Keep taking the opportunities in front of you, even if it means a change
posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2016
“I’ve made quite a few big changes in my life, and each time it’s been for the better,” said Nick, a finishing supervisor for Iowa Select Farms. “My best advice would be to keep taking the opportunities in front of you, even if it means a change”
Growing up on a farm, Nick enjoyed working in agriculture and bypassed college to join the industry full time. Like many of our finishing supervisors, Nick got his start in pork production working on a sow farm where he worked his way up to the manager position.
While he enjoyed the breed-to-wean side, he often thought of moving into a finishing supervisor role. When one opened up at Iowa Select Farms, he applied for the position but worried he lacked the computer technology experience required to collect, process and analyze the finishing metrics needed to help the managers improve. After Nick interviewed and said yes to his new challenge, it didn’t take him long to prove himself wrong, quickly picking up the user-friendly Tools site and reporting mechanisms from the farm computers, along with navigating his own laptop and smartphone accessing live results anytime and anywhere. “Now I spend a lot of time training my contractors on how to order feel and input records at the sites, and I can walk anyone through the numbers, identify trends and pull any data I need.”
After two years overseeing the finishing region in the Howard/Mitchell County territory—landing in the top ten overall SelectPride list for both years—he found himself saying “yes” to yet another opportunity. Barb, a nursery manager located near St. Ansgar, and Sal, a farrowing department manager at Sow 27 near Riceville, were both developing quickly and were ready to move upward into finishing management. With talent to backfill, this allowed Nick the opportunity to take on 72,000 pig spaces around the Fort Dodge area, a region in need of supervisor.
“The change has been a great experience for me,” said Nick. “There is a tremendous amount of care and passion for the business here and we are all working hard to make improvements. We’ve made some small changes and are keeping a big focus on early pig care and it’s paid off. Mortality for our farms dropped from 7% to 1.5% since February (go get it!) and the managers are really doing a great job, even with some challenges of downstream PRRS and mycoplasma.”
Changes like getting out to his weaned sites 2-3 times a week, slightly lowering the target temps to improve air quality, providing technical training on disease identification and treatment, plus a whole lot of communication has helped improve results.
“One thing I really appreciated about Nick was that he always had everything under control,” said Ron, his senior supervisor prior to the move. “He never got rattled, always had his work well organized and completed and never got caught up if someone else dropped a ball, he’d take care of it and move on.”
Nick also helps mentor new supervisors, a common program within the finishing team where tenured supervisors are paired up with newer ones. “It helps to have someone who is your ‘go to’, and Nick has been mentoring Chad, a finishing supervisor who also just came over from the sow system,” said Bob, Nick’s senior finishing supervisor. “He’s always willing to help out to make things better.”
“I love working here and I have a really great team of farm managers so I am grateful,” said Nick. “My goal was to always have a job like this, and I am glad I got through my own apprehensions and said yes to some great opportunities. I just wish that I would have done it sooner.” #billionpounds
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