Aaron Bryn of Rugby was reelected to the board of directors of the North Dakota Beef Cattle Improvement Association at the group’s annual meeting. Bryn and his family run a cow-calf operation near Rugby.

Other individuals reelected to the board included Jon DeKrey of Tappen and Troy Sailer of Golden Valley. DeKrey, Bryn and Sailer were reelected to represent the east, northwest and southwest regions of the state respectively on the board. All of the terms are for three years.

Other officers elected at the meeting included Kim Entze of Golden Valley as the vice president and David Dockter of Mandan as the treasurer. Dr. Lauren Hulsman Hanna of Fargo was appointed by the board of directors to serve as the executive secretary.

The NDBCIA also named Jim and Delores Breum of Taylor as the producer of the year. CHAPS coordinator Lee TIsor presented the award on behalf of the NDBCIA.

The NDBCIA is an organization of beef producers dedicated to promoting data collection and record keeping to advance the beef business. The NDBCIA, the NDSU Extension Service and the NDSU Computer Science department are collaborating on an update to the Cow Herd Appraisal Performance System.

Dubbed CHAPS 2020, NDSU computer science lecturer Joseph Latimer coordinated the programming facelift to help the beef industry more completely utilize the program from conception to consumption. The goal is to give the program and more modern look.

Hanna will be spearheading efforts to include genetic monitoring through a flexible database structure, which will allow for evaluation and investigation of genomic traits. The change would be used to analyze the frequency of a simply inherited trait or allow selection of complex traits.

The research and implementation of these tools will be accomplished by working with historical data submitted to CHAPS along with more current data volunteered by producers.

The NDBCIA board meets quarterly. The focus of the next meetings will be completion of the CHAPS 2020 rollout, which Latimer noted at the meeting is targeted for April 1.

Other members of the NDBCIA board include Mark Rockeman of Donnybrook and TJ Alme of Balfor from the northwest region; Kellen Unruh of Hebron and Entze from the southwest region; and Bruce Speich of Milnor and Mark Wagner of Monango from the east region.

Individuals wanting more information about CHAPS or the NDBCIA can contact Lee Tisor at the Dickinson Research Extension Center: lee.tisor@ndsu.edu or 701-456-1105.

– N.D. Beef Cattle Improvement Association