2020 Block & Bridle Honoree-Jerry Adams

Jerry Adams Author

04/15/2021 Added

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Acceptance Speech for Honoree Award

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[00:00:05.330]Thank you.
[00:00:06.920]My name is Jerry Adams, CEO of Adams Land & Cattle Company,
[00:00:11.810]in Broken Bow, Nebraska.
[00:00:14.560]I was so excited last year to be invited to this banquet,
[00:00:19.210]only to have COVID cancel the event.
[00:00:22.740]Sorry I cannot be with you this year,
[00:00:25.310]as I have a commitment in a wedding.
[00:00:28.760]Therefore, I'm pre-recording my comments.
[00:00:32.490]First, I'd like to show you
[00:00:34.490]this announcement from last year.
[00:00:37.207]"Beef industry giant, Jerry Adams."
[00:00:39.420]Giant.
[00:00:41.310]That might've been a misprint, or an exaggeration.
[00:00:46.500]So, thank you.
[00:00:48.290]Wow.
[00:00:49.600]What a great, great honor is to receive
[00:00:52.240]the Block and Bridle 2020
[00:00:55.060]honoree.
[00:00:57.070]Thank you Block and Bridle Club,
[00:00:59.900]Greg Ibach for my,
[00:01:01.373]for nominating me.
[00:01:03.330]And Chancellor Ronnie Green for a letter of support.
[00:01:06.850]Thank you.
[00:01:08.680]I was asked to give a 15 or 20 minute overview
[00:01:11.660]of my history and what three areas I'm involved in today.
[00:01:16.550]A little bit about my history.
[00:01:18.600]I'll go from Broken Bow, to UNL in Lincoln,
[00:01:22.200]to Omaha ConAgra, back to Broken Bow,
[00:01:26.000]and what the event that had changed my career.
[00:01:30.660]I graduated from Broken Bow High School
[00:01:32.350]in 1967 and then attended UNL.
[00:01:36.220]I was a member of FarmHouse Fraternity,
[00:01:38.170]majoring in ag economics, animal science, and mathematics.
[00:01:43.450]I graduated from UNL in 1971
[00:01:47.500]and I had no idea where I was headed.
[00:01:50.970]Now, during my sophomore through senior, three years,
[00:01:54.000]I worked for Dr. Kendrick, ag econ instructor.
[00:01:58.760]He really was an entrepreneurial
[00:02:00.230]in software and hardware, at that time.
[00:02:03.780]In fact, we had, in our office, we had the first computer
[00:02:08.880]from east campus down to downtown time.
[00:02:13.310]We'd opened the box, put the handles on in,
[00:02:16.440]close the box, dialed up,
[00:02:18.100]and we were connected from east campus to downtown.
[00:02:22.600]So, when I was ready to graduate, Dr.Kennedy said,
[00:02:25.077]"Jerry, what are you going to do?"
[00:02:26.760]I said, "I don't have any idea."
[00:02:29.370]Really, my dad's operation was really too small
[00:02:33.030]and I had three brothers that wanted to come back to it.
[00:02:37.350]He said, "Well, I have a grant
[00:02:38.583]that I can give a masters and doctors, all in three years.
[00:02:43.210]Would you want that?"
[00:02:44.740]Well, Dr. Ken was always my mentor in those three years.
[00:02:48.260]So I said, "Do you think that's what I should do?"
[00:02:50.697]"I think it's a good idea."
[00:02:52.500]So, the next week I came in to see him and he said,
[00:02:55.327]"I decided not to give you this grant."
[00:02:59.080]I said, "Well, what did I do wrong?"
[00:03:01.410]He goes, "No, no. There's a position
[00:03:04.100]in ConAgra that I think that you'd be really good at."
[00:03:07.080]I said, "Well, what is that position?"
[00:03:09.090]He said, "Half your time will be in a team,
[00:03:12.270]going around looking at different companies
[00:03:14.230]and assessing if ConAgra should buy it.
[00:03:17.020]The other half the time,
[00:03:18.530]you'll be in commodities and pea pricing."
[00:03:22.900]So, I took that position.
[00:03:26.160]Sometime later, my dad called up and said,
[00:03:28.607]"You know, I think I'm going to buy some land.
[00:03:30.820]I'd like to buy some land, south of Broken Bow."
[00:03:33.950]It has a lot of dry land farming,
[00:03:35.940]which at late sixties, early seventies,
[00:03:38.400]my dad really loved buying dry land farming,
[00:03:41.670]develop it, and put irrigation in.
[00:03:44.480]There's also some grass ground to run some yearlings on.
