I want this month to use my column to celebrate the life and work of Rosemary Mucklow, one of the industry’s most influential leaders and steadfast advocates. Rosemary died recently at the age of 94, leaving behind a remarkable legacy that spanned more than five decades of service to the industry. Her decades of leadership helped shape the modern American meat industry, said Julie Anna Potts, president and CEO of the Meat Institute, who delivered a eulogy to Rosemary at a celebratory gathering of industry leaders and friends.
Rosemary was in every sense one of the builders of this industry’s modern history, Potts said. For more than 55 years, she brought a rare combination of toughness, humor and unshakeable integrity to every fight she took on, whether that meant sitting across the table from regulators in Washington or mentoring the next generation of association leaders in our own offices. She led the organization in its earlier forms through some of the most consequential changes our industry has ever faced, and she never once let us forget why the work mattered. Potts also cited the many awards that Rosemary received.
Everyone has a favorite Rosemary story. Here’s one of mine. Rosemary, at the time executive director of the National Meat Association (NMA), was on her way to NMA’s Oakland, CA, office when she stopped at a 7-Eleven to buy milk for the NMA staff. As she began to walk out of the store, a man asked her if she knew where the Oakland docks were. She glanced up and saw a large, refrigerated reefer parked on the street. Emblazoned on it were the words “Blue Ribbon Beef.”
Instantly, she realized the driver was an employee of E.A. Miller and Sons of Hyrum, UT, an NMA member. So, she told the driver: “I know the way. Jump in your truck and follow me.” She guided him and his cargo of beef to where he needed to go and then drove on to the office. With these simple actions, Rosemary encapsulated some of her finest qualities. What top executive, even of a small office, would bother to bring the milk? And in helping the driver, she was helping a member of her organization in a small but profound way.
Should you have attended an NMA meeting for the first time, you might have noticed a small, white-haired lady sitting quietly at the back of the room, knitting. It must be someone’s mother, you thought. It was in a way, because Rosemary was the unofficial “mother” to the U.S. meat industry. Like all mothers, she could be stern at those who questioned her judgment. Like all mothers, she was almost always right. For the knitter lady had a mind as sharp as her knitting needles and an incredible command of any subject to do with meat.
She also had, and still has, an almost photographic memory of every event in her life, from the time she was a small child growing up in wartime Edinburgh, Scotland. This memory made Rosemary a marvelous storyteller. Rosemary, by her own words, was a “very small, sickly child.” That she survived childhood was almost a miracle. That she did became a blessing for the U.S. meat industry. For Rosemary was a true leader. She never flinched from making tough decisions, but always first listened to what others thought. After all, her mother had told her as a child that “God gave you two ears and one mouth. Listen twice as much as you talk!” That’s why that lady knitting at the back of the room usually asked the most piercing questions at a meeting.
Of Rosemary’s many qualities, two stand out. She would always be clear and truthful about what she believed. These were the central tenets of her life, whatever the circumstances. In some cases, it meant her version of “tough love.” In others, it meant loyalty and compassion to those she felt deserved or needed it.
I was truly privileged to have known Rosemary for many years. She guided and supported me in my professional and private life, as she has done for countless others. I will never forget the kindness and support she gave my family. During her very long life, she profoundly changed an entire industry for the better. There won’t be anyone like her for a long time. — Steve Kay, WLJ columnist
(Steve Kay is editor/publisher of Cattle Buyers Weekly, an industry newsletter published at P.O. Box 2533, Petaluma, CA, 94953; 707-765-1725. Kay’s Korner appears exclusively in WLJ.)
