Roy Celebrates 15 Years with Iowa Select Farms
posted on Wednesday, February 17, 2021
Congratulations to Roy for celebrating 15 years with Iowa Select Farms!
As a young boy in the community of Nora Springs, Roy would spend his days helping on a neighbor’s farm doing pig chores, milking cows, and baling hay. He jokes it’s how kids kept busy “back in his day”. Then, many years later in 2006, Roy found himself taking a step back in time when he applied to be an animal caretaker at Iowa Select Farms
Roy’s first job with the company was a bit of a trifecta, working as an animal caretaker, maintenance technician and wean truck driver (you can tell biosecurity protocols were a bit different back then!) at Sow 116. He worked there six months before transferring to Paine F343, which was a GDU at the time. Then, in mid-2007 Roy started working at Jensen G125, where he’s been ever since and now manages.
“There are so many things I like about this farm,” he said. “The guys I work with are great and I enjoy working with animals, but perhaps what I like most is working together to hit the production goals that are set for us.”
If you’ve seen any of our posts on Jensen G125, it will come as no surprise that the farm has experienced a lot of production success, particularly in the company’s SelectPride rankings. They’ve consistently ranked in the Top 10 of GDUs, commonly snagging the first-place spot, and the sow farms they provide gilts for have also been performing exceptionally well.
“At our farm we focus on getting everyone cross-trained because that’s when we are most efficient,” Roy explained. “Communication is also one of the biggest and most important things for us. We always talk about what’s going on, what needs to be done and since we’re all cross-trained, we can usually make a plan of attack to get things done accordingly.”
In the past 15 years, Roy has enjoyed seeing the improvements the company has made in technology, animal well-being and biosecurity. “The filters have been a huge improvement to herd health, even if they did take some time for an old guy like me to learn,” he chuckled. But don’t let him fool you, Roy is one of the savviest guys around, spending nearly all of his free time outside of work restoring classic cars.
“I just got a ’64 Plymouth convertible, just like I had when I was a teen,” gleamed Roy. “I think it might be one my favorites because it brings back a lot of good memories. Cars have a way of doing that.”
He’s also got a 1930 Essex Street Rod he’s proud of and is currently working on a 1970s Pontiac GTO. When he’s not restoring cars, Roy enjoys gardening, spending time with his family, 16 grandkids and three great grandkids.
Even with retirement on the horizon, Roy isn’t planning on slowing down anytime. “We’ve got big goals for our farm team this year and I’m excited to see what we’re capable of,” he said. “When you’ve got a good team that works well together, there’s something so very special about that and I feel lucky.”
Congratulations on 15 years, Roy! Keep up the great work and crushing your goals at Jensen.
Subscribe to our newsletter: Get fresh articles delivered straight to your inbox.
Subscribe