We regularly receive thank you notes from local schoolchildren who tour the dairy.

Supporting the local community - both its businesses and people - is an important part of our definition of sustainable farming. We hire locally, promote from within, target our farm purchases and support our employees' community activities. Threemile Canyon Farms has had a major impact since our development in 2000.

Our farm

• Puts $250 million annually into the economies of rural Morrow and Gilliam counties.
• Provides 300 full-time jobs with health and other benefits and 300-400 seasonal jobs.
• Pays the second largest property tax bill in Morrow County, supporting schools and local services.
• Supports other local businesses by making farm purchases locally whenever possible. Our partnerships with Beef Northwest, Kettle Foods and the Tillamook County Creamery Association help those Oregon-based businesses grow and thrive.
• Donates money and other support to local service organizations and youth groups. We sponsor youth and adult soccer leagues, high school athletic programs, and after-school and summer sports.
• Provides scholarships and internship opportunities for college students.
• Encourages our employees to be active in their communities (85 percent of our employees live in Boardman or the surrounding areas).

'What's important here is that we are a big farm that operates like a family farm.'

- Jimmy Brewer
Farm manager

Drawing on local expertise

We also draw heavily on "homegrown" expertise for our key positions. General Manager Marty Myers is a member of a five generation Oregon farm family from North Powder in Northeastern Oregon. A 1976 graduate of Oregon State University, Myers worked for Ag Oil and then AgriPac before joining the R.D. Offutt organization, where he helped create Threemile Canyon Farms.

Farm Manager Jimmy Brewer is a native of Adrian, Ore., and a long-time Boardman-area farmer and teacher. Russell Loughmiller, who heads up our organic programs, grew up in southern Idaho. Farm agronomy manager Greg Harris is a graduate of Blue Mountain Community College and Eastern Oregon State University. Tillage supervisor Juan Sepulveda is a long-time Boardman-area resident, as is storage supervisor Adolfo Madrigal. Charlene Cooley, who runs the crop data management, also is an Oregon native. Del McGill, compost-site manager, grew up in Jefferson, Ore.

Farm Manager Jimmy Brewer

The personal touch

The walls of our farm office are covered with letters from schoolchildren thanking "Mr. Brewer" for their recent visit to the dairy. Heartfelt "thank you" cards from young 4-H and county fair participants acknowledge the farm's purchase of hand-raised cows, but also sheep and pigs - interesting purchases since cattle are the farm's only livestock. The man behind those generous gestures is Farm Manager Jimmy Brewer. Brewer was a high school vocational-agricultural teacher and managed family farms in the Boardman area for 25 years before joining Threemile Canyon Farms. He knows that people are the most important part of farming. "We're big, but we're a close-knit group," he says.