For us the people involved in a cattle operation are an important element in deciding whether we want to use their genetics. We also believe that we are not alone in that approach. So this section of the web site is devoted to introducing ourselves a bit. Hopefully, you will understand us and our approach to cattle a little better after reading it.
Ramer's Herefords is a family operation of course. In this case, there are only two members of that family, Hua and John, but several more people involved in the operation.
Hua is the newcomer to the beef industry. She joined the team when she and John were married in 1991. This was two years after they met, which occurred at a university in France where she was on a faculty exchange. A native of China, she was a professor of international trade teaching advanced students at the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Trade, in English, about western business practices and western business philosophy.
Since coming to America, Hua has earned her MACC, a masters degree in Accounting, and her CPA. She worked for Ernest and Young, one of the "Big Four" accounting firms as a consultant in the ERP system implementation teams. She is currently employed by the University of Wisconsin - Madison where she is responsible for the computer accounting systems of the university.
John has been in the cattle business since 1973. He did not grow up on a farm or with cattle. Rather, he was a native of a fairly small community in upstate New York. He found his way to Wisconsin to attend a college here, in Appleton. After a timeout to serve in the Marine Corps and to work for about twenty years, he completed three masters degrees at the University of Wisconsin Madison School of Business.
For seven years he was the owner of his own consulting firm working primarily with manufacturing enterprises. Later, he joined the field of economic development and served as the president of two different development corporations in Wisconsin for about 15 years. He retired in 2006.
As mentioned elsewhere, John started with cattle in 1973, when he bought a farm of about 200 acres in the beautiful Barbaboo Hills of WI. He started as a part-time farmer while earning his living off-the-farm. By 1978, the operation had grown to the point where he went full-time on the farm and further expanded the cattle enterprise, a decision that proved disastrous with the farm crisis and high interest rates of the early 1980s.
The result was a decision to sell the farms but to retain the heart of what, by then, had become a growing registered cattle business.
The experience of those difficult years of the late 1970s and the early 1980s still underlie much of the emphasis on the "practical" that permeates the Ramer's Herefords operation. So does the experience of having faced the strains of "making it" in difficult times as a commercial beef operation.