're doing crops, you know, those prices fluctuate all the time. And that's where you need to educate yourself or get hooked up with someone that knows the markets to, to give you guidance. And don't try and do it all yourself. That's probably the thing that comes immediately to mind.

There are— there's expertise out there that, that if you are lacking in one area or whatever, you need to access that expertise, pick their brain and find out what makes them tick and how can you utilize that to your best advantage.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm. That's great. I think that did drum up one more thing that you had mentioned earlier, too, which was, you know, get an education, you know, be— and I think what I'm taking away from you or my takeaway is that education never ends. Education is something that you do, um, throughout your life. And, you know, you guys are in one of our peer groups and you learn from each other, from other peers and stuff. Is there any, any comments you have on the educational side as we wrap up?

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, the peer group is, is really cool because you get to, uh, hobnob with other operations from different parts of the country. And, you know, you sometimes you get stuck in a rut a little bit, like, okay, this is the way we've been doing it for 4 or 5 years or longer. And then so you're talking to some of these guys and, oh, did you ever think about doing it this way? Huh, never thought of that before, you know. And there are, there are, uh, there are other, um, oh, what shall I say, um, avenues of investment if you are, if you are set up as such other than farming. That have a very good return that maybe you should look at once in a while, you know. And, uh, and that's why I say too, like, we were involved with Farm Bureau and, and, uh, National Milk Producers Federation.

You, you need to get out, and if it's your local corn growers, soybean growers, pork producers, beef producers, what have you, you need to be involved in, in these, these groups to, uh, hobnob and rub elbows with these other people and see what's going on and how to how to make the best of yourself. And because, uh, that's what, uh, that's what gets you there.

Chris

Barron: Yeah. It's amazing how much, how many nuggets you can pick up and bring back to the operation. And if you just apply one or two of the five or six you get in the different environments, how that can change the bottom line for sure.

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Yep. Yep.

Chris

Barron: Mm-hmm. Mike, you guys have a phenomenal operation. Um, you and your boys and Barb and, and your whole team. You guys have a team of phenomenal management-level employees, and we didn't even talk about them, but, but, you know, I had the opportunity to work with you guys a few days ago and, and work with your leadership team. You guys have built a massively successful, really awesome operation that you should be super proud of. And like I told you guys at that meeting, sometimes you got to step back and, and look at where you've come from, and you guys have done a great job, and, and I'm sure the boys are going to continue continue that on. And I think, uh, they've got kids coming down the pike too, and it's just gonna generation after generation. So with that said, uh, Mike, I really appreciate your time. This has been a great conversation, and, and, uh, really appreciate it.

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Well, thank you very much. And I, I have to say that I got to give, uh, my compliments to Matt Hatcher, Rob Earthram, and Mike DeKipp. They are part of this other team that you mentioned. Because we can't do what we do without those guys and all of our drivers as well. You know, everybody is dedicated and really, it really works well.

Chris

Barron: Yeah, it's amazing what you can do with a good team.

Mike

Oberbroeckling: Oh, definitely. No doubt about it. It isn't all yourself. You've gotta have good quality team members that are interested and dedicated.

Chris

Barron: Yep, that's for sure. Well, good, good shout out to those guys because you got one heck of a team. And with that said, Mike, really appreciate it again. And, and thanks everybody for listening. And again, if you guys have a dad or a grandpa that, that could be on Dad's Wisdom and share with us like Mike just did and give us some good wisdom nuggets and things that we can take back to our operations and learn, please let us know. Please reach out and we'd be more than happy. We can record on Zoom. Or we can catch them at the farm or at our location as well. So with that said, again, thanks to Mike Oberbrockling, and thanks to everybody for listening, and we will catch you again next time on the Ag View Pitch.