[00:03:47.530]And yes, there's three pins that
[00:03:49.820]we could have for cattle feeding.
[00:03:53.120]But he said, "I have one stipulation.
[00:03:55.060]I need one of my sons, of the four,
[00:03:57.420]to come back and help me."
[00:03:59.850]You know, I said, "I really liked my position in ConAgra
[00:04:02.340]but I will come back for two or three years,
[00:04:04.040]'til another son come back."
[00:04:07.280]So,
[00:04:08.690]in 1973, the Nixon price freeze
[00:04:12.360]hit.
[00:04:13.193]Now, it just cratered the cattle market.
[00:04:16.180]So, my dad's model for cattle
[00:04:19.780]was to buy unweaned calves, feed them to from 500 pounds
[00:04:25.490]then to 900 pounds and then sell them.
[00:04:29.000]So, now when a ca-
[00:04:30.570]When the Nixon price freeze cratered the cattle market,
[00:04:33.280]I went to him and said,
[00:04:34.113]"You know, dad, we were going to lose $150 a head
[00:04:38.450]if we sell these as feeders.
[00:04:40.260]I know we haven't fed them out before,
[00:04:41.610]but let's feed these out."
[00:04:43.800]He said, "Well, you know, we could lose more than that,
[00:04:46.160]but if you really want to try feeding them out,
[00:04:47.950]we'll do it."
[00:04:49.610]We didn't lose $150 a head. We lost $300 a head.
[00:04:56.010]Yep. $300 a head.
[00:04:58.530]It just about broke my dad.
[00:05:01.240]So, I went to him and said,
[00:05:02.137]"You know, I promised you I'd stay back here.
[00:05:04.580]Stay here for two or three years.
[00:05:06.270]I'm going to stay here until
[00:05:07.360]I figure this cattle market out."
[00:05:09.900]You guessed it.
[00:05:11.370]I never figured it out because I'm still here.
[00:05:14.260]So, that was how that event changed my career path.
[00:05:25.090]Let me discuss three areas that
[00:05:26.500]I've been passion and love for,
[00:05:28.640]other than my family.
[00:05:31.180]My company, Adam's Land and Cattle Company,
[00:05:34.150]the livestock industry, the state of Nebraska,
[00:05:37.720]and my community at Broken Bow.
[00:05:40.640]Number one, Adam's Land and Cattle Company.
[00:05:43.590]It's a world-class agribusiness
[00:05:46.000]in the heart of Custer County.
[00:05:48.040]It evolves from a farming background and operation,
[00:05:50.930]to one of the most respected family owned
[00:05:53.870]feeding in R and D operation.
[00:05:56.950]It consists of three feed lots of 100,
[00:05:59.590]and feeding 130,000 a head.
[00:06:03.570]We work with 100,
[00:06:04.760]over 100 backgrounders and have up to 100,
[00:06:07.867]110,000 head in these background and operations.
[00:06:14.050]Excuse me.
[00:06:16.060]The company is really own,
[00:06:17.300]is really known for its technology and innovation.
[00:06:21.000]Give you an example.
[00:06:22.490]About two years ago, our 150 employees received
[00:06:26.630]the Innovation in Technology award.
[00:06:29.000]I am so proud of these 150 employees.
[00:06:32.170]They're very hardworking, dedicated,
[00:06:34.310]and innovative employees.
[00:06:36.300]Many of our second, third generation.
[00:06:39.570]So, how did we get started really on R and D in research?
[00:06:44.190]Well, back in 1995,
[00:06:47.160]we started putting
[00:06:49.060]ear tags in every one of these unweaned calves
[00:06:51.990]and electronically put them in the computer.
[00:06:55.350]We worked with pharmaceutical companies
[00:06:57.150]to do research with them.
[00:06:59.770]Today, we do more R and D, more internal research.
[00:07:03.580]There's really focused on increasing
[00:07:06.220]consumer carcass quality, increase efficiency in production,
[00:07:12.030]and also cattle health and nutrition
[00:07:15.670]Mobile hospitals.
[00:07:17.290]We have mobile hospitals that
[00:07:18.720]go up and down the alleyway
[00:07:20.360]and doctor animals at pen locations.
[00:07:23.230]See, when an animal is pulled for sickness
[00:07:25.890]and it is doctored at pen location and put back in the pen.
[00:07:29.990]It really saves the stress on,
[00:07:33.238]of the animals going to the sick pen.
[00:07:36.920]We have a fully automated feed meal and flaking system.
[00:07:41.840]Procurement.
