Speaker Name	Start Time	End Time	Text	
				
Roz Elliot	0:00		"Welcome to hearing County's Life on the coast, a podcast series about topics of importance and interest in Huron County. I'm your host, Roz Elliott, with a dialog about farm transition planning in one of Ontario's largest agricultural economies. This is our final episode in a suite of perspectives about transitioning, one of the most noble staples in our economy. The one closest to us all."	
				
Roz Elliot			"The one that puts food on our tables. A sector that is valued in multiples of billions. Wearing the familiar faces of friends and neighbors who all have hopes, dreams and challenges, every organization undergoes a succession of leadership. The passing of the mantle. But this is more than just succession. This is more accurately a transition because it is accompanied by the transition of living space, home, and family dynamics."	
				
Roz Elliot			"We have offered a 360 degree view of participants who sit at the proverbial kitchen table, having these critical conversations. We started with the mothers, the mediator of the group. They care about fairness for all. And please, oh please, let us be able to sit down happily together for Christmas dinner. Could we do that? "	
				
Roz Elliot			"Then, the next generation stepping forward. They care about their parents security and their retirement and maintaining and ongoing concern. Our in-laws outside the circle of decision making with their own pursuits, hopes and dreams, but always cognizant of the mistress and a relationship that farm that shares the family table. "	
				
Roz Elliot			"And today? Today. Well, today we have the founding dads, those who are transitioning the farm to the next generation. What can we expect to hear today? One thing is clear. These have been careful and thoughtful perspectives, guided in tone and spirit by the example set by the first people to care and steward these lands. Our first people understood how to listen intently to perspectives around circle of interest as they reflect on the generations that came before and the multiple generations yet to be born."	
				
Roz Elliot		3:06	"We have the greatest respect for their model of wisdom. So let's get to it with our dads. We have Glen McNeil from Ashfield-Colbourne-Wawanash. He also wears the hat of ACW and Warden of Huron County. Welcome, Glen."	
				
Glen McNeil	3:06	3:08	Thanks very much for having me.	
				
Roz Elliot	3:08	3:18	"And Don Miltenburg, dairy farm and cash crop from ACW. And Don, if I may say an incredible contributor to the Kingsbridge community. Welcome."	
				
Don Miltenburg	3:18	3:19	Welcome too. Thank you Roz. 	
				
Roz Elliot	3:19	3:33	"And Jeff Van Soest from Hensall, South Huron - a Gen Xer, one of my kind - at the beginning of the transition process, a large dairy farm of Holsteins, perhaps even at the international stature... Welcome Jeff."	
				
Jeff Van Soest	3:34	3:36	Glad to be here.	
				
Roz Elliot	3:36	4:04	"Well, I want to begin by saying a grand, big thank you for being here. And I'm serious about that because this has been the most challenging panel to seat. We asked three times as many dads as we did any other panel to sit here with us and share their views. This contingent has been the most resistant to share... You three. Glenn, I'm going to start with you. Why is that?"	
				
Glen McNeil	4:04	4:38	"Well, first thing I'd like to do is thank you very much for hosting this podcast. It is so important, Roz, and you're such a professional at it. I don't know whether you would look at it as- us as being stubborn or not. However, I think that would be the most accurate, descriptor for us. We are determined. And that's why we've been successful. We've had a vision, and we have followed that vision. And part of the reluctance of moving forward, for some, in transition is a stubbornness. And that's not the reason to not do it."	
				
Roz Elliot	4:39	4:40	"And Jeff, would you agree with that?"	
				
Jeff Van Soest	4:41	5:11	"Yeah, I agree. I agree with Glen and... in spirit, for sure. It's hard, it's hard to... succession planning is... it ages you. And makes you, makes you come to terms with your mortality somewhat. But it also is, good to see the the the farm get handed down to the next generation and keep, keep the farm going and- to work with the younger generation, provides with youthful and enthusiasm and and it spurs you on to bigger and better things."	
				
Roz Elliot	5:12	5:19	"Well, I'm sorry I brought up the conversation and mortality. I didn't mean for this to be a downer. And, Don, you came out. You weren't shy."	
				
