Over the dates of September 24-25, the National Association of Animal Breeders (NAAB) held their annual meeting at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center, Green Bay, WI, in conjunction with the 25th NAAB Biennial Technical Conference on Artificial Insemination and Reproduction. Both functions combined, drew a crowd of approximately 250 attendees with 12 companies exhibiting their products, and eight international and 15 Canadian participants. A Convention Welcome reception sponsored by NAAB was held the evening of Wednesday, September 24th, and on Thursday, September 25th participants attended a special Awards Luncheon where 19 recipients received an award.
NAAB BUSINESS SESSION
The Convention Business Session was held Wednesday afternoon, September 24th. In his Chairman's Address, Keith Heikes discussed the Strategic Planning session at which a new vision statement for NAAB was developed. It reads as follows: "To be a globally respected, proactive service organization that promotes growth and provides more value for its members than they can achieve individually." Priority areas for NAAB were identified as Market Access; Governance; Genetic Evaluations, Databases and Infrastucture; Developing on Technologies and Developing future leaders. Goal statements were developed for each. He further indicated that, as a group, the Long Range Planning Committee felt this provided guidance to the Board and staff on the future direction of the organization.
It was announced that Jay Weiker has accepted the position as NAAB Vice President. In this role, Jay will be working specifically with the International Marketing Committee in trade development and servicing, as well as learning the other activities of NAAB.
For the past several years you have heard considerable discussion regarding the privatization of the dairy genetics evaluation system as it moved from the USDA AIPL to the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding (CDCB). This has been successfully implemented and is operating as intended.
He also reported a new SET Enrollment agreement and the associated MLA was negotiated and has been signed by those organizations participating in this HAUSA program.
In closing, Heikes thanked the NAAB Board of directors and the NAAB staff for their dedication to the association.
Dr. Gordon A Doak, NAAB president, reported that the total dairy and beef unit sales for 2013 increased 1.1% to 50,512,222 units. Export unit sales increased 6.32% to 20,582,325 units. The total dollar value for exports increased 8.22% in 2013, to $154,112,137.
DIRECTOR ELECTION
One director was re-elected to the NAAB Board this year, Wayne Glaeser. Other members of the Board include Keith Heikes, Genex Cooperative; Chuck Sattler, Select Sires; Dr. Nate Zwald, Accelerated Genetics; Les Hutchens, Reproduction Enterprises; Jesus Martinez, ABS Global; Joel Groskreutz, Accelerated Genetics.
At the Board reorganization meeting Keith Heikes was again elected Chairman, Chuck Sattler, Vice-Chairman and Dr. Nate Zwald, third member of the Executive Committee.
AWARDS
At Thursday's Awards Luncheon, Dave Goedken, Genex Cooperative, presented award recipients Landis Beyor, Larry Bueth, Mark Hodge with 100,000 Cow Award plaques; Charles Shkleton with 150,000 Cow Award plaque; Doug Westenbroek received an award for 3,000,000 Unit Sales.
Amy Vandermark presented Accelerated Genetics' award recipients Rod Andrae, Darin Klevgard, Douglas Lehman, Bruce Patnode, Dennis Syth 100,000 Cow Award plaques; Matthew Kieler with the 150,000 Cow Award plaque; Leonard Allemann with 175,000 Cow Award plaque; Edwin Corriea with 500,000 Unit Sales Award and James Iverson with the 1,000,000 Unit Sales Award.
Dr. Nate Zwald of Alta Genetics presented Gary B. Gardner with two awards, 1,500,000 Unit Sales and 50 years of Service.
NAAB Chairman of the Board, Keith Heikes, presented the 2014 NAAB Member Director award to Randy Kortus, Select Sires. The 2014 NAAB Distinguished Service Award was presented to Dr. Don Monke, Select Sires. The 2014 NAAB Pioneer Award was given posthumously to Dr. Roy Wallace. Dr. Curtis Van Tassell was presented the 2014 NAAB Research Award.
NAAB EDUCATIONAL SESSION
The educational session consisted of the entire NAAB 25th Biennial Technical Conference program, including a Semen Quality Workshop. There were a total of 23 speakers, 9 of which were non-industry.
Next year's annual meeting will be held in St. Louis, Missouri location to be determined, August 18-19, 2015.
NAAB 25th TECHNICAL CONFERENCE
ON ARTIFICIAL INSEMINATION AND REPRODUCTION
Wednesday afternoon, September 24 featured a Semen Quality Workshop in which several presentations were made including Use of Flow Cytometry for Semen Evaluation; Automated Sperm Motility Analysis; Automated Sperm Morphology Analysis; Visual Estimation of Fresh and Frozen Semen Motility; Visual Estimation of Sperm Morphology; Quality of the Physical Package: Filling Sealing and Straw Handling.
The NAAB Technical Conference proper opened Thursday morning, September 25 with a line-up of six speakers whose topics included: Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding (CDCB) Structure, the Cooperative Dairy DNA Repository (CDDR), Safety Training Concepts when Working with Bulls, Introduction of Student Posters, Importance and Challenges of a Beef Sires Fertility System, and Regulation of Sperm Movement Into and Through the Bovine Oviduct. Thursday afternoon attendees could choose to attend either a Barn Session or a Lab Session each including five specific topics of importance. In the evening participants were invited to a Reception hosted by NAAB which was held in the exhibit area.
The following morning, Friday, September 26, the Technical Conference continued until
noon with speakers presenting excellent information on Sexed-Ultra Raising the Fertility Bar of Sex Sorted Sperm; Global Disease Threats; Quality Assurance in EU Pig AI Centers; Overview of AI industry in South Africa; and Technologies on the Horizon.
From left: Chuck Sattler, Select Sires, Inc.; Dr. Gordon A. Doak, NAAB President; Les Hutchens, Reproduction Enterprises; Wayne Glaeser, representing JLG Enterprises; Joel Groskreutz, Accelerated Genetics; Dr. Nate Zwald, Alta Genetics USA; Jesus Martinez, ABS Global, Inc.; Keith Heikes, Genex Cooperative.
10.10.2014