The Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) presented Stewart Bauck, Lincoln, Nebraska, the BIF Pioneer Award July 5 during the group’s annual research symposium in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
The Pioneer Award recognizes individuals who have made lasting contributions to the improvement of beef cattle, honoring those who have had a major role in acceptance of performance reporting and documentation as the primary means to make genetic change in beef cattle.
Bauck was a true pioneer. A 1981 graduate of the Western College of Veterinary Medicine in Saskatoon, he entered mixed practice before returning to obtain a master’s degree in veterinary herd health. In 1986, Bauck joined the team responsible for developing and commercializing ivermectin globally, which led him to be the country manager in Canada for Merial (now Boehringer Ingelheim). In 2003, Bauck saw the emerging genomic technology and launched the Igenity Livestock Production Business Unit in September 2003 with a single product – Igenity L (for leptin).
From his role in Igenity, Bauck developed collaborations to bring Frontier Beef Systems into Igenity, support National Beef Cattle Educational Consortium genomic test validation, support early sequencing and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) identification efforts in cattle, and develop high throughput SNP genotyping tools. He was also responsible for much of the funding that went into building the original Bovine SNP 50 chip from Illumina and worked with Angus Genetics Inc. and the University of Missouri to launch the first genomic enhanced EPD from that early chip genotyping. In 2012, Neogen acquired Igenity. Bauck moved to Lincoln to GeneSeek where he spent 10 years building out a global network of laboratories and services designed to provide high throughput, low cost and rapid turnaround genotyping in agriculture.
More than 300 beef producers, academia and industry representatives attended the organization’s 55th Annual Research Symposium and Convention in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. BIF’s mission is to help improve the industry by promoting greater acceptance of beef cattle performance evaluation.
For more information about this year’s symposium, including additional award winners and coverage of meeting and tours, visit BIFSymposium.com.