NCBA's Young Beef Leaders Program

There has been a new focus at this year's Cattle Industry Convention and NCBA Trade Show —- seminars and networking opportunities for young leaders within the beef industry. I caught up with Young Beef Leader Chair and Oregon Rancher Keith Nantz who shares more

Nantz: "This is really our foundational year at convention to invite the new Young Beef Leaders Program to hopefully hit a home run with all the new young producers coming into it. There is a lot of opportunities for young producers and young leaders especially. We've build this program around building leaders at the state level — building from the ground up. We've gone through the process and discussed — at considerable length — by doing that we will build the whole industry and the association throughout. So if you are a good leader and you start at the county level and if that is all the further you want to go — that's okay. But at least we've done our job and put some good leadership within at the county level. If you want to continue that growth in leadership we can continue to engaging you for the state, regional and even the national level. All the way through we can build a structure and for the future of our industry we've got good leadership coming through."

The feedback has been positive from those participating in the program as Nantz continues

Nantz: "At the Cattlemen's College we had our own track as young producers and some of the things that challenged us as young producers There was great attendance, lots of good questions and some excitement built around that. So we've got the ball rolling and are headed in a good direction."