On Monday, Oct. 3, I attended the celebration of life for industry icon Duane Martin Sr. in Ione, CA. He was an avid reader of WLJ, and he always maintained a friendship with all of us here. This column is dedicated to him.
I have been fortunate in my career to come across some of the changers in our time: industry leaders whose impact changed the landscape and the way we do business. I have come to know innovators whose ideas changed how cattle are marketed, how we perceive the data that follows each animal, how we manage inputs to drive profitability and so on. I have been very fortunate to learn bits and pieces from each of these people. I am grateful for their big ideas and the implementation that followed. I’m appreciative of their effort and know their impact on this industry and their work are why people are still in business.
Duane Martin Sr. didn’t ever need a big idea. He didn’t need the latest and greatest of anything. He simply needed a handshake, and he’d take care of the rest. “Old school” is how it’s described today.
He made trades based on value, timing and reputation. But he was also willing to be fair. I watched him select bulls for function before data—power cattle with growth, skeletal balance and muscle shape. He knew what he liked, and he stayed with that. It seems his entire business was built around that same philosophy.
“Senior,” as most people knew him, stayed the course and built one of the largest empires in our industry and was consistently in the top 25 producers in the nation for both cow-calf and stocker/yearling operators. Most importantly, he built a legacy that appears to withstand time. His family is entrenched in the industry and is poised to continue that trajectory.
When I moved to California in the spring of 2007, I’ll admit I hardly knew anyone. I’ll also admit I probably didn’t deserve the job I was given, but I’m thankful for the opportunity. I started meeting people and working hard to gain the respect of our industry in the Far West. It was that fall that I first met Duane Martin. I can’t deny he intimidated me. Everyone knew him. But what I quickly learned is that he knew more about my job than I did, even though he didn’t need to. When we came face to face ringside at various auctions, he told me when he was in and when he was out, and I just agreed with him!
Over the course of the next few years, we became friends. I went and saw him a couple times and was able to go around his place in his notorious red vehicles. I began to respect him and appreciate him. What I also learned from him—plus a few others out there—was that a backbone and trust in yourself is as important as anything in this business, especially when it comes to auctions.
What he also taught me, and most in our industry, is to stay with it. He rode good markets, and he rode bad markets. But what separates the truly successful from the rest is they kept riding. Good markets outweighed the bad, and consistent work and effort resulted in what we know today as Duane Martin Livestock.
Today we face so many challenges in our industry. Over the course of the last few years, it hasn’t been easy with skyrocketing inputs, fluctuating interest rates and so on. It’s easy to become pessimistic right now. However, for every downside, we have so many upsides. When I look at those who have already ridden the highs and lows and continue to do so, it is rejuvenating. I encourage all of you reading this column to do the same. We’re all in this industry together. Every size of operator deals with many of the same issues; the key is to keep dealing. That is the value that people like Duane Martin bring to our industry. It’s not that they just made a great cow trade or leased a great ranch, it’s that they positioned themselves to fight another fight. Their next trade might not be as good, but they can’t have a good trade if they aren’t in the business at all.
As Col. Max Olvera said at Duane’s celebration of life, “Bom passeio vaqueiro,” which means “Good ride, cowboy,” honoring Senior’s Portuguese heritage. To me, that sums it up perfectly. Duane Martin had a great ride. It wasn’t always an easy one, as I reflect on conversations we had in 2015. But he kept riding, and now his torch has been passed on to the next generations so that they can keep riding.
On behalf of WLJ, we extend a heartfelt thank you to the Martin family for their continued friendship and support of what we try to do here at WLJ. — LOGAN IPSEN
