Metzger Honored with Award for Meritorious Service
Erick Metzger, Hebron, Ohio, has been named winner of the Award for Meritorious Service presented by the American Jersey Cattle Association (AJCA) and National All-Jersey Inc. (NAJ).
This award is given annually to a living individual(s) who, in the joint opinion of the Boards of Directors of the national Jersey organizations, has made a notable contribution to the advancement of the Jersey breed and the livelihood of Jersey owners in the United States through research, education, development, marketing, or other significant activities of the allied dairy industry.
“Erick Metzger built a legacy defined not by a single accomplishment, but by decades of quiet, consistent leadership and meaningful service,” noted the Pennsylvania Jersey Cattle Association (PJCA) in their nomination.
His contributions have helped shape the national Jersey organizations, advance the Jersey breed nationwide and strengthen milk markets for Jersey producers, the PJCA continued.
Metzger devoted his entire four-decade career to the purebred dairy cattle industry. For 32 of those years, he served on the staff of the national Jersey organizations, first in herd services and later with NAJ, the organization’s milk marketing arm.
Over those years, he helped the Jersey organizations develop programs and processes that expedited the registration process, streamlined the collection of identification and production data and leveraged new technology to enhance parentage verification. He helped to initiate research that validated the advantages of Jersey cows and Jersey milk and launched a workshop series that showed producers how to capitalize on both with on-farm processing. He rallied the troops in the battle to get multiple-component pricing more broadly adopted in Federal Milk Marketing Orders (FMMOs) and to otherwise get fair prices for Jersey milk. Since 2009, he made more than 150 trips, testified at five FMMO hearings, and organized five trips to Capitol Hill that allowed producers to visit one-on-one with members of Congress.
“Throughout his tenure, Erick’s leadership, institutional knowledge and steadfast commitment to the Jersey breed have had a profound impact at both the national and state levels,” noted the PJCA. “From a Pennsylvania perspective, Erick was a consistent and trusted partner. He supported Pennsylvania breeders with clarity, professionalism and a genuine understanding of the challenges and opportunities faced by Jersey breeders for registration, genomics and genetics, and milk marketing.”
Metzger grew up on Raintree Farm in northern Indiana, where his family milked 40 registered Guernsey cows and sold milk marketed with the Golden Guernsey label. Though he initially worked with the other Channel Islands dairy breed, his exposure to Jersey programs came early. Raintree Farm was one of the first to participate in the joint Guernsey-Jersey functional type traits appraisal program, with Al Meyer scoring the herd in 1979.
He earned an undergraduate degree in animal science from Purdue University in 1982. In his junior year, he was high individual in the Jersey breed at the dairy judging contest at World Dairy Expo, where he crossed paths with his future boss, Maurice E. Core, the official for the Jersey classes.
In January 1983, Metzger moved to Columbus, Ohio, to accept a position as records department assistant for the American Guernsey Association, which shared office space on South Hamilton Road with the American Jersey Cattle Club, predecessor to the AJCA. In 1987, he was promoted to executive secretary of the Guernsey association.
While working at South Hamilton Road, another impactful event occurred for Metzger—meeting his future bride, Patty Callahan, who worked across the aisle in the performance department at the AJCC. They married in 1984.
The office-sharing scenario ended in 1988 when the AJCC built and moved into its current office in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, and the Guernsey association found office space elsewhere. Metzger joined the team at the AJCC in November 1992 as superintendent of records. Reporting to Executive Secretary Core, he was responsible for registrations, performance programs and computer operations.
One of the most impactful programs he helped to develop, market and manage was REAP—a comprehensive service package that includes registrations, contributions to Equity, appraisals and performance testing. Attesting to its value is the fact that 91% of the herds on performance programs today are enrolled on REAP.
Metzer also supervised the transition of data processing to an internet-intranet system that enabled round-the-clock registration services and on-demand pedigrees, ultimately named infoJersey.com. He also initiated programs that allowed Jersey breeders to use American ID tags and JerseyTags as permanent identification for registration rather than tattoos and introduced Data Collection Ratings to production records as a measure of testing frequency.
