Uplevel Dairy Podcast

What is your dairy farm really worth—and does investing $1 million in facilities mean you’ve added $1 million in value? On this episode of the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen sits down with Brad Herkenhoff, a Senior Dairy Lending Specialist, and Shelby Borman, a Certified General Appraiser, from Compeer Financial to explore what drives dairy farm appraisals. They discuss rising land values, c...

What makes a great cow—and which breeding decisions shape the future of the Holstein breed? Recorded live during World Dairy Expo, this special edition of the Uplevel Dairy Podcast brings together Greg Andersen of Seagull Bay Dairy and WinStar Genetics, Idaho, Jordan Siemers of Siemers Holsteins, Wisconsin, and Andrew Steiner of Pine Tree Dairy, Ohio, for an open conversation about the cows and bu...

What motivates someone to run 100 miles and bike another 100? For Jordan Matthews of Rosy-Lane Holsteins, the challenge was about more than endurance. It was an opportunity to raise funds for the UW Carbone Cancer Center and bring people together around a cause that matters. In this episode of the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen talks with Jordan about the motivation behind his Crossing Wisco...

What does it take to prepare the next generation to lead a dairy farm before ownership officially changes hands? Peggy Coffeen visits B&B Dairy near Waupun, Wisconsin, to talk with father-son team Brent and Chase Harmsen about building trust, sharing responsibility and navigating farm succession. They discuss the evolution of their dairy, from a stanchion barn to robotic milking, along with im...

In this final Showbox Stories Live from the Tanbark episode filmed at World Dairy Expo, Peggy Coffeen and Tim Abbott of Showbox Sires interview Katie DiGangi of Darlington Ridge Dairy about the origins and goals behind the D-Ridge prefix, her family’s growing involvement in showing, and the values she hopes to pass to her daughters Mila and Paige. Katie explains how their tagline “passion, care, q...

In Part 4 of Showbox Stories Live from the Tanbark at World Dairy Expo, Peggy Coffeen and Tim Abbott of Showbox Sires welcome Dr. Sheila McGuirk from the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine to discuss her long involvement with the show, beginning in 1983 as a Holstein assistant and evolving into ring responsibilities and veterinary leadership. McGuirk explains the critical role o...

Filmed live at World Dairy Expo for Showbox Stories: Live from the Tanbark, Peggy Coffeen and Tim Abbott welcome Clark Woodmansee and Bryan Voegeli to share unforgettable Expo memories, the influence of mentors, and the multi-generation family legacies behind Woodmansee Holsteins and Begley’s Brown Swiss, including Bryan’s family role in the Expo’s origins. They discuss why they return for competi...

Welcome to Part 2 of Showbox Stories Live from the Tanbark at World Dairy Expo, where Peggy Coffeen and Tim Abbott sit down with Chris Hill of MD Hillbrook, as he recounts starting in 4-H judging in 1983, becoming a fitter, and learning from mentors that shaped his career. Hill emphasizes that success is about treating people well, taking risks, and evolving in the sales business, including creati...

Recorded live at World Dairy Expo, this kickoff episode of a five-part Showbox Stories series features Uplevel Dairy, Tim Abbott of Showbox Sires, and presenting sponsor CowManager. Peggy Coffeen and Tim introduce the idea that every showbox holds untold industry stories, and in this series they will be exploring just a fraction of them. Make sure to tune in all week to catch all of the guests! Gu...

In this episode of the High-Performance Mindset Series powered by Nedap, Peggy Coffeen interviews Rodney Elliot, an Irish-born dairy farmer who, alongside his wife Dorothy and family, has spent 20 years building Drumgoon Dairy in South Dakota into a multi-site operation and helping launch the 5,000-cow County Line Dairy partnership, where a 100-stall rotary milks 100 cows about every eight minutes...

Live from World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin, Peggy Coffeen interviews House Agriculture Committee Chair Congressman G.T. Thompson ahead of his roundtable with the American Dairy Coalition. Thompson, a central Pennsylvania dairy farm native, highlights dairy priorities he has championed, including ongoing efforts to restore whole milk options in schools and updates included in “Farm Bill 1.0”...

Today on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen is onsite with Josh Webb, at multi-generational Heglar Creek Dairy near Declo, Idaho, a fifth-generation family operation that relocated from Utah in the mid-1970s and has since grown and diversified. Webb describes the family’s structured pathway into the business, requiring education, outside work, interviews, and defined roles, as well as a clea...