Don Miltenburg	5:20	5:47	"Well, I didn't come out right away! ….and I think I think the reasons are maybe a little simpler. Glenn has extensive experience in public speaking, but I don't... or any kind of speaking. And I've spent most of my life so far avoiding it. And the idea of ""Why should I start now?"" It was easy to do that. Let someone else do it. But, then my wife encouraged me and I realized too that ""Well, if I have something to contribute, I might as well try""."	
				
Roz Elliot	5:48	5:14	"Well, we're thankful for that because I know you have a perspective that we are going to really appreciate today. So thanks for being here.... You know, one of the things we talk about with, with- the resistance of chatting is we have heard from some of the founding dads, some of the feedback is: ""I don't believe in transition planning"". ""Screw it"" was some of the comments, and ""They can wait for the Will"". What do you say to that? Glen, what do you say about ""Wait for the Will""?"	
				
Glen McNeil	6:10		"I think that would be a very selfish perspective to have. I think it's very important to have open communication, and- we do not want our family members to know what we really value in life when the will is read - and that is transitioning the business to the next generation. We want to see it continue."	
				
Glen McNeil		6:57	"A Level 4 leader doesn't want the business to be successful after they're not there, and all three of us are Level 5 leaders. We want the business to be successful. We want to pass it on for future generations to have the same enjoyment, benefit, and opportunities, and happiness that we have been able to obtain from our respective businesses."	
				
Roz Elliot	6:58	7:10	"That's well said Glen. And and you know, you wear the other hat of Warden and as Mayor. And this has economic significance as well. We need these farms to be successful."	
				
Glen McNeil	7:11		"Absolutely. And in any business, we want it to be successful when we're not there. And in our personal businesses of dairy farming, it's big business. And we want it to be successful for future generations. And, you know, I'll go back to the fact that when my Dad started in 1935 with Mom- they had no money, their back was to the wall, and they took on debt to purchase the farm. "	
				
Glen McNeil		8:02	"And Dad and Mom both worked very, very hard. And Dad said he had to work harder because he had more debt and obligations, than some of his neighbors. And at the end of his life, he also made greater gains than many of the neighbors. So there's something to be said for, you know, that can build character. And, and that's what we want, not only in our businesses, but for the future generations, also to be successful. "	
				
Roz Elliot	8:02	8:18	"Don, we were talking a little bit before we began about when you first started farming. You had no idea it would become this... the size that it is today, and become this ongoing concern that it is today… Does that surprise you, where you've taken it to?"	
				
Don Miltenburg	8:19		"Well, I remember particularly when I bought the first farm, it had 100 acres, and I knew 100 acres would not be enough to do what I was planning to do. And about ten years after that, I bought another 50 and I was getting into the dairy more. But I remember, we remodeled the barn. When I bought it, it could hold, I think it was 50 some cows and we changed some things around and we put in much larger stalls and it only could hold 32. And I thought, ""Well, that's all the cows I'll ever need""."	
				
Don Miltenburg			"But that proved not to be very accurate. But we're at...I don't know, we're, we're pushing 50 now- but we need a new barn now. It can't hold anymore. But, I, and then we have some more land purchased over time. Yeah... I'm... we're bigger, more.... we're more of a business than I ever thought we would be. Like, we, we've you hire employees from time to time, and we have, I don't know, like a turnover of income or expenses."	
				
Don Miltenburg		9:33	"Business transaction being made that I never thought I would be making. I didn't think very big, I guess, when I started out and I…. it's growing faster than I really thought it would. And that's been very good."	
				
Roz Elliot	9:34	9:55	"That's great. Well, you know, Jeff, you have a luxury here today because you have two gentlemen who are a bit ahead of you in the curve in transition planning, and you are at the start of this, you and I are both Gen Xers. You're starting out the process. Where did you look for your template? How did you know where to even begin?"	
				
Jeff Van Soest	9:56		"Well, I guess on our farm, having gone through it with my parents, had a very good example. And my wife's parents were also from the same, from the same, industry: milk. And, so a good example with my parents and following just the way they handed things down, having gone through the high interest in the, in the 80s with them, we went from being just surviving to trying to figure out how to provide income for, for two families."	
				
Jeff Van Soest		10:47	"And, you have to have a team behind you. So I really started that with my parents. We built a team of a lawyer, an accountant, and a banker, and we used- we relied on them. And if you got good professionals behind you, you, all you have to do is come up with ideas and hand it off to them, and they do the rest."	
				