[00:07:42.940]How do we buy cattle all over the state
[00:07:45.640]and other states, putting them backgrounders,
[00:07:48.200]and still have the Q A?
[00:07:50.957]The way we do it, when we buy an animal,
[00:07:52.900]it's dropped into a backgrounder, they film it.
[00:07:57.710]They put electronic tag in, in a dangle tag.
[00:08:00.487]And the filming goes to the corporate office
[00:08:03.870]and the corporate office procurement people look
[00:08:07.230]at those cattle on film.
[00:08:10.020]And we send back to the buyer,
[00:08:13.670]his score of those cattle, along with the check.
[00:08:18.600]Cattle Com.
[00:08:19.433]Cattle Com is the individual animal management system
[00:08:21.970]that we have developed in the last five years.
[00:08:25.110]It's one of a kind.
[00:08:26.930]It follows animals from purchase through slaughter,
[00:08:30.680]electronically from that tag.
[00:08:34.390]All that data is put into a data warehouse.
[00:08:36.640]It's one version of the truth.
[00:08:38.980]We can slice and dice anyway we want.
[00:08:42.450]We can go in that. We can also have,
[00:08:46.770]be able to assess close outs for cattle,
[00:08:51.200]from feedlots,
[00:08:53.320]to pens,
[00:08:54.790]to groups of animals,
[00:08:55.650]core down to a single one.
[00:08:58.290]That is one of the two ways that we do strategic benefits
[00:09:03.935]of risk mitigation with Cattle Com.
[00:09:07.110]Also in risk mitigation for Cattle Com,
[00:09:09.700]we have animal health and dry matter.
[00:09:12.740]Every animal gets at least one data point
[00:09:16.410]in data warehouse every day.
[00:09:20.395]The second example of maybe two major
[00:09:22.810]strategic benefits of Cattle Com is revenue maximization.
[00:09:28.470]A computerized BMI sort, it's weight to hip weight.
[00:09:33.132]It uses historical algorithms
[00:09:35.430]and updates by artificial intelligence.
[00:09:38.740]GPS.
[00:09:41.846]We also use GPS, not just in farming,
[00:09:44.260]but also in the feedlot.
[00:09:46.840]We use the GPS to do drain ways in the pen,
[00:09:51.090]in the alleyways, and behind the pens.
[00:09:58.440]Second, livestock and other industry involvement.
[00:10:01.220]Beef Alliance.
[00:10:03.120]So, five years ago, I was a co-founder of Beef Alliance.
[00:10:07.030]It's been a very, very rewarding organization for me.
[00:10:10.920]Beef Alliance consisted of
[00:10:12.300]10 biggest cattle feeding operations in The United States.
[00:10:16.580]We deal with a common feedlot industry issues.
[00:10:21.060]We try to drive positive changes.
[00:10:24.290]I'll give you an example.
[00:10:25.180]When we started, in every one of the 10,
[00:10:27.540]did research on antimicrobial use.
[00:10:30.950]Every one of those 10 organizations have reduced
[00:10:34.740]antimicrobial use by over 30%.
[00:10:38.380]Other things we've been involved in are
[00:10:42.395]COVID
[00:10:43.840]relief bill.
[00:10:45.520]We worked with NCPA, congressional leaders,
[00:10:50.210]Department of Ag, including Greg Ibach, FSA,
[00:10:54.863]and third-party communication.
[00:10:58.920]Just this month,
[00:11:01.210]we kicked off a pitch contest
[00:11:04.550]for
[00:11:07.070]anybody that can solve a feedlot
[00:11:09.910]or a
[00:11:11.300]range cattle issue.
[00:11:14.150]33 different organizations throughout the United States,
[00:11:17.640]and really the world, submitted their applications.
[00:11:21.240]We looked at them yesterday.
[00:11:23.000]10 of the most promising, we'll give a $50,000 grant
[00:11:29.112]within the next week or two.
[00:11:31.370]One of the 10.
[00:11:34.650]Nebraska Beef Producers Committee.
[00:11:36.830]It's much like the Beef Alliance.
[00:11:38.640]It's 10 organizations,
[00:11:39.950]but 10 organizations in the state of Nebraska.
[00:11:42.370]Again, just mainly common feedlot issues.
[00:11:47.750]I'm involved in three other boards for positive influence.
[00:11:53.980]First of the three, CattleFax Board in Denver.
[00:11:58.810]Kansas City.
[00:11:59.860]The agricultural Kansas City Federal Reserve Board.
[00:12:03.360]Third one is Bellevue University Board.
[00:12:05.790]This is kind of interesting for me
[00:12:07.350]because I've been really involved in more industry, or ag,
[00:12:13.090]or community.
