A business of good cows, great people

AMERY, Wis. — The idea of becoming an auctioneer and registered dairy cattle sales manager came to Tom Morris via several mentors who shaped not just his youth, but his career.

“Harvey Schwartz was my 4-H judging coach and a distinguished auctioneer,” Morris said. “He kind of singled me out as a kid, was a good mentor and got me thinking about getting into the sales business. In the back of my mind, I thought it was pretty cool, what he did — making a living driving around the country in a Cadillac.”

Morris continued to be drawn by the prospect of marketing registered dairy cattle, working alongside a bevy of dairy industry leaders.

“It’s really hard to list them when you’ve been touched by so many,” Morris said. “We all have those very special people who provide us with motivation and inspiration.”

From those beginnings, Morris crafted a career marketing registered dairy cattle, building a trio of businesses with his wife, Sandy, on their farm near Amery. Here, they raised a herd of registered Holsteins at Deronda Farm, managed sales as Tom Morris Ltd. and published the Cattle Connection.

For his contributions to the industry, Morris was honored by Holstein Association USA Inc. as the recipient of the Distinguished Leadership Award at their annual convention in June.

“I was very honored, then humbled about it,” Morris said. “I thought about the former winners, and then all the people that could have or should have been recognized way before me — thinking of my mentors, they were around before they started this award.”

Morris has managed and presided over more than 500 sales, including nine National Holstein Convention Sales. The first, most significant sale Morris recalls was the Wisconsin Reformatory dispersal in 1976, where he followed Schwartz and Keith Stump as the third auctioneer.

“It’s a great occupation when you’re selling a hot sale,” Morris said. “When you’re selling a dead sale, it’s terrible. I wish I had a tally of the number of animals I’ve sold, or the total gross. It would be mind-boggling.”

Morris said his earliest travels were not nearly as glamorous as he had imagined Harvey Schwartz’s traveling days to be.

“We were getting in the car, going here, going there,” Morris said. “In the old days, some weeks there were seven sales, or nine sales in 10 days in four states. You’re sleeping in the back of the car or taking a red eye out of Seattle to get back to Rockford to sell the next morning. You’re just going because that’s what you do.”

The people he connected with made his career special he said.

“When you’re dispersing someone’s herd, it becomes personal — you’re like the coach,” Morris said. “We had three dispersals here at the farm and I think it helped us relate.”

Dispersals happen for a variety of reasons — herd reductions, financial considerations, family concerns or because of a death.

“It’s a big responsibility to sit at the kitchen table with a family, helping them figure out how they’re going to do it,” Morris said. “It’s their business, their life. If we had any success or accomplished anything, it’s because people trusted us with a lot of dispersals, a time that was very important to them.”

A downside of the business was that not every sale was a glowing success, Morris said.

“You might have the nightmare that everything looks great, but nobody came to the sale,” Morris said. “You have to keep in mind that happens. I think it made us closer to the farmers, because you’re really holding their hands through it, you can’t just brush them off. We treated each one like it was the most important thing we did that week, trying to make each one different than the others.”

Along with dispersals, Morris operated consignment and event sales, including the World Classic, which will celebrate its 36th anniversary at this year’s World Dairy Expo.

“The World Classic has changed a great deal,” Morris said. “We used to have a huge crowd on the Coliseum floor — it was the big event and every Holstein enthusiast in the world was there.”

Morris used the stage to market the most advanced genetic offerings of the time, each in a unique fashion.

“I’m a firm believer in genomics; it’s changed the industry,” Morris said. “We sold (some of) the first contract flushes, the first clone. … One time we had five consignments from five breeders in five European countries. Another time we imported two calves from Germany. They sat off the coast of New Jersey all summer.”

Other industry-firsts and record-breaking events Morris has been involved with include the 1984 Southfork Sale held at the famed Southfork Ranch in Plano, Texas, the setting of the television series “Dallas,” hosted by Price’s Dairies.

“That was an exciting sale, over the top, the highest-ever grossing, at $13 million,” Morris said. “There were so many lights, I couldn’t see my ring men. Charley Pride sang right after us; his crew was telling us to hurry up, we were running late. One of his guys stole my stool. I had a band stool that the top came up and it would collapse. You could get on a plane with it, put it anywhere — I had it for years. That was quite the event for us farm boys.”

Morris returned the next year to sell the Dallas Encore Sale, another Texas-style event put on by Price’s Dairies.

“That was in the top floor of some fancy hotel,” Morris said. “They brought the cows up on the service elevator — if you’ve ever been in an elevator with a cow, it’s not fun — and then we walked them through the kitchen. I told Bobby (Price) I wasn’t sure about his plan for the sale, but he pulled it off.”

Pushing the bounds of technology, Morris worked with industry leaders to present the Satellite Adventure Sale in 1988. The sale was held in Orlando, Florida, with bidding locations set up in New York, Wisconsin and California.

“In the satellite locations, you could see the picture of what was going on in Orlando, and you’d bid to the guy there,” Morris said. “He’d call your bid into Orlando. There were six or eight guys down there, on the phones, taking bids. That was before the actual internet; it was done by satellite technology.”

A key skill for a successful sale manager and auctioneer is the ability to think outside of the box and problem solve quickly, Morris said.

That out-of-the-box thinking led Morris to address a void he saw in the industry and the creation of the Cattle Connection in 1991.

“That was one of the most rewarding deals we had,” Morris said. “Publications were getting more and more expensive to advertise in. That left a lot of people out, and that bothered me. I wanted something low-cost, no-nonsense with a fast turnaround. This was before the internet. I wanted it to be coast-to-coast, connecting people — the buyers and sellers. It took off. … It really served a purpose.”

Morris said his successes are due to the teams of people he surrounded himself with.

“I had great people working with me, great sales staff and crews, wonderful herdsmen and foreign trainees here at the farm who allowed us to keep that dream going for a while, and gifted and talented people who worked with the Cattle Connection,” he said.

Morris said he believes it is time for the next generation to step up.

“Change is hard,” Morris said. “That’s hard to get used to, to step back and let them do their thing. We’ve had the opportunity to sell a lot of good cows, and meet a lot of good people. It’s been a good business.”