Dr. Hans Coetzee

Dr. Hans Coetzee is an assistant professor in the Agricultural practices section at Kansas State University. He obtained his Bachelor of Veterinary Science degree from the University of Pretoria, South Africa in 1996. After graduation he worked for four years in mixed animal practice in Northern Ireland followed by 2 years in pharmaceutical research and development at Norbrook Laboratories Ltd. He received a specialist Certificate in Cattle Health and Production from the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (London) in 2000 and a doctorate in Veterinary Microbiology from Iowa State University in 2005. He holds board certification in Veterinary Clinical Pharmacology and his professional interests include pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modeling of analgesic drugs in food animals and therapy of bovine anaplasmosis. In his spare time he enjoys fly fishing and hiking.

Lily Edwards

Dr. Lily Edwards is an assistant professor of animal behavior and welfare at Kansas State University. She obtained a B.A. in French from Amherst College in 2002.  After teaching in Belgium for a year after graduating, she decided to continue her education in Animal Science. She received her M.S from the university of Rhode Island in 2006 studying behavior and welfare of captive zoo species.  She completed her Ph.D. at Colorado State University in 2009 focusing on understanding and minimizing pre-slaughter stress of swine.  At KSU, Dr. Edwards conducts research, advises students and teaches courses in animal behavior, welfare and ethical issues in agriculture.

Ron Gill

Ron completing his bachelors and masters degrees at Angelo State University before receiving his PhD from Texas A&M in 1984. Ron has served Texas livestock producers for 25 years as a Professor and Extension Livestock Specialist for Texas AgriLife Extension Service. In addition to his duties as a Livestock Specialist he also serves Texas A&M University as the Associate Department Head and Program Leader for Extension Animal Science. 

Ron is involved nationally in addressing industry concerns and issues related to animal welfare and well-being.  Most recently he was asked to serve on the Beef Committee for the newly formed North American Food Animal Well-Being Commission.  He is active in state and national efforts to improve beef safety and quality and was instrumental in developing and starting the Texas Beef Quality Producer program.

He is heavily involved in promoting the concept of Effective Stockmanship focusing on improving livestock handling skills to reduce stress on livestock and increase efficiency of production. Ron continues to work with NCBA’s Stockmanship and Stewardship program which is supported by NCBA, LMA and industry sponsors to deliver this message to beef producers across the nation.
 

Dr. Temple Grandin

Dr. Grandin is a designer of livestock handling facilities and a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. Facilities she has designed are located in the United States, Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries. In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Curved chute and race systems she has designed for cattle are used worldwide and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many people to reduce stress on thier animals during handling.

She has also developed an objective scoring system for assessing handling of cattle and pigs at meat plants. This scoring system is being used by many large corporations to improve animal welfare. Other areas of research are: cattle temperament, environmental enrichment for pigs, reducing dark cutters and bruises, bull fertility, training procedures, and effective stunning methods for cattle and pigs at meat plants.

She obtained her B.A. at Frankin Pierce College and her M.S. in Animal Science at Arizona State University. Dr. Grandin received her Ph.D in Animal Science from the University of Illinois in 1989. Today she teaches courses on livestock behavior and facility design at Colorado State University and consults with the livestock industry on facility design, livestock handling, and animal welfare. On February 6th, HBO will air a movie on Grandin's life. She has appeared on television shows such as 20/20, 48 Hours, CNN Larry King Live, PrimeTime Live, the Today Show, and many shows in other countries. She has been featured in People Magazine, the New York Times, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, Time Magazine, the New York Times book review, and Discover magazine. Interviews with Dr. Grandin have been broadcast on National Public Radio. She has also authored over 300 articles in both scientific journals and livestock periodicals on animal handling, welfare, and facility design. She is the author of "Thinking in Pictures", "Livestock Handling and Transport," and "Genetics and the Behavior of Domestic Animals." Her book "Animals in Translation" was a New York Times best seller. Grandin has recently written another best seller " Animals Make us Human". In addition, to these two best sellers she has a brand new book, published by CABI in the UK entitled, "Improving Animal Welfare: A Practical Approach". Grandin has also authored a book titled "Humane Livestock Handling". 

 

Dee Griffin

Dee Griffin, an “Okie” raised on a small cow/calf operation, has focused his entire professional career on cattle.  After completing his veterinary degree from Oklahoma State University he did his graduate work at Purdue University in pathology & nutrition.Most of his career has been spent full time in the cattle industry.  He was the staff veterinarian for Hitch Enterprises, a family owned operation that had 1200 cows, as many as 20,000 stockers, over 250,000 feeder cattle and two packing plants. He has worked with the BQA program since its inception when Hitch became the first USDA Verified Control Production beef operation.  Today he is a Professor at the University of Nebraska in the Veterinary and Biomedical Science Department teaching at the Great Plains Veterinary Educational Center. His emphasis area is developing pre-harvest HACCP (Hazard Analysis, Critical Control Points) production practices.Dr. Griffin is the winner of the American Association of Bovine Practitioners national award for Excellence in Preventive Medicine and their national award for Institutional Teaching, Research and Service Excellence.  He received the Academy of Veterinary Consultants’ Consultant of the Year.  He serves on the National Cattlemen's Beef Association’s Beef Quality & Safety Assurance Advisory Board, on the FDA’s Veterinary Medical Advisory Committee and on the Professional Animal Auditor’s Certification Organization (PAACO) board.

