PHOTO / ASGSA
Steve Armbruster, a cut above the herd and a Legend of Feedlot Nutrition The Plains Nutrition Council (PNC) is the “flagship” professional organization for consulting feedlot cattle nutritionists across the U.S. and many other countries. Steve Armbruster was recently recognized as a “Legend of Feedlot Nutrition” (consultant category) by the PNC at its annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The purpose of the award is to honor those “who have contributed to and have had a profound and lasting impact on the feedlot industry as it relates to innovation, leadership, advancement, service and education in the area of feedlot nutrition.” Armbruster was born in Hardtner, Kansas, and grew up on a wheat and beef cattle operation near Burlington, Oklahoma, where he graduated from Burlington High School. He received his B.S. degree in agricultural economics in 1967 and his M.S. degree in animal science in 1969, both from Oklahoma State University. He then continued his education at
8
SPRING 2019
the University of Nebraska where he completed his Ph.D. in ruminant nutrition. Armbruster worked as an Extension feedlot specialist at Kansas State University and as a consulting nutritionist with Scott-Pro, Inc. in Scott City, Kansas, prior to joining the animal science faculty at Oklahoma State University in 1975 as an Extension beef cattle specialist. At OSU, he was responsible for Extension programs in cow/calf and stocker cattle nutrition and management and for research in cow/ calf nutrition and management. He formed Steve Armbruster Consulting, Inc. in 1981 to focus on consulting work in feedlot cattle nutrition and management, and quickly distinguished himself as one of the premier independent consultants in the feedlot industry. At one time, his firm served clients with upwards of 1.5 million cattle on feed. Armbruster is a visionary, and constantly sought
to provide cutting-edge advice and service to his clients and to continually grow and reposition his firm always with total transparency and the best interest of his clients as the paramount driving force. John Rakestraw, one of Armbruster’s former clients and former president and CEO of ContiBeef,, alluded to a few of Armbruster’s many impacts on the feedlot industry. “Dr. Armbruster was a very early catalyst for the development and use of portable computer technology for making daily feedlot management decisions,” Rakestraw said. “He worked with in-house company programmers to transition feedlots from hand-written feed sheets to computer records. This greatly decreased the time from initial morning feed calls to when cattle were first fed. He was an early herald and teacher of the importance of cattle comfort long before animal well-being became a contemporary issue, and pioneered much of the thinking about how cattle