Roz Elliot	10:48	10:51	So you had a really good example in your parents.	
				
Jeff Van Soest	10:52	11:16	"Yeah. My, my, my dad working with me through my teen years, we survived that. And then as I got married, yeah, we, we, we soon figured out that I was going to take over the farm, and, and we, we put a plan in place to get to get them retired and, and provide enough income for the... so that my wife and I could take over the farm. So it worked out pretty good."	
				
Roz Elliot	11:17	11:27	"You have, an interesting perspective in the sense that you have been a next gen, and now you're a founding dad. What do you hope for out of this experience for your children?"	
				
Jeff Van Soest	11:28	11:45	"The same thing that I was provided. I just want to provide them with the opportunity to farm, give them a chance. My dad provided me with a chance to farm, to work with him and to go and go forward, and. And I do want to do the same for any of my kids that want to farm."	
				
Roz Elliot	11:46	11:54	"And Don, for you. What do you hope for your son Connor, who's taken over the farm? What's your hope for him and his family?"	
				
Don Miltenburg	11:55		"Well, I mean, I think your hopes are the same, whether you farm or not, for your children. You want them to be happy doing whatever they're doing. Obviously. I mean, I have a lot invested in the farm, my own personal skin. So I'd like to see it succeed. And he's the one who says, I'm going to give it a try. So yeah, I want him to be successful in there. But if he some day, he comes to me and says, I don't like doing this, then okay. Do, you know, start your own succession plan. I guess."	
				
Don Miltenburg		12:48	"But I just wanted to comment on something you said before about about, not having, not having a succession plan- like ""just just let them get it in the will"". Well, is that the way you got it? Like, would you have been happy if you followed your father till he was 85, working for him as, basically as a hired man? Not making any decisions until finally he's out of the way? Like, that's not the way to do it."	
				
Roz Elliot	12:48	12:49	"Yeah. It's not fair, is it?"	
				
Don Miltenburg	12:52		"Well, it doesn't work like you have to. You have to let the new generation apply his ideas. You can't be in his way. As I said to my wife earlier on the way in here, the best thing that the, that the guy who's the senior partner in the succession plan to do is get out of the way. I mean, if he's going to make a major decision that you're pretty sure is wrong, you might want to intervene at some point."	
				
Don Miltenburg		13:33	"But for most things, let him do it the way he wants to do it. Because my ideas worked in the in the 80s, in the 90s and in the 2000s... they might not work 10 and 20 years from now. So I have to stop making those decisions and let a new generation do it. The one who's going to take it forward."	
				
Roz Elliot	13:34	14:05	"Get out of the way. I think that's brilliant advice, and it reminds me of something that a good friend of ours on this podcast who said, Jim Lin, who we interviewed earlier, he's, he's someone who helps people with transition planning. And he says that ""yesterday's solutions are perhaps today's problems"". So you can't fix it with what we did yesterday and you so artfully said that, Don. So thank you for sharing that. Glenn, I want to turn to you. You did take on the family farm for your dad, as you said. He did some things. Well, what do you hope for? For your kids?"	
				
Glen McNeil	14:05	14:34	"Happiness. I think Donnie nailed it with that. And Jeff. We want them to be happy. And in our transition, our son Curtis is involved in the business with Van and I. And he is tremendously capable. And we want him to be able to fulfill his dreams the same as we've had that opportunity. And our daughter loved cows. She loves sports more, and so she's happy. She's fulfilling her dreams, and that's what we want for future generations. The opportunity, and happiness."	
				
Roz Elliot	14:35		"That's lovely. You know, we've been talking about. There's a distinction between succession and transition. There is a difference. And, you know, I worked in the corporate world and, you know, helped a lot of CEOs transition from the corner office. Well, when they leave the corner office- and you guys and your spouses are essentially CEOs- they don't come back, and they also don't move out of their house and they don't come back in to empty the garbage pails or, or to do year-end taxes."	
				
Roz Elliot		15:29	"So here you are. You've exited to some extent, but you still have skin in the game. To Don's perspective, how has life changed for you in this supposed retirement? Because I know you're not retired. Don, I know you were just out on the tractor yesterday when we called. How is it changed for you, a little bit? And maybe, Glenn, I'll start with you."	
				