Derek Haley

Derek Haley is an Assistant Professor at the Ontario Veterinary College. Dr Haley’s areas of expertise are farm animal behaviour, and farm animal welfare. In addition to directing his research program in these areas, he also teaches these subjects to students in the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and graduate degree programs at the University of Guelph. After receiving his Master of Science degree from the University of Guelph, he completed his PhD at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Saskatchewan. He spent 4 years as the From 2003 to 2007 he served as the Provincial Livestock Welfare Specialist for the Alberta government. From 2007 to 2009 he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Alberta. A majority of Dr Haley’s research has focused on the behaviour and welfare of cattle, both beef and dairy. Some of the areas he has investigated include cross-sucking problems in young dairy calves, indoor housing for dairy cattle, beef cattle handling and temperament, and weaning stress in beef cattle.

Guy Loneragan is an epidemiologist and Associate Professor at West Texas A&M University.  He received his veterinary degree from the University of Sydney, which is located in Sydney, Australia.  He then received further post-graduate training at Colorado State University where he was awarded his MS and PhD.  

Dr. Loneragan is research driven and he has participated on an excess of $5M in research projects.  The primary focus of his research is epidemiological approaches to food safety and in particular, he works to fill data gaps concerning pre-harvest ecology and mitigation of E. coli O157, Salmonella, and antimicrobial drug resistance.  He also serves in Adjunct Professor or Affiliate Faculty roles at Colorado State University, Texas Tech University, Kansas State University, and Texas A&M University.

He is an active member of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, American Association of Bovine Practitioners, Academy of Veterinary Consultants, International Symposium of Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics, the Conference of Research Workers in Animal Diseases (CRWAD), and International Association of Food Protection.  

In addition to his research activities, Dr. Loneragan currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors for the Academy of Veterinary Consultants, on the Steering Committee of the Food Safety Research and Response Network, he is Epidemiology Section Leader for CRWAD, a member of the College of Reviewers for the Alberta Prion Research Institute, a member of the board of scientific reviewers for the American Journal of Veterinary Research, and is involved numerous working groups for NCBA.  He also served as an alternate member for the 2007 USDA's Secretary's Advisory Committee on Foreign Animal and Poultry Diseases.

Terry Mader

Terry Mader is a Beef Cattle Extension Specialists and Professor of Animal Science from the University of Nebraska, Haskell Ag. Laboratory, Concord NE.. Dr. Mader earned his B.S. from Kansas State University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Animal Nutrition from Oklahoma State University.  Dr Mader is involved in numerous collaborative projects studying environmental effects on animal productivity. His international experience includes collaborative research and extension efforts with colleagues in Canada and South America and is currently an honorary professor of Animal Production at the University of Queensland in Australia. He is actively involved in evaluating models and management strategies which can be used to minimize environmental stress in livestock. He is author or co-author of over 300 scientific publications.

Dr. Frank Mitloehner

 Frank Mitloehner is an expert for agricultural air quality, animal-environmental interactions, and environmental engineering. Dr. Mitloehner is an Associate Professor and Air Quality Specialist in Cooperative Extension. Since he joined the faculty in the Department of Animal Science at the University of California- Davis in 2002, Dr. Mitloehner has generated and published data that are rapidly changing how livestock facilities in California and throughout the US are regulated. Dr. Mitloehner is PI of more than $5 million for a broad range of studies and has authored 33 publications in refereed journals. He serves as Director of the UC Davis Agricultural Air Quality Center. In 2004 he chaired the Federation of Animal Science Societies publication of the Beef Training Module, a peer-reviewed national worker training curriculum used across research and teaching university in the United States. Dr. Mitloehner was the 2006 recipient of the UC Davis Academic Federation Excellence in Research Award and the EPA Region IX Environmental Award and the 2009 recipient of the University of California Distinguished Service Award for Outstanding Research. Dr.Mitloehner received his MS degree in Animal Science and Agricultural Engineering from the University of Leipzig, Germany, in 1996 and his PhD degree in Animal Science from Texas Technical University in 2000. His undergraduate and graduate instructional areas include livestock production, environmental physiology, comparative anatomy and physiology, and grant writing.

