ADSA Public Relations Luncheon, June 23, 1975

Sustaining members of our Association, guests, representatives of dairy organizations, and Board members: I am grateful to you for joining with us today to share thoughts for maintaining the impact of the American Dairy Science Association in providing needed service to the dairy industry. Many of you are members of the Association and are in the mainstream of its activities. Others are supporters of the dairy industry and close allies of our American Dairy Science Association. We appreciate your interest and strong support. Since its organization in 1906, as the National Association of Dairy Instructors and Investigators, our Association has sought a close relationship with industry and its needs. Our constitution states that our Association is " . . . to serve the dairy and dairy-related industries by stimulating the discovery, application and dissemination of knowledge, creating an atmosphere in which free interchange of information and full understanding will exist between the various segments of the industries." During the origins of our Association, there was a growing need for special training in dairy production and manufacturing. The original name, National Association of Dairy Instructors and Investigators, reflects this concern by our fledgling association. In 1908, President C. H. Eckles emphasized in his presidential address the need for interesting competent young people in the dairy industry. Hence, our goals, purposes, and objectives as an Association to train future dairy leadership, to stimulate research, and to interpret it to the user are essentially the same today; but the setting is vastly different. As we review our past, some characteristics of our society, our association, and certainly our dairy industry emerge. I believe these characteristics will describe the trend of our industry at least during the remainder of this century, perhaps longer, but our judgments are extremely unreliable when the extrapolat ion is so distant. The first of the three observations is that in recent years we have experienced an increase in scientific knowledge that has approached an almost exponential rate. In 1917 when our Journal of Dairy Science was established, it was a pioneering endeavor, the first scientific dairy journal in the world. Le Lait, the well-known French dairy journal did not appear until three years later. During the seventy years of our Association's history, we have had what has been referred to as a "knowledge explosion." More scientific facts have been uncovered and more scientists have been at work during the last three quarters of a century than during the entire previously recorded history of man. Whereas in the immediate past centuries only the independently wealthy could undertake intellectual and scientific inquiry, the productivity of society has now become sufficient to free persons to undertake research and educational endeavors for the public good. We anticipate the continuance of this situation as we look to the next century. Our further progress as a nation depends upon the continued rapid increase in knowledge and its application. A second key feature of our society, and also of our dairy industry, is that of increasing specialization. The capacity of the human intellect has not kept pace with this onslaught of new knowledge and information. Hence we have sought to train and accept responsibilities in more narrow and specific fields, striving to maintain a coordinated comprehension of the broader total picture of our business, profession, or discipline. Examine your own business or profession over the past years. I suspect, with the exception of those who have taken on broadened administrative roles, that your own responsibilities have become more specialized and intensified. You have probably brought into your organizations persons who possessed specialized qualifications which could be used to advantage. So it is with all phases of the dairy industry, be it on the farm, in the plant, in the