Glen McNeil	15:30		"Well, we built a new dairy barn in 2016 because, as Don and Jeff commented, you need to move on. And we needed a new barn. And that was, Curtis's concept, and idea. And he was absolutely correct. So one week after the open house, we changed homes. So Vanda and I moved to my parents house that they built in 77, and Curtis and his wife and children moved to the home farm. It's very important to us that the family be at the home farm. That was a transition, probably harder on Vanda than it was on me. However, we need to do that. "	
				
Glen McNeil		16:46:00 PM	"And as has been alluded to... We need to give up that control. And when we do that and provide the day to day responsibility to the other business partners in it, that is, the one that is making the major decisions, we'll consult on things, and that's the way it should be. However, they do the thinking and it allows us the opportunity to step back and give them the latitude to make the decisions. They won't always be the right ones, and my decisions earlier on weren't always the right ones either. I remember Dad questioning me from time to time. ""Are you sure this is a good idea?"" That was a good reminder. So I think we need to step back and pursue our dreams and what we would like to do in enjoyment for the rest of our lives."	
				
Roz Elliot	16:47	16:51	Did you had the same situation with your father? Did you? Did he move out of the the farm house?	
				
Glen McNeil	16:52	16:47	"Absolutely. So I guess it was by example, as Jeff has said, with his parents. And it's very important, you know. When you see your grandkids every morning, getting on the bus, getting off the bus, coming to the barn... you know, that's what life's all about. It doesn't get any better than that."	
				
Roz Elliot	17:06	17:08	Are you there every day? Still doing chores?	
				
Glen McNeil	17:08	17:12	"I am there pretty well every morning, and sometimes I even show up at night. [laughs]"	
				
Roz Elliot	17:14	17:19	"[Laughs] And what about you, Jeff? You're, again, you're at the beginning of this, but are you noticing any changes so far?"	
				
Jeff Van Soest	17:20		"Yeah, I do notice. I think succession has started at our farm. The transition isn't is still a little ways off. I think my wife would like to transition a little bit more than I would. But I think where we are in our farm right now, tax wise and like, setting up different people on different different farms and stuff like that. The transition has, has or the succession has started, but the, the transition is still a few years off. The plan is not complete and it keeps evolving, as farms come for sale and more purchases are made, they will continue to evolve."	
				
Jeff Van Soest		18:35	"And then you bring more, more people into the operation. We still have one son who works off the farm that wants to be part of the operation. So they will continue to evolve. And, and then that's the way a good farm is. A good farm never stays the same. If it does, it's soon dead, in my opinion. So if a farm continues to evolve and like a, like a transition or succession plan, I think we can go forward. So. But someday we hope to transition off the farm and, have a lesser role. Let's put it that way."	
				
Roz Elliot	18:36	18:42	"It sounds like you have a pretty deep bench strength in your family. And you, like talent management, it's not going to be a problem for you, right?"	
				
Jeff Van Soest	18:43	19:17	"Yeah. No, the we have never really sheltered our kids from anything that happens on the farm. They've been opening the milk cheque as soon as they've been able to go to the mailbox. And yeah, they, they've been, they've been part of decision making. When we moved 12 years ago, it was a family decision. Like, some of the boys were still very young, and. But we, we sat around as a family and made that decision to move, so. And we still make those decisions as a family on a big, big decision. It's decision by committee."	
				
Roz Elliot	19:18	19:24	"And Don, is that the experience for you? How has it changed for you since Connor has taken over?"	
				
Don Miltenburg	19:25		"As we grew older and Connor expressed an interest, I decided like, okay, you're going to, if you're going to take over... what I didn't want to do, I didn't want to have it where there was something that was being done on the farm that had to be done every day and it was my responsibility, like feeding, for example. I wanted to be ""I'll go there when I want to"", so I don't do very much with the livestock and things anymore unless I feel like it. So I don't go there and do anything day to day so that that way if I don't really don't feel like going, or if somebody, one of my other kids or some of my friends phone up and say, ""You want to do this today, or come here today or do that today?"", I can make up my own mind whether I can do it or not."	
				
Don Miltenburg			"I don't have to say, ""Connor, can you find someone else to do that work?"" Because I'm just not... I mean, not, obviously not if it had been a little harvesting or something, but I'm not bound to it by this. And it's a lot less stressful for me that way, because if something's really going wrong on the farm and it's... and it's, I can feel it starting to get my goat kind of thing, I can just say if I really want to, I can say, ""I'm going to go home."""	
				
