David C. Thorbahn, President and Chief Executive Officer of Select Sires, Inc., will be the guest speaker at the 145th Annual Meeting of the American Jersey Cattle Association on June 29 in Amarillo, Texas.
Select Sires marketed just over 1 million units of Jersey semen for the first time in its history during 2011, only to break that record by selling 1.1 million units last year. Annual sampling of Jersey bulls has increased by 42% and total sales have more than doubled since Thorbahn took over the top leadership position in January of 2000. The company has become the leading supplier of bovine semen in North America and is one of the largest in the world. In 2008, Select Sires received a Governor’s Excellence in Exporting Award and named Exporter of the Year for the state of Ohio.
Thorbahn has served on the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding (CDCB) and is a past-president of the National Association of Animal Breeders (NAAB). He is a former board member of World Dairy Expo and National Dairy Shrine. He was a founding member of the committee that started the North American Intercollegiate Dairy Challenge in 2002 and served as its first chairman.
Born and raised on a registered Holstein farm in Vickery, Ohio, Thorbahn earned a B.S. in agriculture, majoring in dairy science, at The Ohio State University. He completed a Masters in Business Administration at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1999. He has been recognized by the OSU College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences with its Young Professional Achievement Award (1997) and Distinguished Alumni Award (2010). Thorbahn was also named the 2010 Union County Business Leader of the Year by the Union County Chamber of Commerce.