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Getting to know the pac team

Dr. Randall Spare

Randall Spare graduated from the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine in 1986. The youngest of eight children, Randall grew up on a dairy farm in south central Kansas. The seed of passion for animal husbandry was planted by his father. The desire to learn and apply knowledge and information to agriculture has been a lifelong pursuit. Service to others in a public environment was inspired by working on the family’s produce farm.

Randall was given the responsibility of picking fruits and vegetables for those unable to perform the task. He was fortunate to learn, at an early age, the importance of providing safe and healthy food for others. The Spare family continues to farm fruits and vegetables today. Dr. Spare recalls his parents always giving and serving others and credits these experiences as the catalyst for his desire to serve through animal agriculture.

After graduating in 1986, Dr. Spare worked in two clinics before he and his wife, Michelle, purchased Ashland Veterinary Center in 1990, a clinic that had served the Clark county area since 1940. Growth of the clinic was never the goal. By keeping the goal of service and best-practice veterinary medicine as an overarching priority, the clinic has grown and currently employs five full-time veterinarians and two part-time veterinarians. Time, advancing science and technology and the cyclical nature of food animal production have fueled remarkable industry-wide change. The AVC catchment area has evolved from largely stocker operations to predominantly cow-calf and seedstock operations. Today, AVC serves clients in 13 Kansas counties, 5 Oklahoma counties and 2 counties in Texas.

The first National Cattleman’s Beef Association Strategic Alliances Field Study, published in the early 1990s, documented the need for the beef industry to make a paradigm shift in beef production. The study documented a decline in consumer preference for beef, product inconsistency and inadequate quality. Since the original study, subsequent studies have identified many other production practices that required change if the beef industry was to remain a preferred meat protein. Each study challenged all industry stakeholders to seek transparency, implement change and forge new alliances.

The beef industry’s efforts to document and reveal inconsistencies and subpar quality also provided a road map to add value to beef through the evolution of a true value-based marketing system. As a young veterinarian, Dr. Spare embraced the challenge to examine all facets of his veterinary practice and seek new methods to support AVC clients needing to make change in their own operations. Challenges are inherent in every cow-calf operation. Challenges also become transformative opportunities when value is enhanced through nutritional management, health protocols, temperament training and acclimation, and genetic tools. The goal then and now is to work alongside AVC clients in an effort to add and capture value in their operations regardless of market volatility.

“Skin in the game” perspective has guided Spare to seek practical, cost-effective solutions helping producers leverage natural resources, human capital and creative management practices to capture the most value possible in their cow-calf operations. As new tools such as genomic testing and advanced diagnostic testing become the norm, value-based marketing systems enable smaller producers’ access to the same or better market channels as larger cow-calf operations. In a rapidly changing consumer environment, sustainable profit and equity preservation is challenging. Veterinarians are positioned to come alongside producers and assist them in creative risk management using sound health management, nutritional guidance and genetic selections.

After successfully growing a small business in rural America, life changed on March 6, 2017. The largest wildfire in Kansas history burned a 1.5 million acre path of destruction through the heart of southwest Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas panhandle areas. Losses of animals, homes, crops, forage, fences and facilities were estimated to be over $100 million. Dr. Spare, the AVC team and the Ashland Veterinary Center became ground zero for triage and treatment of extensive animal injuries resulting from the Starbuck Wildfire. The AVC team, along with volunteers, immediately began the herculean tasks of reaching out to livestock producers assisting in loss assessment, humane euthanasia of those animals too severely burned to survive and determining treatment options for survivors.

The Starbuck Wildfire became one of Spare’s greatest life-learning experiences and challenged the guiding principles of faith, service to others and commitment to the health and well-being of all God’s creatures under his care as a practitioner. Many of the clients that suffered extensive loss of livestock also lost homes, working facilities, equipment, hay inventories, pastures and fences. AVC became the command center for volunteers responding to assist in veterinary care, prompt disposal of deceased animals and distribution of precious treatment resources. The days and weeks following the fire, each AVC staff member focused on the humane and timely treatment of the affected animals, offering emotional support throughout the community, accessing emergency resources and responding to many requests for interviews from the media.

Dr. Spare finds, with 34 years of experience, the opportunity to come alongside and encourage production of the greatest tasting, most nutritionally dense protein rewarding. In his “Spare” time, Randall enjoys spending time with family, managing a cowherd, growing, breeding and merchandising value-added, known quantity bred heifers and cows. Growth has never been a primary goal for Dr. Spare. Listening to and exceeding the expectation of each person that walks in the door or calls is the overarching priority. Dr. Spare and Michelle have five grown children and seven grandchildren.

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