Don Miltenburg		20:32	"""Well, you have problems here, Connor. Hope you have…"""	
				
Roz Elliot	20:32	20:35	"""Good luck!"" [laughs] ""Hope that it works out for you!"""	
				
Don Miltenburg	20:35	20:46	"I mean, obviously not something very serious, but most…. But for a lot of things, I can just say ""I've had enough. Today I'm going to go home."" Which you can't do when you run, when it's your business. You have to be there till it's done."	
				
Roz Elliot	20:47	20:53	"Jeff, see what you have to look forward to in a in a little bit? You get to say, ""I don't feel like doing that today."" That's a good feeling. That's all right. [laughs]"	
				
Jeff Van Soest	20:53	20:54	Yep	
				
Roz Elliot	20:55	20:56	That's not bad. [Laughs]	
				
Glen McNeil	20:57	21:18	"You know, as founding fathers... Maybe sometimes the best thing we can do is get out of the road, let the next generation make the decisions, because that is the future of our business. And I think all three of us have grown our businesses. And in any business. And it doesn't matter what business it is. To be successful, we need to continually increase the top line, to be relevant."	
				
Roz Elliot	21:19	21:27	"Now, Glenn, you did say something to me earlier about that day. You came out of the lawyer's office and signed the papers. What kind of feeling was that?"	
				
Glen McNeil	21:28		"Well, I just had a lump in my throat, actually. You know, when you have ownership and are the decision making person, and then all of a sudden you're not. That was a transition for me mentally, because I had to consult my business partners and they would have an opinion. So it was a, a landmark for me in my mind. And since then I've got my head around it and I'm happy about it. That's the way I want it. I want to be involved, to be consulted in decisions, not to be the sole decision maker and let other people come up with great ideas because they can! It's been commented, there's different ways to do things. And what worked years ago does not work today."	
				
Glen McNeil		22:26	"We built upright silos. We took down upright silos, because now bunkers are much more efficient. So we have to continually evolve our businesses and also consult our partners because they have great ideas."	
				
Roz Elliot	22:26	22:35	"And these generations. You talked about how you mark the generations and farming and just… the time, the time stamp is getting shorter."	
				
Glen McNeil	22:35	23:00	"It is. Actually when I thought about it, when Dad's and Mum's started, and then transitioned to Vanda and I, was 42 years, 36 years from Van and I on to our son Curtis and his wife Kathy. The next generation, I'll suggest to be 30 years. That's just business and how it evolves, and it will only continue to evolve faster. And we need to embrace technology to be successful and to be relevant in the future."	
				
Roz Elliot	23:01		"Well, I've got some good news for you. I can I can tell you from our interviews with Next-Gen, they are all over this. And boy did I have confidence in what they're going to do in that next 30 years. Well, here's something that maybe you can provide some help to your peers. We have some newly acquired feedback from studies in mental health and agriculture. You've heard of the Shed Talks that are done locally where where gentlemen can go and just sort of talk, unfettered, with other farmers. There's a there's a call-in hotline, 24-hour hotline, and they're showing at the highest usage of people calling are men. Male farmers from your age, 55 to 75 younger."	
				
Roz Elliot		23:58	"And for you, Jeff. And the biggest stressor…. Guess what, it's transition planning. So what advice do you give to stressed out founding dads right now? Jeff?"	
				
Jeff Van Soest	23:59		"Yeah, I don't I don't think it has to, has to be as stressful... I think most of the stress is created, created within someone's own mind. I like for me, succession or transition from the farm hasn't been a great stress just because my kids really want it. Really wanted to come home to the farm. Like our boys didn't have a post-secondary education, but they all worked off the farm. Really wanted to come home to the farm. Like our boys didn't have a post-secondary education, but they all worked off the farm."	
				
Jeff Van Soest			"And the two that are home right now are running the dairy. Wanted to come home so bad, and I dreaded every day when they drove away to their not farm jobs because I was working with with people that were weren't half as good as what they were, and they were leaving. I was so ready for them to come home. So that for me, that stress, that took the stress away. I do have stress from time to time at some of the decisions or the way they do things for sure. I'm pretty sure my dad did too. But for me, a lot of the stress, went away having them come home. To to to tell somebody who's going through this and having stress from it, not to have stress is a hard thing to do because people, different people have different levels of stress from different things."	
				