Tom Noffsinger, DVM

1973 graduate at CSU, DVM
1994 Graduate-Beef Production Management Series, Great Plains Veterinary Education Center, UNL

2001 Consultant of the Year-Academy of Veterinary Consultants
NVMA-Distinguished Service Award
Member of AVMA, NVMA, AVC, AABP
Past President of AVC

1973-2005: Beef Cattle Practice-Twin Forks Clinic, Benkelman, Nebraska
Mixed Practice with emphasis on Feedlot and Ranch Consultation and Applications of Low Stress Handling
2005-Present: Independent Feedlot Consultation, Facility design, and Stockmanship

Gatz Riddell

Dr. Gatz Riddell received his D.V.M. degree from Kansas State University in 1977.  Following a residency at Auburn University from 1977 to 1981, he practiced until returning to Auburn University in 1984.  He became a Diplomat of the American College of Theriogenologists in 1982 and received his MS from Auburn in 1984.    He is a Professor Emeritus at Auburn University. He currently is the Executive Vice President of the American Association of Bovine Practitioners.

Dr. M. Gatz Riddell
Executive Vice President
American Association of Bovine Practitioners
P.O. Box 3610
Auburn, AL 36831-3610
Business: (334) 821-0442
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Jeff Rushen

Jeffrey Rushen is a researcher in dairy cattle welfare at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Research Centre, in Agassiz, British Columbia, and an adjunct professor in the Animal Welfare Program at the University of British Columbia and at the University of Laval in Quebec. He received his B Sc degree in psychology and zoology, and his Ph D degree in animal behavior from the University of Queensland in Australia. Since then he has worked on many aspects of animal welfare in poultry, sheep, swine and beef and dairy cattle, with positions in Australia, Germany, Sweden and Canada. He has on-going collaborative research in Japan, Denmark and Finland. His current interests are in lameness in dairy cows and milk-feeding, sickness and play behaviour of calves. He was a member of the European Food Safety Authority working group reviewing dairy cow welfare and is currently the research representative on The National farm Animal Care Council of Canada. He co-chaired the NFACC scientists’ committee reviewing priority areas of dairy cattle welfare, and was on the committee developing the new Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Dairy Cattle for Canada. He has written over 100 scientific articles on farm animal welfare and has authored or co-authored several books and book chapters on this topic.

Karen Schwartzkopf-Genswein

Dr. Jan Shearer

Dr. Shearer received his DVM degree from The Ohio State University in 1975.  He served as an Associate Veterinarian at the Orrville Veterinary Clinic Inc. in north central Ohio for 4 ½ years before returning to The Ohio State University to pursue graduate studies in nutrition.  He was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department of Veterinary Preventive Medicine at The Ohio State University in 1981.  In 1982 he relocated to the University of Florida where he became Professor and Dairy Extension Veterinarian at the College of Veterinary Medicine.  Dr. Shearer served the University of Florida for 27 years before accepting his current position as Professor and Extension Veterinarian at Iowa State University.  His primary research and extension interests are lameness of dairy cattle, bovine behavior and animal welfare. He currently serves as Chair of the American Association of Bovine Practitioners (AABP) Animal Welfare Committee (AWC), member of the Board of Directors of the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization (PAACO), and was recently appointed to the North American Food Animal Well-Being Commission – Beef.  He also serves on the planning committee for the American College of Animal Welfare (ACAW), a proposed Specialty Board in Animal Welfare.  He is Coordinator of the AABP Bovine Lameness Seminar and Program Coordinator of the Food Animal Program of the North American Veterinary Conference.  He is a past recipient of the Florida Distinguished Extension Service Award, the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Superior Accomplishment Award, and the 2003 USDA Secretary of Agriculture’s Honor Award for outstanding innovation in animal health.  He has also been honored by The Ohio State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine with the Distinguished Alumnus Award, and by the AABP with the Alpharma Award of Excellence.  Most recently became the Chair of the AVMA Food Animal Working Group Panel on Euthanasia.

Dr. Mike Siemens

Dr. Siemens obtained his B.S. from Purdue University in 1983 and his M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in 1990. Following his time at the University of Missouri he was a Nutrition Consultant with DeKalb Feeds located in the mid-west. In 1991 Dr. Siemens took a faculty position with the University of Wisconsin as their State Beef Cattle Specialist with tenure. Following his 10 years at the UW he then took a position with Smithfield Foods, Inc. as their Director of Cattle Development and subsequently moved into the position of Director of Integrated Meat Technology. From 2004 – 2006 Dr. Siemens was the Chairman of the American Meat Institute Animal Welfare Committee. In 2006 Dr. Siemens and his family moved to Wichita, KS where he took a position with Cargill as their Beef Program Development Director. Currently Dr. Siemens is Leader - Animal Welfare and Husbandry for Cargill Animal Protein where he oversees animal welfare efforts for the global meat businesses of Cargill. Dr. Siemens is currently a member of the Animal Welfare Committees for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, National Pork Board, National Pork Producers Council, National Turkey Federation, Animal Ag Alliance and the American Meat Institute.  Dr. Siemens is a foundation instructor for the Professional Animal Auditor Certification Organization and is also a member of the Cross Border Livestock Health Conference task force to evaluate North American livestock transportation programs. In addition, Dr. Siemens is an ad hoc member of the North American Food Animal Well-being Commission for Beef.