A VISIT WITH TIM ABBOTT OF BORDERVIEW GENETICS

We recently had a chance to sit down and have a conversation with Tim Abbott of Borderview Genetics in Enosburg, Vermont. Many of you know Tim either personally or by name, as we can’t think of anyone who has been involved in more aspects of our purebred dairy cattle industry. His career experience includes work at breed organizations, years in the AI industry, sale management, and of course, breeding and owning elite hightype Holsteins and Jerseys. In 2014, Tim was named the 16th Honorary Member of the Klussendorf Association for his contributions to our industry. He’s been an instrumental part of our All-American Nomination Announcement party in Nashville, held in conjunction with the Music City Celebration Sale series. His continued enthusiasm for breeding high-type dairy cattle, his perspective on the industry, and his infectious sense of humor made this an interview we’ve been looking forward to! Cowsmo: Thanks for sitting down with us, Tim! You’ve spent your whole life in the registered dairy cattle business. Tell us where it all began. Tim: My parents, Knight & Ruth Abbott, had a little Jersey farm in Cabot, VT - and I mean little - 35 stalls. It was a really nice herd of Jerseys. My dad was, frankly, kind of a cattle dealer. He bought and sold and really helped lots of young people get started with Jerseys. My mom was a great caretaker of the cows on the farm. I grew up watching my dad buy and sell cattle, and I thought that was pretty neat, so I guess I was hooked at a young age. Cowsmo: Almost everyone in our business has that first heifer or first 4-H project - what was yours? Tim: I got involved with Jersey youth programs and Vermont Jersey back in the day sponsored a trip to Louisville for youth members. I went on that trip when I was about 14 or 15 and I bought a calf from the Pot of Gold Sale. I need to mention that I didn’t have any money. When I got home, Dad made me go to the bank and get a loan. I was so scared sitting there in the chair at the bank! But, I got the loan, thank goodness. With the Pot of Gold junior sale, you can win prize money, and she earned half of her purchase price back, calved in nice and gave me a couple of heifer calves, so she was a success. That experience was really instrumental in guiding me onto my life path. Cowsmo: What then? Where did you go to college and what was your first work experience after you got your degree? Tim: I went to the University of Vermont and earned an animal science degree focused on genetics. Our farm wasn’t big enough to go home to - Mom & Dad raised six kids there and, honestly, just scraped by. I had some industry job offers upon graduation, but the best starting salary was offered by Eastman Kodak when they were selling IsoPlus, the feed additive. I took a job to be part of that sales team, went to Kingsport, TN for a three-month training program, and then they pulled the plug on IsoPlus! That was the best thing that happened to me because I called Maurice Core Tim and Sharyn Abbott with daughters Chelsea & Caitlyn.

and he hired me as a Field Representative for US Jersey out in the Northwest region. Sharyn & I packed up and moved to Idaho were we stayed for two years. After that, we moved back to Columbus, OH and I worked out of the Jersey home office as head of Field Services and ran the Jersey Marketing Service. Cowsmo: I’m assuming your role with Jersey Marketing sparked your calling for working sales?

Tim: Yep - that’s when I started reading pedigrees. I had always wanted to do it - I’d been practicing in front of the mirror since about the age of 16 [laughing]. Maury Core had been the voice of Jersey pedigrees for decades, but gave me a shot. The first sale I ever did was the Mayfield Farms Dispersal in Athens, TN. It was intense and kind of scary as the owner was a good friend of Maury’s and it was a tremendous, famous herd, but we had a good day. Merlin Woodruff was the auctioneer for Jersey and truly one of the very best auctioneers ever. He took me under his wing and we did every Jersey sale everywhere for the next ten years. Cowsmo: I know you had an extensive career in the AI industry. How and when did that start?

Tim: I was 28 years old and I’d been with US Jersey for about eight years. I read Jersey pedigrees at one of the ABS Americana Sales, and Dick Smith asked if I’d consider coming to work for ABS.

I interviewed and was hired for a sire analyst position. At that time, ABS was owned by W. R. Grace, so it had a larger corporate structure beyond the bull stud. There was all kinds of corporate training available and that was great for me. I was assigned to the Mid-Atlantic region plus Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and down to the Deep South. Eventually, I landed the Northeast/New England territory and we moved back home to Vermont. I worked for ABS for 20 years. Cowsmo: When you say ‘we’ moved home to Vermont, it’s a good time to ask about Sharyn and your family! Tim: Absolutely! I couldn’t have done any of this without Sharyn at my side. I knew her from my 4-H days. She’s from a commercial Holstein farm in Vermont, and her brother still operates her family farm. She was a year younger than me at the University of Vermont - that’s where the relationship started and we were married in the fall of 1987 after I had graduated. That was the same fall that she won the National Intercollegiate Dairy Judging Contest - I don’t think a lot of people know that! She moved with me wherever I went and got whatever job she could in that location. Out west, she worked for Forest Glen Jerseys; in Ohio, she worked with John & Bonnie Ayars. She was the editor of the Guernsey breed magazine for a time, and also worked for US Jersey. Cowsmo: I know you have two daughters. What are they doing these days? Tim: Chelsea is 28 and works as a guide for a wilderness outfitter in Montana. Caitlyn is going to be 27 and she is a NICU travel nurse. Both kids grew up showing cows and they both went to Virginia Tech for college. Chelsea has her Masters in animal reproduction from the University of Tennessee.