Jeff Van Soest		24:43	"It's... some people think that they're giving up their farm, but, for me, I think they have to look at, like to see the farm go on or to, to, to, to transcend the generations. They have, they have to look further in the future. Don't look to next year. Look to ten years from now."	
				
Roz Elliot	25:44	25:56	"I'm going to come back to that, because that's a great observation and we're going to revisit that in a second. Don, you've got some say neighbors or people, you know, when they're stressed out and they're worried about this. What do you tell them?"	
				
Don Miltenburg	25:57		"Well, as far as stressed out I don't know. Like you have to you have to trust if you're talking about transitioning to your son, you have to trust him that he knows what he's doing. We were fortunate that our son, he, he's not a radical person. He does things in a easy go, easier like... You know where he's going if you watch him and he's he's not doing things really radically different, which is maybe not good or not bad, but it's not. It's not like you gotta wonder what the hell he's trying to do. Like, he's he's pretty even."	
				
Don Miltenburg			"So that was, that was a good part of it. The other part is like, what else are you... what other choice have you got? Like, you can take all your money and, and cash it all in, letting your legacy is gone. All you have now is money. And what are you going to do with your money? Like, are you going to, are you going to build yourself a real big cottage and lay on the beach rest of your life, or are you going to travel around the world all your life?"	
				
Derek VanDieten			"Probably the best thing you could want to do is watch your legacy go on, and even help on if you can. That's probably what you want, but you also want to let the person who's taking it over so that he can still do it after you're gone, rather than he's just doing what you say, what you say until you're gone. And he's going, like, now what do I do? So he he has to be given the reins to build so that he gets a good firm handle on how to do it. And it's a lot better for that to happen while you're still around, when he says, ""I'm in trouble, I don't know what to do"", you can help him rather than him just following you along until you drop dead one day. And then he says, now I don't know what to do."	
				
Derek VanDieten		27:51	"Like maybe I know how to, I know how to feed and milk cows, but I don't know how to handle the business side of it, because my dad never let me. So, as far as, like, what to tell them, like like I said before, like Glenn said to like, get out of the way. Like, stop thinking you're the only one that can do it, because you're not. "	
				
Roz Elliot	27:52	28:19	"We're going to put a pin in something you said called legacy, because I want to probably end on that because you, both you and Jeff raised a good point. Glenn, so here we have these, these people who have a difficult time talking about it. Why, why, why are they, why are they having a tough time talking about it? Like what, what can you do to support them? It just, it feels sad and lonely and isolated."	
				
Glen McNeil	28:20		"And it can also, the succession and transition plan can seem insurmountable. It can seem like a mountain that is very, very difficult to move forward with. And a good friend, Alan Ball, told me years ago, the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. And if you have a, a lawyer that you can trust, an accountant, a banker. And we actually hired a succession planner, Dr. John Fast, Elaine Friese from Manitoba is a professional at it, and it's the soft skills that will ruin a family. It's, it's not the hard numbers, accountants can figure that out. It's the soft skills. So engage someone that is a professional in succession planning and they can help and they can assist you. And you feel so much better when it's done."	
				
Glen McNeil		29:31	"All three of us are really happy we did it because the other option was not what we wanted. We want our businesses to continue. So to those that find themselves in a stressful situation because of transition planning, reach out. Professionals know how to do it and it's so much happier at the end of the day. There's help."	
				
Roz Elliot	29:29	0:29:32	"And it's a safe environment, isn't it Glenn. Yep."	
				
Glen McNeil	29:32	29:34	"Absolutely, there's help."	
				
Roz Elliot	29:34	30:22	"Yeah. And again this matters because your families are important but, and those relationships, but also we are talking about multiples of billions of dollars in this county alone. I mean, this is a huge industry. My last question for you each, something for you to think about and mull over, you all brought it up in your own way. The word legacy. You've been part of a legacy, people who have come here and started these wonderful ventures. You're passing it along. We talked about the territorial statement a little bit earlier about how our, our first peoples think about in seven generations and seven generations from now, people are going to be looking back at this time. What's the legacy that you hope you were a part of in this, Jeff?"	
				
