Located ten miles from the LAX Airport in southern California, lives a dairy industry giant. John Schouten grew up on his family’s dairy farm in Torrance. The Schouten family would later move 100 miles east of Los Angles when John was ten, to the town of San Jacinto, where his father and two of his brothers partnered in a dairy for more than 25 years. This dairy upbringing not only further generated an interest in the dairy industry, but also propelled the soon-to-be retiring CEO of World Wide Sires (WWS) to travel the globe and be remembered for his vital role in U.S. dairy semen exports.
After graduating from Cal Poly with a dairy science degree, John moved back to the family dairy farm who was already milking 2,000 cows in the mid 1980’s.
John’s future boded well after college. He spent three years at his family dairy, then worked for the late John Te Velde Dairy as their herd manager. John also spent a short stint in Alaska, helping develop the state’s dairy industry.
A California guy, John made his way back to the golden state and was fortunate to land a position at WWS, based at the Cal Clark Dairy Farm in Hanford at the time. “Bill Clark and Rich Denier told me that if I liked the dairy industry, I liked working with people and interested in the international side of things, that there was no better place to be,” says Schouten. “After 35 years at WWS, I completely agree, as it has been an incredible adventure.”
John’s WWS journey started as a marketing assistant but quickly transitioned to the area director of marketing and his territory included Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Poland.
During the time, WWS was the exclusive distributor for all the U.S. A.I. cooperatives for the countries outside of the Americas. In 2001, Schouten was appointed CEO after the Clark family sold WWS to Select Sires and Accelerated Genetics. “I am grateful for Dave Thorbahn and Roger Ripley for hiring me to take on this role,” Schouten adds.
With Accelerated Genetics merge into Select Sires in 2017, WWS became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Select Sires. “I’m so proud to work with a company that has farmer ownership as its grassroots.
Schouten speaks volumes about the people he has worked with over the years in the U.S. and around the globe. He contributes working with outstanding people that share a common passion and interest to help make better cows as a key ingredient for success and happiness.
Changing Times
Sending information out efficiently and quickly, Schouten states that by a click of a mouse and the speed of the internet, bovine genetics has become more global than ever before. “Fifty years ago, when WWS started, people around the world had to be convinced that U.S. genetics were worth investing in,” Schouten says.
Sampling of young sires was done with progeny test herds and the time when a bull was sampled to the time first crop daughters were sampled, took a lot of time, especially in today’s standards. “Most bulls were at least five years old when his first proof came out,” Schouten reports. “In some ways, we were selling dreams.”
Bigger changes came, among them being gender sorted semen and then genomics which changed the order of things dramatically. Starting as a distributor model, the core business for WWS was selling genetics. But Schouten says while the model is still important in many countries today, WWS has wholly-owned subsidiaries in a dozen countries and they also work directly with some countries in the Middle East and Asia. “Today customers here in the U.S. and globally have different expectations of service,” he says.
Nearly a decade ago, WWS started up the Global Training Center in Washington state. This was an important step for WWS, allowing them to work with dairies around the world to help with reproduction and management. Additionally, Schouten says that precision breeding is part of today’s WWS business plan, which has helped developed important relationships with other allied industry companies.
Over the last three decades, Schouten has seen a lot of consolidation. When he began at WWS 35 years ago, there were 11 co-op organizations that supplied products to WWS. Today, Select Sires is the only U.S. co-op that remains intact.
U.S. Dairy Semen Exports
“Today the U.S. is accepted as the Gold standard for bovine genetics around the world,” Schouten says. The WWS icon says there are many reasons, including the large cow populations and enthusiastic breeders in the U.S. Another has to do with the open and transparent programs developed for indices over the years that include USDA, now CDCB and the U.S. breed organizations, particularly the Holstein Association. “The top-quality work done by the A.I. industry and others with the development of genomics in this country has also been another leading contributor to the success,” Schouten reports. Tremendous growth has been made in U.S. semen exports in countries like China, Russia, Brazil and Argentina, to name a few. “Whether it is TPI, Net Merit or DPW indices, the U.S. is respected around the world and we should never take this for granted,” Schouten says.
The speed at which things move is incredible and Schouten says keeping up and leading the way takes both energy and a great team that is focused. One of his many mantras over the years has been: take care of the customers, take care of each other and stay focused. “When you come to challenging times, it is good to take a step back and recalibrate,” Schouten says. “I have worked for three different ownership structures during my time at WWS and all of them had good things and some things that you would like to change or improve.”
The future might look different than today, but Schouten believes the best days still lie ahead for U.S. genetic exports. “We can see more growth of sorted product in more countries. Still, some other countries are asking for proven bulls and others continue to increase their use of genomic bull semen sales,” the long term WWS CEO says. “Embryos will play a larger role in some places in the future, too.”
Keepsake Memories
During his 35 years at WWS, Schouten has traveled extensively worldwide, with approximately 240 overseas trips. With WWS exporting semen to nearly 100 countries today, Schouten has enjoyed visiting farms around the globe and meeting with dairy industry leaders in various countries. “Though we speak different languages and have different customs, there is a kindred spirit of those working in the dairy industry that is universal,” Schouten says.
Collectively the big task of feeding the world is on the shoulders of dairy producers and dairy industry leaders around the globe; a responsibility that Schouten takes seriously. “Making better cows to help feed the world more efficiently is certainly a great thing to be involved with,” he says. WWS prides itself in customer service, as thousands of visitors from around the globe have been welcomed to the U.S. by the WWS team. “I love World Dairy Expo time, when we have so many guests around the world that want to see cows, learn more about the U.S. dairy and A.I. industry and then go home to become better dairy producers than they were before,” says Schouten.
Senior Vice President of international sales and product management of WWS, Scott Ruby states, “It is John’s strength of character and compassion for others that makes him a great leader. Our extreme growth over the last 20 years can be directly attributed to the strong ties that John has developed, both externally and internally, which have led to the development of so many successful distribution teams around the world and so many long-term tenured employees at World Wide Sires.”
Retiring in July, Schouten says what he will miss the most is the interaction with people from all over the world and sharing a meal together. “I am a better person today because of the friends I have made around the world who are doing their best to make things better for dairy farmers in their home countries,” he says.
