In the late 1980's Cornell University Extension used a special state legislative appropriation to establish a program called PRO-DAIRY. The purpose of the program was to improve the management skills of New York's dairy farmers so that they could be more competitive with the producers in the southwestern and northwestern regions of the U.S.
Several Ohio agents heard about PRO-DAIRY as it developed. Mike Hogan, Carroll county A&NR Agent, traveled to New York to learn more about the program and obtain copies of the teaching and resource materials that had been developed. In 1991 an Ohio version of the PRO-DAIRY program was conducted in the East District by Mike Hogan, Ken Simeral, Dave Miller and others. In 1991 agents and specialists in the Northeast Extension District and a few state specialists organized into a teaching team to establish a PRO-DAIRY type program called Dairy Excel. Several Dairy Excel team members traveled to Cornell University to receive training in organizing and teaching PRO-DAIRY type programs. Based upon the success of the two dairy oriented programs, several other teaching teams have been formed since 1991, starting with formation of HortExcel in the Northeast District in 1992 with its first Managing for Success workshops conducted in 1993.
In 1989-90, Bernie Erven spent a nine-month sabbatic at Cornell working closely with PRO-DAIRY personnel. Since that sabbatic he has been a part of the ManagementExcel program. He has been involved in four state-wide in-services: May 1993, August 1994, August 1995 and September 1996. These in-services are the primary training opportunity for new ManagementExcel teams and teachers. Lanny Anderson and Bernie also conducted annual in-services for ManagementExcel team leaders in May 1995, May 1996 and May 1997.
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