Lifetime Servant Leadership

by Burt Rutherford

Dr. Ashby Green says he can’t hold a job. For the beef business, that’s been a good thing.

Dr. Ashby Green looks back on his life and career and declares that he can’t hold a job. A conversation with the veterinarian might, on the surface at least, indicate that he’s right. But a deeper look into his life and times reveals a man with a strong servant ethic who, quietly and behind the scenes, did his part to make the cattle business better.

That servant ethic makes him quick to say there are many more people who had many more accomplishments than he and are deserving of more recognition. Anything he might have accomplished came about because “we did it, not just me.”

But a long stroll down a lifetime path filled with many memories shows that Dr. Green, like many others, lived through and was part of perhaps the most remarkable and progressive times in animal health and the beef business. “I was there when it happened. I didn’t do it. I didn’t cause it. I was just lucky enough to be there,” he says.

In fact, to truly chronicle Green’s lifetime of accomplishments would fill most of the pages of this magazine and quite a few more. It’s a lifetime of quiet servant leadership in the beef business.

Dr. Green was born in Guntown, Mississippi, a small town a few miles north of Tupelo. After playing football at Itawamba Junior College, it was on to Mississippi State University, then to Auburn for his veterinary degree.

“I grew up in a rural area that had limited veterinary coverage,” he says. “Everybody was scratching out whatever kind of living they could with cattle, timber, crops.” So he and his wife, Eleanor, one of four female classmates at Auburn, returned to Guntown and set up shop as country vets.

Then came an explosion of new veterinary colleges, Mississippi State included. They moved to Starkville and became two of the first seven faculty members at the newly minted institution. “I was Extension veterinarian and a clinician,” he says. Green recalls that at the time, they laughingly told friends that he was the best Extension veterinarian that Mississippi State ever had. At the time, he was, because he was the first.

“Probably the most formative thing that occurred in that period of time, my first National Cattlemen’s meeting was in New Orleans in 1977. I had a little commercial cow herd and was an Extension veterinarian. I came down to that meeting for the educational opportunities and got involved with what later became NCA and then NCBA.”

He was chosen in 1981 to be part of the YCC, the Young Cattlemen’s Council tour that NCBA continues to this day. For a young veterinarian from rural Mississippi, it was a profound and eye-opening experience.

“It was just one of the greatest things that ever happened to me,” he says. “It’s a life-changing experience because you meet friends of like mind in the cattle industry from all over the country.” Indeed, running cattle in Mississippi is much different than running cattle in Montana, and having an opportunity to discover that expanded his world, perhaps for the first time, from Guntown, population 300.

“And I’ve stayed with NCBA ever since, always in the background,” he says. If it’s true that every preacher needs a congregation, Green’s ethic of servant leadership began to blossom. “I like to be the guy supporting the folks who wanted to be at the helm of the ship. And I’ve been so fortunate to meet some of the real leaders in the cattle industry in this country.”

He trailed north to Missouri where he took a job with Monsanto, where he was involved with recombinant bovine somatotropin or BST. It was there he encountered the emotionalism that has pervaded the food world. He shakes his head at those who want the beef business to reduce its environmental footprint yet refuse to allow it to use technology to do so.

From there, he had stints as a veterinary consultant, rancher, at the Florida State Veterinarian’s office, and as vice president of producer education with NCBA, among other experiences. He’s now consulting with Neogen, first to build Neogen’s genomic team when Neogen bought that business from Merial, and now with Neogen’s food safety efforts; with the American Simmental Association and International Genetic Solutions as Southeastern SimSpecialist; and others.

Food safety and genomics were two subjects he didn’t learn in vet school. “I don’t think genomics was even a term back then,” he laughs. “And I thought, ‘This will be great. It will be invigorating to learn something new.’”

Bulletins

Hydrops Update: TraitTrac and a Recommended Marketing Statement

ASA has been investigating a developing genetic condition that causes Hydrops pregnancies in a certain line of Simmental genetics. Here are some updates in relation to this research and ASA’s actions/suggestions:

Hydrops has been added to Herdbook’s TraitTrac with WS All Aboard B80 listed as a documented carrier. At this time there are no genetic holds placed on his descendants as there is not a DNA test available yet. Once there is a test, then Hydrops will follow the same policy as other genetic conditions.

Female progeny who are descendants of or are directly sired by WS All Aboard B80 (ASA# 2852207) are at risk for carrying a genetic abnormality called Hydrops. Daughters may develop a serious condition during late gestation that results in excess fluid in the fetal membrane, which typically causes the loss of the calf and occasionally the dam. There is no current test at this time to identify animals carrying this mutation. Research is ongoing regarding the transmission of the abnormality, and to develop a genetic test. Helping our producers navigate this issue is of the utmost importance to us. Therefore, given that there is neither a full understanding of this condition nor a test, careful consideration should be given regarding the question of whether to breed WS All Aboard B80 descendant females until more information is available to breeders.

For questions regarding established WS All Aboard B80 genetics, Hydrops symptoms, reporting an active case, or additional information, please visit the Hydrops Information Center at www.simmental.org or reach out to Jackie Atkins at jatkins@simmgene.com.

Intellectual stimulation. Lifelong learning. If those are the secrets to a long and fruitful career, Green struck gold. “It is a true blessing to stay intellectually involved and try to give back to an agricultural industry that has given so much to me,” he says. “I try to figure a profound way to say it, but I was just lucky enough to be there when a lot of good things happened.”

Although he’s enjoying his grandchildren and preparing for retirement, he’s not done yet. “I’m pretty confident there still are some things to contribute as God blesses us with the opportunity to care for his cattle on a thousand hills,” Green says. “And I hope one of these days somebody will look up and say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”

Our treasured beef industry is thankful for, and dependent upon, individuals like Dr. Ashby Green, whose unselfish contributions over the decades have helped shape it into the respected powerhouse it is today. .

Editor’s note: Dr. Ashby Green is a valued member of ASA’s SimSpecialists team, representing Florida and the surrounding area. This article originally appeared in Working Ranch Magazine

DNA Updates

DNA Research Fee Application

DNA research fees are $1/minute and may apply to parentage rechecks, misidentified samples, or other scenarios involving unusual increase in staff time. Each case is unique, so estimating the final charge is difficult. If there are a significant number of animals not qualifying to a parent(s), please reach out to the DNA Department to discuss a rough estimate of time and cost.

Testing Timeline

Allow 4–5 weeks. Please communicate any deadlines you may be working with to the ASA DNA staff. Expedited and tracked shipping is always recommended when ordering kits and shipping samples to Neogen.

$30 DNA Research Fee

Sample packages sent to the ASA office (with or without paperwork), instead of the lab, will incur a $30 research fee. With the exception of research projects (CHR, CCG, CXP), all samples are to be sent directly to the lab with ASA paperwork.

TSU/Applicator Price Increase

Due to rising costs from the TSU manufacturer AllFlex™, ASA has increased the price of TSU sampling kits to $22 per box. Each box will still include ten individual tissue sampling units. The cost of TSU applicators has also been increased to $90 each.

Semen Sample Fee

There is a $7.20 processing fee for all semen straws and/or semen samples submitted to Neogen for DNA testing.

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