John Maday, Managing Editor, Drovers CattleNetwork   |   Updated: July 1, 2011

An enthusiastic crowd of cattle feeders, ranchers and allied-industry representatives celebrated the past, present and future of cattle feeding Thursday night at the 2011 Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame banquet in Denver.

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The Hall of fame, initiated in 2009, inducted its third pair of influential cattle feeders and presented two additional prestigious awards to industry leaders.

The 2011 inductees to the Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame are Lee Borck of Ward Feeders, Larned, Kansas, and Dave Wood, of Harris Feeding Company and Harris Ranch Beef, Coalinga, California.

During the banquet, the Hall of fame also presented the 2011 Industry Leadership Award, recognizing someone from outside of cattle feeding for outstanding beef-industry leadership. This year’s winner is California rancher John Lacey.

The Hall also announced its 2011 Arturo Armendariz Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes the critical roles of feedyard employees in the success of a cattle-feeding business. This year’s honoree is Erasmo “Chico” Becerra, who recently retired from his long career as a feed-truck operator at Hale Center Feedyard, a Cactus Feeders Inc. facility near Hale Center, Texas.

The Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame is sponsored by Merck Animal Health and Osborn & Barr marketing agency, with editorial support from Drovers/CattleNetwork. 

Lee Borck

2011 Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame inductee Lee Borck built a career in the cattle-feeding industry with hard work, strong personal relationships and an entrepreneurial spirit. Borck is the long-standing general manger of Ward Feeders, Larned, Kan. He also is a founding member of the Beef Marketing Group (BMG), and currently serves as the cooperative’s chairman. In 1988 under Borck’s leadership, 11 mid-sized feedyards formed BMG, creating new ways to market finished cattle and becoming one of the first entities to form a working relationship with a packing company.  “Our goals have been to make a better beef product and market cattle closer to the meat case,” Borck says. “Our marketing strategies have always been to produce higher-quality cattle and earn premiums for doing so.” Earlier this year, BMG introduced Progressive Beef, a verified system of production that includes animal care, animal handling, a HACCP-based system for feed mills and environmental compliance.

Read more about Lee Borck.

 

Dave Wood

The other 2011 Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame inductee, Dave Wood, serves as chairman of beef operations for Harris Feeding Company and Harris Ranch Beef. Wood has spent his entire career with the Harris operation, working his way up since accepting a position as a feedyard pen rider after graduating from Cal Poly–San Luis Obispo in 1970. Harris Feeding Company, near Coalinga, Calif., has grown to become the  largest cattle feeder on the West Coast and 16th largest nationally, finishing about 250,000 head of cattle per year, with a one-time capacity of 120,000 head. The Harris Feeding Company is the exclusive supplier of cattle to Harris Ranch Beef Company, one of California’s largest meat processors, producing roughly 200 million pounds of beef products annually. Based in Selma, Calif., Harris Ranch was one of the first to successfully develop and market branded-beef products and, particularly, branded natural-beef products. Wood also owns extensive cow-calf and stocker operations, completing the circle of pasture-to-plate beef production.

Read more about Dave Wood.

 

Erasmo “Chico” Becerra

The winner of the 2011 Arturo Armendariz Distinguished Service Award, Chico Becerra recently retired from his long career as a feed-truck operator at Hale Center Feedyard in Texas. Becerra emigrated from Mexico to the United States in 1972, and pursued his interest in cattle by signing on to drive a feed truck at a Kansas feedyard in 1979. After six years, he moved to Texas, to work at another feedyard, and in 1990 accepted a job at the Hale Center facility. Becerra notes that feed-truck drivers are on the front lines for observing their behavior. “We see the cattle every day,” he says, adding that he routinely reported anomalies such as excess feed left in bunks, empty water troughs, cattle showing signs of illness or other problems. One of the most satisfying aspects of the job, he says, was to see that cattle were performing well. “It makes me feel good to know we’re doing things right.” Hale Center’s general manager Kevin Kuriyama describes Becerra as a self-starter, whose positive attitude and dedication to the job helped inspire the entire feedyard staff.  “He does things right, every time, and most importantly, when no one’s looking.”

Read more about Chico Becerra.

 

John Lacey

This year’s winner of the Hall of Fame’s Industry Leadership Award is John Lacey, whose family runs Lacey Livestock, a large cow-calf operation in California. The Lacey family also partners with David Wood in a ranching operation called Centennial Livestock, and with Harris Ranch Company on a large stocker operation. The Lacey family has been ranching in California since 1870. In 1990, Lacey was president of the National Cattlemen’s Association at a time when the group was under financial stress. “That year became a good year for our industry,” Lacey says. “Fed cattle topped $80per hundredweight, and we were able to turn around NCA’s financial woes.” By the mid-1990s, an industry long-range plan was developed and promoted, encouraging the industry to “speak with one voice.” The result was the merger of NCA, the National Live Stock and Meat Board and Beef Industry Council into the NCBA in 1996. Lacey’s leadership was instrumental in the merger, and he was elected to serve as the first president of that new organization, making him the only person to serve as both NCA and NCBA president.

Read more about John Lacey.

Read profiles of the past inductees to the Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame from Drovers/CattleNetwork

2009

Paul Engler, Cactus Feeders, Texas

W.D Farr, Farr Cattle Feeding, Colorado

2010

Ladd Hitch, Hitch Enterprises, Oklahoma

Kenny Monfort, Monfort Cattle Feeding, Colorado

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