MIRANDA REIMAN: 

From Angus Link growth to the new angus.org, the 20 23 24 fiscal year was full of milestones for the American Angus Association. Today we bring you Darrell Stevenson, a White Sulphur Springs, Mont., who just began his term as treasurer of the board of directors.  

It's been a great Angus convention and it's been fun to be in the hallways or some of the meeting rooms to get to talk about some of our top successes of the year. So I thought I'd take a few minutes to ask you about a few of those.  

DARRELL STEVENSON: 

Yeah, absolutely.  

REIMAN: 

Let's start out with AngusLink.  

STEVENSON: 

Well, first of all, I’ll say just truly excited about the state of the breed and general enthusiasm from the entire membership. I thought this convention was incredibly well attended. The optimism was just soaring all the way around, and you could feel how positive everybody is looking forward, not only for the breed, but where we are in the state of the industry. So, your question directly to AngusLink to me, actually, you probably frame maybe what I’m most optimistic about, where we’ve seen the largest growth curve and uptake maybe in what we are offering as an Association. AngusLink is not a new program. It's been around a while, and industry engagement from a membership standpoint and even from the cow-calf side was I think a little slow to be accepted. And so two years ago we made a couple slightly radical changes in that, and it took a little bit of a learning curve and understanding for our commercial producers to take advantage of this feeder calf marketing program. And that to me has been more than proven in the last fiscal year where we saw, I believe it was an — 

REIMAN: 

85, 80 5%  

STEVENSON (01:53): 

— growth, 85% growth in consignments year over year from ’22 to ’23. And I do not see that slowing down. And why this is brilliant for all of Angus: Remember in talking about AngusLink in general, it includes two programs to me. Probably the one that I think is most valid for my country and a lot of producers up north at least, is AngusVerified. That is the validation that their progeny descend from registered Angus bulls, and to me it has been absolutely astonishing that with the realization at the feeder level that we needed a point of separation from the sea of black Angus or black cattle to what truly is descended from these pedigreed registered cattle. And I think in learning the difference between the two classes of cattle, it’s created demand and therefore value immediately. Of course, probably the one that is maybe a little more exposed is the second component in the [Genetic] Merit Scorecard.  

And it’s incredibly credible. We are now getting feedback, third party validation on how accurate those predictions actually are. And we’re truly excited that National [Beef] came on board in the month of August to offering a grid premium simply for being AngusLink -- the first time, I believe probably in history that a premium was offered simply because of the genomic genetic prepotency. And with their help and assistance with continued kill data and feedback, it further validates what we're doing. So, with those two options, we kind of approach the commercial industry for their understanding of that marketability, whereas the feedlot and especially the packer level have really identified that there is true value to be captured on genetics. And that's where we need the industry to be, to understand the true value of what a registration paper and that history actually predicts.  

REIMAN: 

And, of course, that’s good for your commercial producers when you can provide them a tool to differentiate, but as you just alluded to, it also ties right back to your bottom line as an Angus breeder.  

STEVENSON: 

Absolutely. And well, in addition to that, too, I mean we’re talking specifically about feeder cattle, but I mean there are options on the maternal function as well that in the state, that the industry is where right around the corner we’ve got to be concentrating on a nationwide rebuild and there is a maternal component on those genomic merit scorecards, which then directly correlates back into our Gene Max testing as well. So, I don’t want to sell this off as a total terminal program because there are a lot of maternal components that are very useful to the commercial sector as well.  

REIMAN: 

Absolutely. Another thing that we talked about that is semi-related here is that registration numbers were up and the lion’s share of that increase was due to bulls.  

STEVENSON: 

The increase was due to bulls. And I'm not surprised at all, and I think this is in large part due to the increase in demand for AngusLink, I mean, we are seeing a slow transfer back from using generic black bulls, crossbred bulls, commercial bulls back to bulls with some predictability because they are seeing more value in that due to AngusLink.  

REIMAN: 

Another thing that we talk about as a major success of the fiscal year, or maybe I just say that I got to work on the project a little bit, but would be the undertaking of Angus.org revamp. 

STEVENSON: 

To me, I’m pretty close to this. I actually helped serve on that committee from the beginning of the project, and I make no claim on the success on that because the effort to recreate Angus.org and bring everybody back onto the same platform was enormous. It was a gigantic effort for all the staff that was involved. It was time consuming, it was rather expensive. But the fact of the matter is, prior to this revamp, we as in Angus was on several different platforms. I mean, we weren’t channeling or directing people to one spot. And I think that gathers us all up as far as the direct membership as well as our commercial producers and industry alliances allies. And so to me, I’ve stated this before that I believe the concept of just building one general platform where it in my ideal world would be the landing page for every producer, regardless of where they are in the industry, commercial or purebred, I’ve stated before, they wake up in the morning, they have their cup of coffee or they want to peruse sale books, this is where they land. And I think it’s important for us as an Association because it’s a continual mechanism to deliver our message, whether it's education or marketing updates or other opportunities that are out here. So, I’m absolutely thrilled with us actually being more real time and up to speed than where we’ve been the last few years.  

REIMAN: 

And a great example of that. This coverage will be right on the new website, but easy for anybody listening to go find a recap of what happened here if you weren’t able to attend the event.  

STEVENSON: 

Much simpler. Yes. Access has been fine tuned. We're real time now.  

REIMAN: 

Absolutely. Is there anything else that you’d like to add as we close out looking towards the future?  

STEVENSON: 

Well, that’s a broad question. I would say that in quick summary, we might be living in the best of times. We might be living in the best of times in this breed for our position industry wide, and that to me is actually a bigger challenge than maybe what we’ve actually ever seen before because I don’t believe in complacency. And I think that we have the right staff and the talent in the buildings in Wooster and St. Joe and the current leadership along with the rest of the board, that I am very energized that every time that we convene instead of dealing with concerns, issues, or problems, we are very forward looking. And I want to assure membership. To me this is an exciting challenge to simply get better, to improve the breed and to improve the services that we have to offer.  

REIMAN: 

I feel like we're well equipped with the leadership looking forward. And thank you for your time on the board and looking forward to the year ahead.  

STEVENSON: 

Absolutely. Thank you.  

REIMAN: 

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