Magness Manager Geeslin named 2002 Limousin Commercial Marketing Booster of the Year
“Actions speak louder than words,” says Wendell Geeslin, winner of the North American Limousin Foundation Commercial Marketing Booster of the Year award.
He should know. For the better part of 15 years, Magness Land & Cattle of Platteville, Colorado, led by manager Geeslin, have done more than their fair share to ensure the success of the Limousin breed—on all levels. And while the many show and sale ring achievements garner much of the spotlight, the Magness operation devotes even more time and energy to improving Limousin’s standing in the commercial industry.
The breed recognized Magness Land and Cattle, and Geeslin, for a myriad of contributions to the commercial industry during Limousin events at the 2003 National Western Stock Show.
“The contributions made to the commercial industry by Magness Land & Cattle and Wendell Geeslin on behalf of the Limousin breed have been tremendous,” said NALF Director of Commercial Industry Relations Benjie Lemon. “Wendell has been very involved in the commercial industry on all levels. He has provided valuable input and insight as to the direction and focus of many of NALF’s commercial programs.”
Geeslin’s support of the Limousin breed dates back to his college years, followed by time spent at Bates Limousin, McKown Limousin, and now Magness Land & Cattle, Today, as manager of the Magness program, Geeslin oversees more than 1,000 registered Limousin cattle and manages one of the most extensive embryo transplant programs in the nation.
In addition to marketing large numbers of bulls and females to fellow seedstock producers, Magness sells in excess of 1,200 Limousin, Angus and Limousin x Angus composites to commercial cattlemen. The operation also sources and places several thousand replacement females for their commercial bull customers.
Along with being a member of NCBA, Beef Improvement Federation, the Colorado Livestock Association and the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association, Geeslin sits on the board of directors of ConAgra Better Beef Co., an alliance created in 1996 between Magness and ConAgra Beef Co. Geeslin currently serves as at-large director for the North American Limousin Foundation (NALF), and involves himself actively in the NALF committee system. He dedicated himself to serving on several NALF committees including the commercial, show, long-range planning and blood typing/DNA parent verification committees.
His progressive attitude evident on the purebred operation obviously spilled over into efforts on the commercial front.
“Magness is more commercially grounded than a lot of people realize. They understand the commercial industry from top to bottom,” Lemon continued. “They have been very innovative in the services they provide their commercial customers.”
In addition to providing an unconditional bull guarantee, Magness swears by a calf buy-back program. They developed a pipeline to provide replacement females for their customers and work with bull customers to enter cattle in the National Western Fed Beef Contest.
“I had no idea we were being considered for this award,” Geeslin said. “We were trying to win the carload show but when I heard them say ConAgra, I knew. The week we had in Denver was unreal and this topped it off.”
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