Sponsored by American Society of Animal Science

James W. Oltjen, an Animal Management Systems Extension Specialist at UC Davis, was raised on a crop-livestock farm in Kansas, received his BS and MS from Kansas State, and PhD from UC Davis. Prior to joining UC in 1990, he was faculty at Oklahoma State. His extension efforts include animal enterprise management, modeling of natural resource and beef cattle, feedlot performance prediction, and modeling beef herd management. He collaborates with researchers in 7 countries to improve growth and composition models. He is technical advisor to the California Beef Cattle Improvement Association and developed the California Beef Quality Assurance Program. He is a past-president of the Western Section of ASAS receiving their Extension Award in 1997. He received the ASAS Extension Award in 2003, and was President of ASAS in 2010. Dr. Oltjen has over 200 extension papers or abstracts, 33 invited papers, and 100 refereed publications. Jim’s wife, Sharon, and their son, Cory, support his work.