Shane Schaake is a Kansas native who has extensive knowledge of the cattle business. He grew up on his family’s Simmental operation north of Manhattan, Kansas, where they still raise about 100 purebred and percentage Simmental cows. Since he married his wife, Melissa, they have started building their own herd of very prestigious Hereford cows. Melissa and Shane are back-to-back American Royal Hereford Premier Breeder Award winners.
Shane and his brother showed heifers across the country while growing up. Today, the Schaake family hosts an annual heifer sale with a focus on selling junior show heifer prospects. They also conduct a spring bull sale.
Schaake attended Kansas State University, where he earned his bachelor’s in Animal Science in December 2015. After college, he managed a 700-head commercial cow-calf ranch on the edge of the Sandhills in Eastern Colorado. Prior to joining the BioZyme team in January 2020, he worked for Genex. Although he said cattle are his first passion, he also enjoys hunting, fishing and spending time with family.
Shane Schaake Is Our Kansas Area Sales Manager
Let’s learn more about a day in the life of the Kansas Area Sales Manager.
Title: Kansas ASM
Number of Years at BioZyme: almost 4
Describe a “typical” day in your job:
A typical day for Kansas is traveling around and working with our dealers throughout the state, providing marketing materials, delivering product knowledge, setting up producer meetings and doing customer visits with those dealers.
In the spring is our big producer meeting time for most dealers so when that rolls around making sure we have our presentation prepared for what we are going to talk about that year as well as making sure we have all of our marketing material we need for it. We also stay in close contact with our distributor reps to help them help our dealers as well.
What is the most interesting thing you ever have done at BioZyme:
Attending NCBA twice now and talking with producers from all over the U.S. It’s very interesting to me how everyone has the same goal in an industry but can do it completely differently from coast to coast.
Share a funny story about one of your days at work:
Not sure if I really have any funny stories, but some of the most memorable times I have had at BioZyme is meeting, working with and learning about our dealers. My dealers in Kansas seem to be more like family than friends anymore!
What has been one of the biggest challenges:
Working with producers that are “old school” and are hesitant about changing their ways.
Why is care that comes full circle important to what you do?
This is extremely important to me and something I think about every morning when I start my day. This is honestly what drives me day in and day out. I think of this a lot of different directions to look at this from working with the producer to them helping get their stock to perform for them then returning it back the ground. Another example of this is everything we do for outreach with Jr Nationals and developing the youth to prepare them to take over the ag industry in the future.
What is something you enjoy doing outside of the office?
I really enjoy spending time with my wife on our ranch and taking care of our Hereford and Simmental cows, from calving to weaning, then into the show barn with them, it takes a group effort. I also really like artificially inseminating (AI-ing) cattle for different producers that are on Concept•Aid®. In fact, I really won’t breed for anyone who isn’t using Concept•Aid on their cattle anymore!
Thanks for being part of the BioZyme family, and showing care that comes full circle in everything you do, Shane!