After earning his B.S. and M.S. in Agriculture and Adult Education from Purdue University in Indiana, he moved north to Wisconsin. He benefited greatly from having a commercial shepherd as a mentor early on. May. They are still increasing their flock. A.I. has been used for over seven years to introduce outside genetics while maintaining a largely closed flock. This past fall they imported Charollais rams from Canada to evaluate their impact as a terminal sire and in a ewe crossbreeding program.
Gene believes in the viability and future of lamb production in the upper Midwest.
He welcomes contact or questions from serious shepherds interested in sheep or grazing and enjoys assisting and sharing ideas with other commercial producers. He attended Iowa State University for one year and Ambassador University for four years. The last two were at Ambassador's British campus. Upon graduation in l969, he remained at the British campus to develop, along with an Australian graduate of the same campus, the University's Agriculture Department and farm. He returned to the family farm in Iowa in l977 with no money, a wife, a child, and a preference for trying to survive by operating a commercial ewe flock.