Ride for the brand

New president brings ‘cowboy ethics’ to campus

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BROOKINGS – In his office in Morrill Hall on the South Dakota State University campus, Barry Dunn quotes from a book on ethics.

“Live each day with courage … take pride in your work … finish what you start … do what has to be done … be tough but fair … when you make a promise, keep it … ride for the brand … talk less and say more … remember that some things aren’t for sale … know where to draw the line.”

Looking up from “Cowboy Ethics: What Wall Street Can Learn from the Code of the West,” by James P. Owen, Dunn adds, “If you’re on a ranch anywhere in the United States, you just live the code of the West. My grandfather (Claude Lamoureaux) could have written this book.

“That helped me a lot in my career, because that’s how I grew up. Having a ranch experience as a youth and then as an adult, I certainly had lots of fun and exciting times; but it was these things that carried forward.”

Dunn sees two key chapters in his life and work that on May 23, 2016, brought him to the presidency of South Dakota’s largest university and land-grant institution: First chapter as a West River cattle rancher, very involved in the beef cattle industry in the United States, including South Dakota; the second chapter, higher education.

Throughout both chapters, his ties were always to South Dakota and to SDSU, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in biology in 1975. That was followed by graduate degrees in animal science: his master’s in 1977 and a doctorate in 2000. Throw into those academic achievements almost 20 years – 1979 to 1996 – managing his family’s cattle ranch in Mission.

Then came a return to campus.

South Dakota to Texas – and back

“I reached a point in my mid-40s. We sold the family cattle ranch and chose to make a career choice: could have stayed in ranching but chose to take a different path,” Dunn explained.

He, his wife Jane (Kovack) and their two sons came to Brookings and SDSU; they moved on to his wife’s family’s original homestead north of Brookings.

“We knew that Brookings had an incredible school system, so we made a choice to move here. We looked at school systems all over the state and all over Nebraska and other western states,” he added.

“Brookings was an incredible community that we knew well. It was a pretty easy decision, as I re-engineered myself, to start here in Brookings.”

From 1997 to 2004, he served as an Extension livestock specialist and assistant professor in the Department of Animal and Range Science. Following that came the job that would take him away from Brookings – before his return to SDSU to stay.

An ‘MBA for ranchers’

In 2004, Dunn left for Texas to serve as executive director of the King Ranch Institute for Range Management: a job that he summed up as “a really, really incredible experience.”

After earning his doctorate at SDSU in 2000, he joined the faculty and was teaching range management, which involves grasses, ecosystems and beef cattle production.

He explained that the King Ranch, an 800,000-plus-aces family operation in south Texas, in celebration of its 150th anniversary had endowed a ranch management program in collaboration with Texas A & M University (Kingsville).

“They recruited me and offered me the job to start that institute,” Dunn said. “It’s like an MBA for ranchers. How are you going to run a ranch really well?

“From South Dakota west – but even in states like Florida – there are enormous cattle operations. They manage a lot of natural resources; they’re big businesses; they produce food. So the management of these natural resources around the cattle business is key,” he continued.

“I had a graduate program, so I had students. It was an academic job.”

Smiling a bit, the president added, “I was on King Ranch every week but not as a working cowboy. I still have a key to King Ranch.”

He did note that his students spent some time doing cowboy-like work.

“We had two required internships. We had students on ranches from Florida to Idaho, Texas, California, Nebraska. My students were on internships on large ranches all over the United States.”

Additionally, his students were mature, “30-year-olds with work experience.” And the focus was on “managing ranches, the business aspect, breeding and genetics of cattle, nutrition, range management, natural resources, oil production, energy production.”

After six years in Texas, come 2010, Dunn was ready to come home to SDSU and Brookings.

Back to Brookings

Dunn came back to the post of South Dakota Corn Utilization endowed dean of the College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences, with additional duties as director of SDSU Extension and as a professor of animal science. The experiences he picked up proved valuable on his way to SDSU’s top post.

His appreciation for the university’s land-grant mission was reinforced. He noted the ag college’s “experiential learning, enormous experience-based learning” in such areas as dairy science and also in other colleges, such as pharmacy, nursing and engineering.

Now he’s looking to “real hands-on, experience-based academic programs and a commitment from the College of Arts and Sciences to increase that part of learning.”

He also cited as a reason for the success of SDSU students and alumni “an opportunity for experiential leadership. I was really excited about it, and I think it’s understated and not full appreciated.”

Dunn also likes opportunities for “young people to be in an organization where you have to work as team.” As examples he cited student government, athletics and band.

“I think we have to sell that more to potential employees and to the parents of potential students,” he added.

Challenges old and new

“The challenge we face is, with always limited resources, to have a commitment of continuous improvement in every aspect of the university. That’s really what I’m after,” the president said for his part in SDSU’s future.

A top priority for that improvement is the Animal Disease Research and Diagnostic Laboratory – “huge, by far the biggest.”

Another issue on his list as the new year is under way is “a pay raise for state employees, which we hope comes through. Pay raises the last four years have been very good.”

However, word coming out of the governor’s office has talked about a tight budget this state legislative session.

As he looks ahead to challenges, Dunn looks back to several of his predecessors at the helm of SDSU. He cited the Hilton Briggs era with its enormous building on the campus during the 1960s and 1970s. Following that came “really some tough times and the presidents faced some enormous challenges.”

With President Peggy Gordon Miller came the decision to move to Division I and the Performing Arts Center; President David Chicoine “picked right up on it and things kind of exploded.”

However, Dunn said he wants to avoid bookends of growth and improvement.

“I think it’s expensive to do it that way,” he explained. “I think doing it steadily over time and making that commitment – at least on the physical plant of the university – is more efficient to do it steadily rather than bookends by decades. That was a very expensive solution.

“But it also goes over to academics, to research and the whole land grant mission, just steadily challenging ourselves to serve better, do better,” he added.

Ride for the brand

Looking back on his first semester at the helm, Dunn said it was “pretty much what I expected. It was a very exciting fall. I got to a lot of different events from across the campus that as dean of ag I hadn’t gone to.

“I went to a lot more athletic events and a lot more student events than I had ever gone to before. It was exciting and fun and affirming. That was kind of the highlight of the fall.”

Looking ahead, Dunn falls back again on those cowboy ethics and how they apply to his overall vision: “Ride for the brand. We really need to ride for the brand.”

On his lapel he proudly wears his brand: an intertwined “S” and “D” – in Jackrabbit yellow and blue.

Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.