Meet Our Resident President, Dan Catherman!
"A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way." – John C. Maxwell
An industry stalwart who values nutrition, calves, and people – in no particular order – is the defining moniker of Dan Catherman, President of Strauss Feeds.
Dan has bundled his passion for calves and his devoted, unassuming leadership style into a nearly 30-year career with the company. He admits to himself that as a teenager growing up in central Pennsylvania, he was a highly unlikely candidate for a future company president. “My high school guidance counselor told me I shouldn’t waste my time and money going to college,” he recalled. “So, I got a job bottling milk, and my boss there also told me I wasn’t college material. But my dad worked for Penn State University and I could get a pretty good discount, so I thought I should at least give it a try.”
As it turned out, college opened up a new universe for Dan, especially when he was able to marry his studies with the agricultural interests he had developed working on his uncle’s dairy farm as a youngster. Suddenly, that misfit teenager was a budding scholar, and he not only finished his bachelor's degree in Agricultural Education and one in Animal Science at Penn State, but also earned a master’s degree in Ruminant Nutrition, focusing on forage utilization.
During that time, academics and agriculture were not the only things he “married.” Dan and his wife, Linda, started dating during his Penn State years, forming a union that is now more than 40 years strong. Their early years together took them to the University of Kentucky at Lexington, where Dan earned a PhD in Nutritional Physiology. The next stop was Clay Center, Neb., where he completed post-doctoral research at the USDA Meat Animal Research Center. While life as a researcher was interesting, “I missed interacting with people,” said Dan. His subsequent career moves took him into technical service roles with several feed companies. At the same time, he and Linda built their own calf-raising enterprise in Minnesota and gained priceless, hands-on experience.
Dan and Linda Catherman
With their dogs, Marley and Bella
Next came a call from David Grant, owner of Strauss Veal Feeds. The Grant family had just purchased a milk replacer plant near Watertown, Wis. David’s intent was to maximize the plant’s potential by not only manufacturing milk replacer to feed the company’s veal calves but expanding its capacity for producing commercial calf milk replacer as well. So, 29 years ago, Dan became the Director of Technical Service at the Watertown plant. Within 6 years, calf milk replacer surpassed veal feed production at the facility. Today, the Watertown location churns out more than 700 tons of calf milk replacer per week, or more than 35,000 tons per year.
That exponential growth has made Strauss Feeds somewhat of a “sleeping giant” in the calf milk replacer universe. Dan takes great pride in the company’s current ranking of top 5 companies in terms of U.S. market share, even though many in the industry have never heard of the Strauss name. “We take care of our customers and work hard to deliver them the quality and consistency that addresses their needs,” he stated.
Dan was promoted to President of Strauss Feeds in 2024. In the day-to-day machinations of his job, he is one of those people who makes managing a basketful of weighty responsibilities look simple. He balances extensive travel to meet with Strauss customers and sales reps with ongoing management of the plant. In any given week, that may include navigating an on-site audit; working on equipment upgrades; monitoring incoming and outgoing product quality; hiring new staff; conducting performance reviews; overseeing ingredient purchases; and much more.
Empowering good people to do good work is a mantra that has helped Dan succeed as a manager. “I’m less concerned about degrees and certifications, and more impressed with people who take responsibility to consistently do a job well,” he declared. “Because we have been blessed with those kinds of people, my job is easy.”
That straightforward approach means Dan also is reluctant to embrace his title as “Dr.” Dan Catherman very often. But he is proud of the contributions he has made to the industry in terms of advancing calf nutrition via educational leadership. Namely, he was a collaborating author on a series of calf industry standard documents published by the Bovine Alliance on Management and Nutrition. He also was one of 18 authors of a recent, groundbreaking Journal of Dairy Science paper on new colostrum delivery evaluation standards.
In addition to raising calves together for many years, Dan and Linda also raised 2 sons, Chad and Erik, who both now work in the technology sector. The Cathermans are embracing the empty-nest lifestyle by indulging in their lifelong, mutual passion for horses. Their equine companions usually accompany them on vacation, and together they have ridden both the Rocky and Smokey Mountains, the Dakotas, Tennessee, the Shawnee National Forest in Illinois, and the Battlefield of Gettysburg.
“You can see so many things on horseback that you miss if you’re driving,” Dan stated. “It allows time for reflection and takes you back to the basics of life.”
Dan and his horse Cheyenne in Tennessee
That’s a powerful metaphor for the way he intends to continue serving customers in the ever-evolving calf production space. Despite the rapid changes that are bound to occur in the industry, Dan’s adaptations to the future will be guided by a key principle he says he learned in Animal Science 101. “Give them the nutrition they deserve,” he stated. “It’s easy to say but often hard to do in a commercial setting. But it’s the right way to raise calves.”
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An industry stalwart who values nutrition, calves, and people – in no particular order – is the defining moniker of Dan Catherman, President of Strauss Feeds.