Cowsmo: Back to your career, I think many people will always associate you with the Tim: When I was at ABS and interested in moving higher in the company, they told me that the next step to becoming a Vice President was to first have a role managing more people. They put me in charge of ABS Canada, which was struggling at the time and needed a dramatic restructuring. It was brutal. I had to fire lots of people which was just awful, but we saved the company. After that, ABS entered a partnership with St. Jacobs ABC, which was a farmer-owned cooperative (44 breeders in all) that owned their own facility and was gaining traction. They owned Regancrest Dundee and he was just starting to hit. Along with my role with ABS Canada, I was hired as General Manager of St. Jacobs in 2005. Cowsmo: I think that’s when the profile of St. Jacobs really starting to grow. What were some keys to that success? Tim: Well, we had some good bulls at that time - Dundee, Kite, Red Marker - those type bulls really got the company rolling. Then Destry and Rampage were high selling bulls that followed. We built some programs that were popular with breeders and with our customers. After five years, the St. Jacobs board of directors decided to sell the company, and I told my bosses at ABS that we had to buy it. They said no, so I told Sharyn that we - she & I - were going to find a way to buy the business. We fortunately found financing and bought St. Jacobs in 2011. Cowsmo: That’s a big leap of faith from a company job to the role of entrepreneur / business owner. How did it all work out? Tim: In the ten years from 2005 to 2015, sales at St. Jacobs grew from $1.5 million to $25 million. Once we purchased it, we ran it out of our home. We paid ABS a big management fee. They housed the bulls and distributed the semen. In the later years, we had bulls like Aftershock and Crush in the lineup and things were really going well. By 2015, one dollar out of ten coming back to ABS was from St. Jacobs - and we had 50 bulls while they had 900. We developed the Breeders Choice Program, and had over 1,000 program member herds. In 2015, the contract with ABS was to be renegotiated. When they expressed an interest in buying St. Jacobs, it was a decision that worked for us and them, and they purchased St. Jacobs in 2016. Cowsmo: That 25-year span working in AI saw a lot of changes in the industry. What was your favorite thing about the business? Tim: My favorite thing from my time in AI was as a sire analyst and the thrill of trying to find the next great bull - making that next mating to make a great bull. I got to work with the absolute best people in the world - the breeders. They could tell you which cows are breeding on, which are making bulls, or which were better at making superior females. This was in the pre-genomic era when you really had to rely on the breeders’ knowledge of their cow families and you got to rely on a ‘hunch’ of what might work as a mating for a special bull. Cowsmo: And on the other hand, what was it about the AI industry that you did not enjoy? Tim: The constant stress of lowering expenses and driving semen price down. The devaluation of genetic product - all that work, knowledge and time by breeders and AI people with expertise to build pedigrees to make great bulls, and it kind of got to a ‘throwaway’ feeling about genetics. At St. Jacobs, we ran an ad that said ‘Breeding cows is an art, but we don’t paint by number.’ And I still feel that way.

Regancrest Brasilia-ET (EX-92) was the cow that really sparked Tim & Sharyn’s interest in buying and marketing cattle and their offspring.

Left, Sharyn with Rosiers Blexy Goldwyn in the senior 2-year-old class at World Dairy Expo in 2013. Right, .Tim & Sharyn and partners with 2017 Madison Grand Champion Blexy

Cowsmo: Well, we’ve covered the bull side of things, but everyone knows you’ve been involved with some outstanding cows - notably a number of famous Holstein cows. How did that get started? Tim: The cow that really got us buying cows was Regancrest Brasilia-ET EX-92. We, along with Mark Butz and Jason & Donna Myers, bought a choice out of Regancrest Barbie EX-92, the great Durham daughter, by Shottle. A couple of years later, she calved in great, scored VG89, and we sold her for a lot of money. She really kicked things off and that feeling that we could get some return on these really good cows with great pedigrees. Then came Dubeau Dundee Hezbollah EX-92. She was All-American and AllCanadian Senior 2-Year-Old in 2009. Her show career ended sooner than we would have liked, but she has been a prolific embryo producer and have over 150 daughters registered here in the US and 42 of those are already scored Excellent. As a Dundee daughter, she was a headliner for us at St. Jacobs, and she really put us on the map. She may be my all-time favorite. She’s still alive - lives down in Maryland at Matt Hawbaker’s Interstate Heifer Care facility - and she’s going to be 16-years-old soon! Cowsmo: You’ve owned some remarkable cows in partnership with other prominent breeders across the US. Touch on a few of those.

