“Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O…” might have come to mind at the recent McCoy Family Speaker Series, not (solely) because the Jerry S. Rawls College of Business welcomed fifth-generation dairy leaders Brad Bouma and Donald De Jong, but because Alderson & Griffin Center for Family Business & Entrepreneurship (Alderson & Griffin Center) Director Anish Quenim began the program with a story about his 11-month-old son waking him and his wife before dawn and the pair singing the classic song. As he reflected on why the lyrics are in past tense, Quenim asked, “What really happened to Old MacDonald’s farm? Was succession an issue?” His point: even the most enduring legacies require the next generation to carry them forward.
Quenim thanked the McCoy, Alderson, and Griffin families for their lasting investment in family business education and announced a national partnership with Cornell University, and other institutions, to launch NEXGENS – the National Exchange for the Generational Enterprise Network of Successors. Beginning in February 2026, the initiative will connect successors of family businesses nationwide to collaborate and share resources.
“Founded right here in the 806,” Quenim said, “this movement brings more students into the room from across America.”
University and community leaders attended the program, including Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton, attending his first university event in his new role. He praised the university’s trajectory in academics, athletics, and innovation.
“Texas Tech’s strength lies not only in our research and reach,” Creighton said, “but in our people and our commitment to the next generation of leaders.”
Introducing the featured speakers, Mark Griffin, president of The Griffin Companies and co-founder of the Alderson & Griffin Center,
reflected on his own family business experience, saying Bouma and De Jong represent
the essence of perseverance and stewardship. The two college roommates from Dutch
immigrant families turned a cooperative of 10 to 15 family farms into Select Milk
Producers Inc. (Select Milk), one of the nation’s most influential dairy companies
and a partner in creating
fairlife and Core Power with The Coca-Cola Company (Coke).
In the early 1990s, a fractured milk market left producers struggling. Bouma and De Jong gathered like-minded farmers from New Mexico and central Texas to form Select Milk, built on their “Code of the West:” accountability, trust, top-quality milk, and long-term 10-year agreements. Their first major customer was H-E-B, and today this 35-year partnership built on shared values and trust is the same model that later guided Select Milk’s expansion into retailers like Walmart, Sam’s Club, and Costco.
Bouma, who operates dairy facilities in several states including Legacy Farms in West Texas and Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana, said success has always come down to faith, family, and farm. De Jong, CEO of AgriVision Farm Management and co-owner of Natural Prairie Dairy in Hartley, Texas, agreed and says having partners with the same beliefs is invaluable to success.
“When you know your partners share your priorities, the alignment is not transactional,” De Jong said. “Our group has stayed together for more than 30 years because we believe in creating something that lasts – we’re not just working for ourselves, we work for the next generation.”
As Select Milk grew, the team turned to innovation to balance the market. Since cows produce the least milk in the fall, when demand is highest, and the most in spring when demand slows, they use ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO) technologies to remove water and lactose from the milk, the first step to making cheese. This allows them to haul more solids, reducing transportation costs, and store more shelf-stable products, such as condensed and powdered-milk products, during market surpluses.
With added capabilities and products from the UF and RO technology, their next logical step led to partnerships – the first being a joint venture with Glanbia and Dairy Farmers of America to form Southwest Cheese in Clovis, NM. Today, this facility produces milk that totals close to milking 200,000 cows per day. As Select Milk outgrew the plant’s ability to keep the market stable, they formed a subsidiary, Continental Dairy Products – a best-in-class butter powder plant in Littlefield, TX.
“Between the Texas Panhandle and eastern New Mexico, more than 40% of natural cheeses and 70% of butter are produced in this region,” Bouma said.
A filter mix-up one day led to Select Milk’s next breakthrough. When the wrong filters pulled minerals out of milk, Bouma and De Jong began experimenting. Their curiosity led to a patented cold-filtration process that separates and recombines milk components without pasteurizing, creating the unique taste and nutrition that later defined fairlife. However, transitioning from dairy farming to consumer-packaged goods with fairlife – a wholly owned subsidiary of Coke that creates nutrition-rich, lactose-free, real dairy products including fairlife ultra-filtered milk and Core Power® High Protein Shakes – had a steep learning curve for the cooperative leaders.
“We’re family business, long-term, brick-and-mortar, build-stuff people,” Bouma said. “Coke is focused on quarterly earnings. It’s not right or wrong—it’s just different.”
Despite those differences, their partnership flourished. Coke eventually acquired a majority stake in fairlife, investing millions into the brand. A later restructured deal, brokered with Morgan Stanley, provided Select Milk with a $750 million down payment and allowed them to retain partial ownership.
Today, fairlife sales top $2.5 billion, with the company valued at $13 billion. To ensure longevity, Bouma and De Jong restructured their board, reducing members from 21 to 15 and lowering the average age by nearly a decade. They also formed nine working committees to give future leaders full exposure to the business.
“Don’t be afraid to involve your kids early and let them see the challenges and the wins,” De Jong said. “We’re not just running a business – we’re building something for those who come after us.”
Save the Date
Spring 2026 McCoy Family Speaker Series: The Launch of NEXGENS
Speaker: Daniel Van Der Vliet (John and Dyan Smith Executive Director of Family Business,
Cornell SC Johnson College of Business)
Feb. 20, 2026 | Overton Hotel and Conference Center | Lubbock, Texas