[00:12:14.530]Bellevue university, it was giving me
[00:12:16.450]a different look at strategic education.
[00:12:20.500]We really been involved in more than just UNL.
[00:12:24.230]Working with UNL, we've also worked with
[00:12:26.740]K-State and Colorado State.
[00:12:30.860]The last few months, Jim, Phil, and I
[00:12:33.520]threw an exorbitant project.
[00:12:35.780]We're working on the Nebraska as a
[00:12:38.440]number one sustainable ag state in the union.
[00:12:44.350]The third area I'd like to talk about,
[00:12:46.360]is state of Nebraska and my community at Broken Bow.
[00:12:52.080]Nebraska.
[00:12:53.130]I believe Nebraska is the best place to live,
[00:12:57.470]raise a family, and have agricultural business.
[00:13:02.310]I had an outstanding opportunity to be
[00:13:04.650]in the steering committee and in board of
[00:13:07.000]Blueprint Nebraska.
[00:13:09.270]Blueprint Nebraska was developed by
[00:13:11.460]Governor Ricketts and President Bounds
[00:13:13.370]about two and a half years ago.
[00:13:15.210]It's a statewide initiative for sustainable
[00:13:18.190]economic prosperity in all of Nebraska.
[00:13:20.980]Not just Lincoln and Omaha, the whole state.
[00:13:24.760]Today, we were in phase two.
[00:13:26.830]And the first part of phase two is a tax relief.
[00:13:32.720]Broken Bow. My hometown.
[00:13:35.280]Governor Ricketts often mentioned Broken Bow
[00:13:37.470]as the gold standard of greater Nebraska.
[00:13:41.390]Give you examples.
[00:13:43.130]Custer Economic Development is the only
[00:13:45.650]economic in a county that's funded only by
[00:13:50.120]individuals or business.
[00:13:52.060]No political money, no state money.
[00:13:55.460]Under economic development is Custard Campus.
[00:14:00.040]I was co-leader of Custer Campus and we raised $2 million.
[00:14:04.960]We have six entities on this campus.
[00:14:08.370]Mid Plains Community College, Bellevue University,
[00:14:12.300]a tech building that has wiring, welding, PLC,
[00:14:17.620]air conditioning, and heating.
[00:14:19.320]At least a few.
[00:14:21.020]We have a new regional judicial center.
[00:14:23.370]It's the only regional center in the state.
[00:14:26.940]We went to Chief Justice Heavican
[00:14:30.060]and the board of supervisors.
[00:14:32.340]Now, we have a brand new, beautiful,
[00:14:34.830]beautiful regional judicial center.
[00:14:38.850]We also
[00:14:40.960]have FSA
[00:14:42.580]on the campus and a bank.
[00:14:45.670]Community and ALCC employees.
[00:14:48.790]We're not only focused on workplace,
[00:14:51.830]but we really are involved in the community.
[00:14:53.920]We encourage it.
[00:14:55.480]We're very involved in 4-H and FFA.
[00:14:59.440]We lead a annual youth AQA training
[00:15:02.760]for over a 100 youth every year.
[00:15:05.500]For the last 25 years, we've been,
[00:15:08.050]we sponsored Broken Bow third grade.
[00:15:11.590]Every Christmas, we have a giving tree
[00:15:14.490]for over 75 needy children.
[00:15:18.010]We really encourage our employees to be
[00:15:20.470]part of members of different communities and boards.
[00:15:27.449]So, in closing,
[00:15:29.790]you know, I've been lucky
[00:15:31.000]and I've been honored to receive a few recognitions.
[00:15:34.910]But,
[00:15:35.743]only as a result of my passion and love
[00:15:40.600]that I have for my company, my industry,
[00:15:44.400]state, and community to make a difference.
[00:15:47.740]I want to make a difference.
[00:15:50.160]My challenge to each of you students tonight,
[00:15:54.610]once you find and follow your passion and your love,
[00:15:58.140]you have the opportunity to make a difference in this world.
[00:16:03.030]Let me give you, read that again.
[00:16:05.930]My challenge to each of you students,
[00:16:08.040]once you find and follow your passion love,
[00:16:10.950]you have the opportunity to make a difference in this world.
[00:16:15.270]Remember, it is important to be a leader
[00:16:18.940]and a member of your business, your industry,
[00:16:22.440]state, and community.
[00:16:25.200]Thank you.
[00:16:26.360]And again, thank you for this great award.
[00:16:30.320]Thank you.

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2020 Block & Bridle Honoree-Jerry Adams

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