Today on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy interviews longtime dairy industry leader Peter Coyne about the relationships that shaped his life and his responsibility to “pay it back to the next in line.” Coyne describes his path from growing up in western New York around Holsteins and influential cow people, to working with Pinehurst, attending UW–River Falls, managing and expanding dairy herds, end...

Today, on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen talks with Duane Banderob and Jim Matthews about Ever. Ag separating into two standalone organizations.  EA Risk, formerly Ever. Ag Risk Management, is now an independent company focused solely on managing commodity markets across the agricultural supply chain. They share that it’s the same people, producer relationships, and farmer-first focus th...

Today, Peggy Coffeen is onsite as she welcomes Dr. Tera Barnhardt to the Uplevel Dairy Podcast to discuss leadership, communication, and navigating hard seasons in production agriculture. Dr. Barnhardt, a Kansas-based veterinarian, mom, business owner, and agriculture advocate, describes serving dairies, calf ranches, and feed yards across southwest Kansas and the High Plains while managing heavy...

Peggy Coffeen interviews Jill Houin at Homestead Dairy in Plymouth, Indiana, where the family milks 5,000 cows across three sites, including a 2,200-cow robotic dairy with 36 robots and a semi-automatic feed system. Jill, a former New Jersey teacher and vegetarian who married into the dairy, describes learning farm life, becoming the farm’s tour guide and key messenger, and using truthful, practic...

Peggy Coffeen is joined today by Tim Abbott of Showbox Sires and Jared Krull of CowManager on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast to announce that the popular Showbox Stories series will be recorded live at World Dairy Expo on Thursday, October 1, from about 8:00–10:30 a.m. on the Tanbark stage, with CowManager as premier sponsor. They recap the project’s purpose of preserving dairy history and authentic vo...

As we gear up for World Dairy Expo 2026, we’re bringing back a favorite from the Showbox Stories series recorded at World Dairy Expo. In this episode, Peggy Coffeen and Tim Abbott sit down with Jeff Butler of Butler View Farms to hear about his journey in the dairy industry—from his early days in 4-H to his success with show cattle and his continued commitment to the future of dairy. Jeff shares m...

What does the dairy cow of the future need to do better and what tools will help get her there? Today on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen visits Seagull Bay Dairy in Idaho with brothers Greg and John Andersen to discuss how decades of genetics work shaped their multi-site operations and global influence through Seagull Bay and WinStar Genetics. The Andersens share the story behind Seagull...

What does it really take to build a dairy that can thrive for generations? In this episode of the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen sits down with Mitch Perkins of Perkins Twin Creek Farm in Indiana, a third-generation family dairy milking 450 cows and farming 2,700 acres. Mitch shares what it means to step into a family legacy and make decisions that honor what previous generations built while...

On the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Pauly Paul of Complete Management Consulting discusses why many dairy transition plans fail financially even after legal ownership is transferred. As retiring owners depend on the farm as their “401(k)” through monthly, annual, or lump-sum buyouts, the same dairy must also support the next generation’s management, added labor layers, and new debt, often amid tight cas...

In this special collaboration episode of World Dairy Expo’s The Dairy Show podcast and Uplevel Dairy, Peggy Coffeen interviews Cory Geiger, who was named World Dairy Expo’s 2026 Industry Person of the Year, about the experiences and mentors that shaped his career as a Hoard’s Dairyman editor, CoBank dairy economist, author, and youth mentor. Geiger recalls receiving the award call, his pivotal 199...

Today, Peggy Coffeen interviews Robert Chicoine, World Dairy Expo’s 2026 International Person of the Year, in a collaboration with The Dairy Show. Chicoine recounts how a childhood fascination sparked by Holstein Canada’s journal led him from a dairy farm background to university, a summer at Quebec’s AI center, and a career developing a young sire proving program starting in 1966. He describes ad...

Today on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy Coffeen interviews Dr. Kyle Becker, a Heritage Vet Partners veterinarian and former Indiana dairy farm kid who learned to AI cows at 12 and began practicing immediately after graduation. Becker describes his atypical, influencer-style DiSC profile and how it supports team-building, client collaboration, and bridging ownership–employee gaps on modern dairie...

Today on the Uplevel Dairy Podcast, Peggy sits down with Luke Getty of Ideal Dairy and Cookiecutter Holsteins in Eastern New York to discuss the role of genetics, technology, and long-term decision-making in building a successful dairy operation. Getty shares the evolution of the family-owned business, which has grown through strategic expansion while also developing a global genetics program. He...