Tim: Early on, we owned Rainyridge Talent Barbara EX-95 and Butz-Butler Gold Barbara EX-96 with Ernie Kueffner. Gold Barbara was purchased from Butlerview - she was the daughter of Regancrest Brasilia, who had been such a success for us - along with Ernie, River Valley and Dr. Matt Iager. As other partners moved in and out, we eventually sold our share of her, but were thrilled for her owners when she was Grand at Expo in 2019. Robrook Goldwyn Cameron EX-95 was Grand Champion at the Royal Winter Fair in 2013, owned with Budjon, Clark Woodmansee and Peter & Lynn Vail. She was All-American and All-Canadian for three consecutive years. Rosiers Blexy Goldwyn EX-97 - Chris Hill spotted her as a two-year-old in a herd in Pennsylvania and called us about her. We went down to see her in person and after we had a look, Sharyn said to me, “Don’t mess around with these guys. Just buy her at whatever they ask.” She really believed in the potential of this cow and she was right! Later, Clark Woodmansee, Hank Van Exel and Budjon came in as partners on her. When she was Grand Champion at the Intermational Holstein Show and then tapped as Supreme Champion at Expo in 2017, it was the greatest thrill we’ve ever had in the business. Then to have her breed on so well was just such an added bonus.

Cowsmo: How about your current inventory? Tim: I don’t know if I’ve ever been as excited about the cows we are a part of now. I saw S-S-I Doc Have Not 8784-ET EX94 in Duckett’s pack last year at Madison and she blew me away. We tried to buy her last fall already. Mike and Julie Duckett had a tremendous sale in 2021, so when we were planning for their 2022 sale, I thought it would be tough to match it. But Mike said, ‘We can do better.’ After hashing it all out, they agreed to sell the cow on the sale and Sharyn & I were determined to buy the cow or be partners on her come hell or high water. And, after she went through the ring, we were partners on her with Ducketts, AOT Holsteins, and KingsRansom Holsteins - really a fantastic partnership where everybody brings a different skillset to the table.

Tom Kugler and the Kings have reeducated me about the AI business in today’s world - the special release and pre-release semen along with the various contracts and restrictions. The Ducketts provide the best cow care in the world - Doc really couldn’t live anywhere better and with their Genetic Futures operation with all the recipients available, it’s perfect for what we are doing. The group has put me in charge of the marketing - both of her ‘brand’ and of the offspring, embryos, etc. The interest in her and her offspring has been unbelievable. Being involved in this group has me so fired up - she combines the sire stack, marketing potential, pedigree - it’s just so fun. We’re making bulls for AI and selling embryos around the world from her and her daughters.

Other than the Doc, we own a number of other cows with Ducketts including Oakfield Solom Footloose EX-94 (also owned with Vierra Dairy) - we’re very, very excited about her chances at the big shows this fall. She was Reserve Grand Champion at Expo last year, and looks tremendous right now. We also are partners in another exciting young Doc daughter - Peace&Plenty Doc Jubie16-ET EX-92, who shows as a senior 3-year-old this year. Her cow family just keeps growing in popularity. She is owned in partnership with Mike & Julie Duckett and Milksource.

Cowsmo: You used to have your own place and barn in Vermont to house cattle. Are you still doing that or do you board everything now?

