The Wisconsin Sheep Industry Award honors people or businesses with a long history of support and service to Wisconsin’s sheep industry. Rusty Burgett came to Wisconsin for graduate school in the spring of 2010 and while his service to sheep producers in our state may not have a long history, but it has been extensive and incredibly valuable.
For much of his undergraduate days Rusty worked as a student research assistant at Ohio State University (OSU) beef and sheep units. Concurrently throughout his undergraduate years, Rusty worked as a research assistant, assistant manager and then manager of the OSU meat lab.
Rusty’s graduate work here at UW-Madison was under the beef extension specialist, but he managed to use sheep as a model for the project. During his graduate work he was a teaching assistant to the sheep production courses and incredibly helpful to Todd Taylor at the sheep unit. It was his first experience with Wisconsin’s sheep industry and he didn’t hold back. He volunteered extensively at events both through the University and with educational sessions at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival.
After receiving his Masters from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in July 2012, Rusty spent a year as the Farm Operations Manager and Shepherd at Iowa State, where he brought a great commercially-oriented perspective to that program. After fifteen months he made the move back to Wisconsin to manage the Spooner Sheep Research Station from December 2013 to April 2015 where he brought many positive changes to its program.
There were a couple of silver linings to the closing of Spooner, the first being that the National Sheep Improvement Program (NSIP) was looking for someone to captain the ship, and secondly as the ideal fit for NSIP, Rusty could move back to Iowa and marry Christen.
Rusty started as NSIP’s Program Director in April 2015. Those of us that work closely with NSIP know first-hand Rusty’s invaluable contribution to the program. He travels the country educating producers and industry stakeholders, spending an appreciable amount of time in Wisconsin. In 2017 he gave educational talks in 30 states, including taking part in Arlington Sheep Days, Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival, the Arlington Production Sale, and in 2016 at the National Targhee Sale. Along with helping to manage the NSIP sale in Spencer, IA, last year Rusty started a new Eastern NSIP Sale in Wooster, Ohio.
The sheep producers of Wisconsin have been fortunate to have had Rusty here as a student, an employee of the university, and his continued presence with his role in NSIP. He is one of the best minds within the United States sheep industry and more than deserving of this award.