Dairy Farm Families Are Invited to Learn About Succession Planning for All Ages
To help dairy farm families begin tackling the process of succession planning and ownership transition, the Professional Dairy Managers of Pennsylvania (PDMP) and the Center for Dairy Excellence will be hosting a Fall Forum titled “Own Your Future” on Thursday, November 10 from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Janelle Hall in Berks County. The discussion will provoke dairy producers to think forward about who will be owning the business in the future and how that can come to fruition. It will prompt partners and the younger generations to consider what they need to do to position themselves for where they wish to be in the business when there is a change. A networking lunch and afternoon tour at Vista Grande Farm will also be part of the forum.
“Regardless of your age, if you have a stake in a dairy farm, or you hope to, you need to be sorting out your plan now for future retirement or your entry into ownership. The Fall Forum should give every generation currently working on the farm, whether it’s my dad’s generation or mine, the insights they need now to take ownership of their personal future,” said Allen Behrer of Willow Behrer Farms in Huntington County and President of PDMP.
With a panel of dairy producers and financial and retirement advisors, there will be candid conversations about lessons they have learned while navigating family business transitions, retirements, death, acquisitions, and the sometimes difficult task of simply starting the conversation with family members.
The following panelists will be part of the conversation:
- Jennifer Voss, Voss Group, is a business and family management consultant with nearly 20 years of GE training, business management, and team leadership experience and another 16 working with many family-owned businesses— including farm operations across the eastern United States on management succession and employee engagement.
- Mike and Tony Brubaker of Brubaker Farms have learned from experience, both as the receivers from their parents and now as they look toward their own retirement and structure a partnership for their children as they return to the farm, about how to plan a successful succession of a family business.
- Mike Hosterman, Horizon Farm Credit, has seen it all as one of Pennsylvania’s most seasoned ag business consultants working across multiple generations on every conceivable ownership transition, both planned and unplanned. He will share tips on how to avoid disastrous family disfunction and successfully prepare for a smooth and successful transition for all.
- Mike Peachey, a partner at Acuity Advisors and CPAS, has decades of experience helping agri-businesses be strategic in gaining control over their destiny and a keen understanding, as an unbiased third-party, of the sensitivity around intergenerational family businesses and strategies for creating win-win situations for everyone involved.
- Lucas Waybright is a former next-generation dairy farmer who is now the Dairy Grazing Project Manager at Pasa with a unique vantage point of a young dairyman who, after attempting to find a partnership path within his own family’s dairy business, is now certified to help other farm families as a farm succession coordinator.
Learn more about the event:
- When: Thursday, November 10 at 9:30 a.m. Lunch and tour of Vista Grande Farm to follow.
- Location:
Janelle Hall
360 Fleetwood Road
Mertztown, PA 19511 - Cost:
$35 – PDMP Member Farm, Business or Organization
$50 – PDMP Non-Member Farm, Business or Organization - How to Register: Call 877-326-5993 or email registration@pdmp.org. Visit www.centerfordairyexcellence.org/own-your-future to be directed to the online registration page.
For additional information about the Fall Forum, contact PDMP at caroline@nsallc.com or 877-326-5993 or Melissa Anderson from the Center at manderson@centerfordairyexcellence.org or 717-346-0849.