Jeff Van Soest	30:22	31:46	"Yeah, I just, at our farm I think we try to do a good job and, and, and we try to make it possible the way we use the land, the way we raise our cattle, the way we plan for the future. We try to make it possible for the farm to keep going. And I, if I can teach my kids or my grandkids anything someday, is, is to look into the future. Like it's not that hard to look into the crystal ball, really. It isn't. You just have to look ahead. Don't think about tomorrow. You can think about tomorrow, but don't think about it all the time. Think about a year, five years and have a plan and write it down. My wife and I, when we started farming, we, we put a, made a goal. We made a mission statement. I don't know where we learned that, I heard it somewhere. And we wrote it down. And we reviewed that year after year, and we went back to the same accountant, and we had those meetings with the accountant. And then when we bought land or we bought something, we went back to the same lawyer, worked with the same accountant, dealt with the same bank for many, many years. And you review those goals and going forward and then, as your kids see that, that makes them, right away, have a plan of their own and they want to be part of that."	
				
Roz Elliot	31:47	31:53	"That's helpful. Thank you so much, Jeff. And Don, what is what does legacy look like to you? "	
				
Don Miltenburg	31:55	33:10	"Well, in terms of several generations down the road, I think that, I hope that people will look back and say, you know, great, great grandpa or whatever did a good job of starting out here. And this was a good business that he, like a good career type business that he got into. And this was a good part of the world in which to do it. Like we're glad, I want them to say we're glad that he did this in this area. You know, this was a good, a good, this is a good thing to do. Like, us too, we hired, we hired an accounting firm out of Exeter, PTMG, I think are the letters. And they had a, I don't know if was a full time succession planner, but he was involved in a succession planning. And I think you have to listen to those people and believe what they tell you. Like a lot of people don't have a lot of faith in an accountant, in that they don't talk to them any more than they have to. But if that's the wrong decision, you should. Those people will tell you how to deal with your money, and how to deal with your assets, and how to move it to the next generation. And if you don't do it right, it's going to be tough. So listen to those people and, yeah, that's that's about all I can say about that."	
				
Roz Elliot	33:10	33:28	"That's great, Don. And I'm always thankful for the professionals that I've been surrounded by who've helped me, from a business perspective, tax, whatever it is, are health professionals, right? If we lean on those people with that expertise, we just have to have the courage to do it. Glen, legacy what does it mean to you? "	
				
Glen McNeil	33:30	34:00	"Hopefully in the future, future generations will look back and appreciate the openness, the honesty, the opportunity given to future generations and the happiness that they have obtained from that and to give back to the community. We live in such a great area. Don and Jeff are great to give back to the community, and it is so important we plant a tree under whose shade we know we'll never sit."	
				
Roz Elliot	34:01	34:54	" I just got a little weepy there. Thank you Glen, you always seem to do that to me. It's the future. I, I feel this, the way that you've all been talking. I get this feeling every time I drive down to Goshen in Stanley, where my great great grandfather first settled in the 1840s. And the house is still there, under a different name. And I drive by the old family farms, all of them. The Hill and Hill farms bought them in the '80s, and it just gives me such a sense of appreciation. And for me, that's legacy, looking back. And that made me who I am. This appreciation for the land and agriculture. And this series has been wonderful. And, Glenn, we want to thank the county for your belief in this series and the importance of it. Is there any last word you'd like to say about, again, why we did this and why it matters?"	
				
Glen McNeil	34:55	35:27	"It matters because so many businesses are at the stage that need to be transitioned, either to future generation or future owners. We don't want to lose that. And the Corporation of the County of Huron realizes the importance of this. And thank you, Roz, for doing this podcast, for interviews that you've done with us and others, and hopefully it will help others to realize the benefits of transitioning the business for future generations and the happiness that we all get from it. That's the future."	
				
Roz Elliot	35:27	36:13	"I want to thank each of you for anchoring the final leg of this journey. This is the view of our guardians of the agricultural galaxy, if you will, and thank you everyone, our audience, for listening to all six of our episodes in this very first series. You can revisit or catch one you missed by visiting the Huron County Economic Development's webpage. We will be sure to be back with another Huron County Life on the Coast series in the very near future. Thanks again for listening. I'm Roz Elliott, and this podcast is funded in part by the Interior Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the County of Huron. The views expressed in this podcast are not those of the province or the county."