A decade into his Jersey career, his responsibilities shifted somewhat to accommodate a tremendous demand for computer services. In July 2003, management of computer operations was passed to Mark Chamberlain, who headed the newly created information technology department. To Metzger’s plate was added the job of field service coordinator.
With nearly 20 years of breed association experience covering nearly every service area, Metzger was a good fit for the role, which included oversight of a 12-person team that provided on-site support for the entire line of AJCA and NAJ services.
A year later, when colleague Mike Brown vacated his position as general manager of NAJ, he was asked to take on that role as well along with his duties as field service coordinator and supervisor of the department now known as herd services.
The milk marketing responsibility was a natural progression for Metzger. At that point in his career, he was up for a challenge and learning something new, and the Jersey organizations needed him.
In a press release announcing the promotion, Smith noted, “NAJ has always depended upon leadership from a person who knows the dairy industry inside and out. Erick is uniquely qualified to head a company that promotes the idea that quality milk, equitable markets and awareness of consumer desires are basic to the future of the dairy industry. He understands what we do and why we do it.”
Just six months into his new position, Metzger called on that experience to testify at his first FMMO hearing, one aimed to amend the pooling provisions of the Central FMMO. He urged the secretary of agriculture to reject the proposal as it would unfairly impact producers of high-component milk. He shared his own story of how market-wide pooling had dramatically reduced the price his family received for their Golden Guernsey milk even though it was a superior product in high demand.
Though the Order was amended, Metzger was not deterred. During his career, he testified at four additional FMMO hearings to even the playing field for producers of high-component milk, including the recent hearing to adjust pricing formulas, which is still in progress.
Supervision of the field service team was taken off Metzger’s plate in June 2006, with oversight eventually landing on the shoulders of the manager of Jersey Marketing Service, Herby Lutz, and his newly hired assistant, Daniel Bauer. With the move, Metzger had more bandwidth to focus on AJCA programs and NAJ.
Metzger led the herd services team during a time of tremendous growth. He was at the helm when registrations surpassed 94,000 in 2008, breaking the record previously set in 1953, and when they reached a historical high of 184,957 in 2017. This past year, registrations numbered more than 123,000, cows enrolled on REAP surpassed 150,000 and the appraiser team scored more than 100,000 animals for the 11th consecutive year.
Among the NAJ-funded research projects initiated under his watch were the ground-breaking Capper-Cady sustainability study, first released by the authors in 2010 and updated by Dr. Frank Mitloehner with the University of California-Davis in 2022, and the A2 milk study completed by his alma mater, Purdue, in 2020.
To educate Jersey producers interested in processing their own milk and marketing it directly to consumers, Jersey Value-Added 101 Workshops were held in St. Charles, Mo., in 2017, Dayton, Ohio, in 2018, and Brattleboro, Vt., in 2019. A fourth workshop was planned in Bettendorf, Iowa, but canceled days before due to the pandemic.
Metzger also helped to organize Constituent Day on Capitol Hill to kick off the annual meetings held in Alexandria, Va., in 2014, resulting in two busloads of Jersey folks meeting with members of Congress and staff from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In the years that followed, fly-ins to Washington D.C. were organized so members could meet with Congressional representatives in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2023.
“Erick’s service was marked by his unselfish dedication to people,” the PJCA wrote. “He was always willing to take time to answer questions, offer perspective, and ensure that members felt supported. His steady presence provided support during leadership transitions and evolving industry demands.”
Outside the national Jersey organizations, Metzger is a former president of the National Dairy Shrine and sat on boards of the National Purebred Dairy Cattle Association and the National Pedigreed Livestock Council. He is a founding chair of U.S. Livestock Genetics Export Inc.
In 1999, he earned a master of business administration with top honors from Franklin University, specializing in international business. In 2013, he was presented with the Distinguished Alumni Award for lifetime achievements from Purdue University’s Department of Animal Sciences.
In summing up his service at retirement in October 2024, Neal Smith, executive secretary and CEO, said, “Erick always had high expectations of himself and those around him. He tackled every job with enthusiasm and a strong drive to succeed. His outstanding work ethic and determination inspired others for greater accomplishments. For three decades, he has been a rock on the Jersey team, and Jersey breeders have REAPED the benefits of his dedicated service.”