Tim: We don’t have any cattle at Borderview anymore. It was tough finding labor here and the expense of keeping and housing everything you breed was prohibitive for us. Now we focus on the 5 or 6 donor cows we own and those are housed at Interstate Heifer Care with Matt Hawbaker, who raises all of our heifers in Maryland. The embryos are implanted at Star Rock Dairy in Pennsylvania. Cowsmo: You were one of the leading breeders in the 2021 All-American contest with four animals carrying the Borderview prefix. Impressive! Tell us about your breeding philosophy. Tim: Well, we talked about those donor cows - we look for cows with huge pedigrees that we think can make the ‘All-American’ kind. We look for sire stacks that appeal to us and families with some modernity to them - then we make matings trying to make heifers that have the ‘Borderview stamp’. We use mainly proven bulls - we’re not in a race here - and give all the heifers the best care. We make 20-25 calves a quarter - aiming at the show dates - so about 100 heifers a year. We’re assessing them all the time, and we sell them pretty quick - either on sales or privately depending on how good the heifer is. The program is really going great guns right now as we’ve got such a good group of people helping us with this project. Cowsmo: You’ve participated at cow shows as much as anyone I know. In 2022, what do you see as the value of cow shows and competitions like the All-American contest? Tim: I think the value of cow shows is higher than ever! With social media and how quickly we exchange information in today’s world, our shows have global appeal. We all have to remember that our audience is so much more vast than the people sitting in the stands at a show. If you have any online coverage, people from all over the world will be tuning into your show and watching your cattle. The All-American Contest is still the iconic means of ranking those great show cows. With the contest, the committee looks at the whole show season. I love Expo, but we don’t need all value of the show ring boiled down to a one show. The contest serves a season-long function that recognizes animals that compete at all times of year, and it becomes a part of breed history. Cowsmo: You’ve mentioned some names already in our conversation, but I’m curious about a few of the people you consider mentors - beyond your parents, who made a real difference at different points of your life? Tim: There’s really so many. This is a tough question, but I do have a few that come to mind right away. - Bob Lord, the former herd manager of Billings Farm, helped us so much in our early days. He really

loved Sharyn. Bob gave us great advice and lots of wise counsel. - Maurice Core - we’ve talked about him already, but he was such a role model - hard-charging, honest, kind. He could stand behind the barn and spit tobacco with someone in the morning, and put on a suit for a board presentation in the afternoon. I admired his ability to get along with so many different groups of people. He and Merlin Woodruff started my career in the sales business. - Pete Heffering - I met him through Willis Conard, who was a good friend of mine. I learned more about breeding & marketing cows in a decade of friendship with Pete than in the rest of my life. We talked about once a month towards the end of his life and I would have loved to own a cow with him. - Horace Backus - As someone who reads pedigrees, what more can I even say about Horace? A truly kind and gracious man, always willing to share advice and lift you up. - Bob Fitzsimmons - One of my closest personal friends. I watched him at Lylehaven and elsewhere and saw that a Vermont kid could succeed out in the big world! Cowsmo: A number of your mentors had roles in sales management. You and Sharyn are involved with Chris & Jen Hill of MDHillbrook in a partnership you’ve named ‘The Alliance’. What are the future goals for that sale management business? Tim: We did our first Music City Celebration Sale in Nashville with Chris & Jen and The Alliance was born from that. We enjoy working with them so much - Tim with Peter English, former Editor of the Holstein Journal, left, and Horace Backus, Chris is a world-class auctioneer and Jen right. Tim & Sharryn Abbott with Matt Hawbaker, left and Jen & Chris Hill, right.

brings her detailed focus to the vitally important sale clerking. We’ve done the Nashville sale together each year and it’s just gotten better and better. Now we’ve also added the Bright Futures sale series, which focuses more on embryos and choices. We want to focus on high-end cattle sales - sales that are events. The Duckett sales are a good example. We’re selling the National Holstein Convention Sale in Lexington, Kentucky next summer - another event driven sale. We want to ‘fish in the top of the stream’ as far as sales are concerned.

Cowsmo: We don’t want everyone to think you only talk cows! What else captures your attention?

Tim: Sharyn and I are huge sports fans. We love college basketball. We follow the University of Vermont teams. Apart from that, we love beaches, boats, and beer! [laughing] Cowsmo: And we know you love music and you love Nashville! You’ve helped back some country music artists that we’ve seen at the sale in Nashville and at some of the Tim: We just love Nashville and we’ve met so many talented and fun people there. We sponsor a couple of big concerts at our home each summer and bring a few of those artists up to perform. It’s a big passion for us. Our latest project is to produce an album of mostly original songs by our Nashville buddies along with some cover songs: ‘Tim’s Dream Songs’. I’m going to manage the process. It’ll be a challenge, but I’m really looking forward to learning more about the music business.

Cowsmo: Finally, let’s touch on your health. There may be people that don’t realize you’ve kept your passion for this business in spite of a long-term journey through cancer. Tim: Yes, 23 years ago, I was diagnosed for the first time. Twice diagnosed with lymphoma, then it changed to leukemia - I’ve been going through the fourth round of it recently. You could describe it as ‘chronic cancer’, not life-threatening at this point. It can be tough. I fight The dynamic duo of Chris Hill and Tim Abbott.

pain everyday, but Sharyn battles with all the stress of it everyday. It’s been a life changer - it made me realize what’s important and taught me a lot about maintaining a balance in life. I’ve got an oncology doctor that’s been with me for years and he say that I’m still alive after all these years because I don’t live like I’m dying! So, we’re going to keep buying cows, keep going to Nashville, and keep on celebrating with friends as long we can!