About Data 2 Decisions
Welcome to my little home on the web. We are a farm family feeding cattle and growing mostly corn and soybeans in northeast Kansas. Dad is still actively involved on the farm and we have a couple of key partners as well. We're at that stage of starting to think about how we give the kids an opportunity to return to the family farm if they choose. While farming is my livelihood, it is not my passion or why this website exists.
My passion is technology, and more specifically data. From our first computer purchase when I was in 6th grade to today, I’m fascinated by how we use data to help us make decisions. The first project was an Excel spreadsheet (I think it was Excel although for the old-timers Lotus 1-2-3 was the spreadsheet standard) tracking cattle feeding closeouts. Mom and Dad gave me my own computer as a graduation gift - the goal was to develop a crop records program. It was a learning experience, mostly I learned I would not be the next Bill Gates and build a software empire.
The introduction of yield monitors and GPS systems into the farming world was a natural fit. Starting in 1999, I did consulting for a few local producers and an area agronomist. We analyzed lots of data, did some interesting projects, several of which you will probably see appear here over time. It was great fun, but sometimes I wonder if I got paid more than 25 cents/hour for my time.. It was the good old days, laptop computers in tractor cabs, installing Rawson hydraulic drives for our first VRT work, using coverage maps in Farmworks Sitemate for the most primitive guidance ever. Although at the time we thought it was way cool! The culmination of that work was a regression analysis project with a super talented team of KSU ag folks where we pulled 400+ samples across several thousand acres from three producers and evaluated various planting and soil/fertility variables against yield. I still believe in what we accomplished there. And still wonder about the lack of followup. I think it was simple burnout, the time and effort required was massive.
Ultimately, the dramatically better technology where most modern equipment is recording data, syncing it to the cloud and so much more means the cost effectiveness of doing some of the same things today is so much better. That is what drives my renewed enthusiasm. The 15 year hiatis from precision ag work consisted of a lot of interesting experiences - helping launch the AgChat Foundation and serving on the board for several years was certainly the biggest, and something I am still very proud of today. Had a significant mental health issue that ultimately resulted in a bi-polar diagnosis, mental health is still a fascinating topic for me today and the one thing I may be almost as passionate about as data. It does lead to an interesting perspective - often when we start talking about data, and using data for decisions, the uncharted waters we can quickly enter probably involves human psychology as much as number crunching. I hope you stick around, stay in contact as we dig a bit deeper into the data all around us.