Dave Slusser Named General Manager
Of Pennsylvania DHIA
(Contlnuad from Pago A 1)
Frank Orner, Pennsylvania
DHIA president, made the
announcement of Dave’s selection
as the new general manager after
lengthy discussions in the board
meeting Monday afternoon. Omer
said Dave will be responsible for
overall adminstration of person
nel, financial, and legal manage
ment of the association. This will
include office, field, laboratory,
and record processing services.
Dave holds a bachelor of sci
ence degree from Penn Stale and
was named distinguished alumnus
for the department of dairy and
animal science in 1991. He worked
for Penn State and Ohio State as an
extension agent and was at one
time employed with the Pennsyl
vania Holstein Association.
Most recently Dave was a Hols
tein breeder in Crawford County
and served for 19 years on the
Atlantic Breeders Coop board of
directors, 10 years as president He
was a member of Federated Gene
tics Council, the National Associa-
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tion of Animal Breeders board,
and the National Council on Dairy
Cattle Breeding.
Dave’s involvement with DHIA
has included the Dairy Records
Processing Advisory Committee
and the State DHIA Task Force. In
northwestern Pennsylvania, Dave
served as a director of Farm Credit
and taught computer seminars for
regional farmers, a financial work
shop for bankers, and courses on
agricultural careers for high school
students.
In his local community Dave
has served his church as modera
tor, deacon, trustee and Sunday
School teacher. He saved as a 4-H
dairy club leader, a director of
Crawford County Holstein Club,
and a committee person for the
extension dairy advisory
committee.
Recently, Dave and his wife
Kaye worked with Volunteers in
Overseas Cooperative Assistance,
advising farmers about forming
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America. The Slussers have two
children, Lee and Dana, who are
both in college.
“I think Pennsylvania DHIA
needs strong leadership,” Dave
said in an interview in the state
office on Tuesday. “And the board
of directors thought I was the one
to give them that leadership as we
make the transition into a competi
tive organization. I’m very
humbled that they think I can
handle that. I’m humbled by that
confidence. There is an awful lot to
do, and we might fail.
“I would have liked to have two
years to learn everything about the
organization so I could be prepared
to lead. Even one year would have
helped. But I need to learn real
quick. DHIA is going through tre
mendous change from more or less
a monopoly to a competitive orga
nization. Italmostseems to me that
Pennsylvania is experiencing the
blunt of this new experiment I
think this is the real challenge.
“Pennsylvania has a very excel
lent board of directors. But they
have been criticized harshly and
very unfairly in the past. I think
they are and were honest men try
ing to do what they thought was
right for all our members. They
made mistakes. But they have a
farm to run at home and a few days
every other month in State College
doesn’t give them enough know
ledge to run the day to day opera
tion of the organization. They have
to be led. I really believe a good
farm organization has to have a
good management leader. I’m not
sure I’m the one, but I think every
successful farm cooperative has
had good management leadership.
“My concern is for all dairymen
but especially Pennsylvania dairy
men. We are in hard times. Dairy k
farming is changing so fast, and
I’m not sure the average dairyman
is aware of what’s happening. I’m
not sure DHIA has a grasp of
what’s happening.
“Herds arc gelling larger. Wc
will always have the “part-time”
herds and the large herds. The
medium-size herds will fade away.
I’ve read these projections for
many years. Our own herd was id
the medium range, and I saw wc
needed to get larger or one of us
needed to seek income off the
farm.’We opted to take the punt
option and sell the farm.
“It’s hard to say why I wanted
this job. I had other less risky job
opportunities, but it seemed I was
led in this direction. I really
believe a lot of DHIA’s problems
could have been prevented through
leadership. I have thought all along
as things progressed that there
were better ways to do it. But 1,
don’t want to dwell on that. Wc
need to start where we are and
move ahead. We can’t do anything
about the past, but we can do an
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awful Jot about, the- future. It’s
going to take some dramatic
changes of policy and philosophy
by the board, by the staff, and by
the members. A lot of it is sheer
leadership. We are brothers and
sisters in this business. We are out
for the member’s good.
“Farmers need to be worked
with and helped through changing
times. The general manager is the
rudder that steers the ship. That’s
true, but it’s not true. The captain is
above at the wheel and that captain
is the board of directors. They set
the direction of the ship.
“In the pest few years, I think the
motive of the bond was to keep
preparing for the future, and that
was centralization. A lot of people
were against centralization, but it
makes sense. When you have four
or five employees on your farm,
you want diem to be your employ
ees. You don’t want to go through
another group or another fanner to
your employees. I think that’s
what the board of directors was
trying to do. Some mistakes were
made that hurt that process.
“What I plan to do is spend a lot
of time in the field. That will be
hard because there is so much to do
here in the office. But the members
need to rebuild their trust in Pen
nsylvania DHIA, the board, the
staff and the management Trust
needs to be built up. Distrust, real
or imagined, has hurt us. So I plan
to try to heal these problems from
the bottom up. In the past it was
build from the top down.
“We have an excellent lab.
Nationally, it is rated 100 percent
in quality work. We also have
excellent field service technicians,
who also rated 100 percent in the
annual evaluation by the National
Dairy Herd Improvement
Asosciation.
“In addition, we have an excel
lently rated processing center; in
other words, everything we do has
been rated among the best in the
nation.
“But trust must be rebuilt And
this must be done reasonably fast
It’s a real challenge.
‘The dairy industry lacks lead
ership that draws people together.
We must work together or we are
going to die together. It’s a peril
that dairymen are in today because
we can’t work together. We can no
longer expect government help.
And the market isn’t going to do it.
Markets will be competitive and
cheap. Farmers can help them
selves if they work together. It
doesn’t seem to work that way, but
it’s my mission.
“We at DHIA need to watch our
image. You need to watch your
image as much as your actions.
Recently the comment was made
that we don’t want to give out cost
information because people will
use it to bid against us. But the
other side of this reasoning is that
to not give cost information gives
the impression (image) that we
u 4mm m ■
don’t know-what the costs are or
’Wilt’s going on. We know what
the costs are, and we know what’s
going on. and we need to get peo
ple to know this.
“Fanning has a way of harden
ing a person’s hean. I saw it hap
pening to me over the years. But I
decided I wasn’t going to allow the
family business to make me less of
a person. I caught that tendency in
myself and corrected it. But I can
certainly understand how it hard
ens people’s hearts.
“The same is true of the family.
The worse you handle the pres
sures of life, the worse you deal
with your family. We have to cor
rect that And my solution, the only
solution that I see in all of this is to
run the association by THE
BOOK.’ When you follow the
guidelines in the Bible, you have a
foundation that will help you. It
will be hard, but I have the tools to
handle it when someone gets angry
with me. These tools are in The
Book.
“In Pennsylvania DHIA we are
in a grave situation. We must stop
the hemorrhaging of the organiza
tion. We have to appeal to the good
businessmen on the dairy farm. A
lot of people who make the most
noise won’t be in business a few
years from now. I’m not sure
where we will go in the future. But
our mission is to make sure there is
an excellent DHIA program for the
dairymen in Pennsylvania. We
want to do whatever is necessary to
accomplish this. But I’m not sure
we can continue with the program
as we now have it. It’s too early to
tell.
“We want to be friendly compe
titors with neighboring organiza
tions so we don’t bum any bridges
that would keep us from forming
alliances in the future. I’m going to
try to work more closely with Lan
caster and Crawford. We have
allowed pride and stubbornness in
the dairy industry to cost farmers
too much for too long. And they
can’t afford the extra cost.”
“But we will have to prove
ourselves. To go in and pick off
one herd at a time in the neighbor
ing territories will be a win/losc
situation. We need to work with
other organizations in a coopera
tive way.
“I have always been a competi
tive man. I promoted free enter
prise as a fanner. But I now hate
what is has done to the family
farm. I always wanted the govern
ment to get out of farming and let
supply and demand take its course.
But in all my years as a farmer, I
don’t think I realized what it was
doing to farm families because far
mers can’t work together.
“1 want to be the
mediator, the liason
between the factions in
this organization. 1 want
to pull people together. 1
believe that’s my gift.
It’s certainly my goal to
get farmers to work
together. If at all possi
ble, I would like to sec
all of Pennsylvania back
together again. That
would be my ultimate
goal.
“No, I don’t mind if
you put that in print.”