NOTE: Throughout the month of July, BrownwoodNews.com is publishing stories daily on 40 standout citizens under the age of 40 making a positive impact and contribution within the Brown County community.
Agriculture has been the backbone of the Clark family for well over 100 years, and Jay Clark is guiding the next generation of the business into the future with the use of new and innovative techniques.
Clark, who turns 33 later this month, is the president of Clark Ranch, whose heritage dates back to 1903.
“Our vision is to serve ourselves by serving others,” Clark said. “It’s a selfless selfishness. If we want to be in business another 100-plus years, we’re going to have to take care of people and put customer service first. In today’s society, people are more concerned today with where they get their food from and what they put in their bodies more than ever before, and at the same time they’re more disconnected from the land than they’ve probably ever been.”
Clark Ranch offers and provides beef cattle for consumption, hair sheep for consumption and recently a feed lot was opened where the ranch will be feeding lambs out in that facility. But there’s much more to the Clark Ranch.
“It was really important to me when I started moving into a management position to act like a high-level business, I didn’t want it to just feel like that family,” Clark said. “We needed to perform, but we didn’t need family business characteristics behind, so we implemented some pretty non-traditional management practices from grazing with electric fences to moving your cows two and three times a day, the grazing chart planning. We’ve seen the benefits of those things and it’s been good for a business.”
Clark further elaborated, stating, “We met earlier this year with plans to sell all the cattle because of the weather conditions, and we were ahead of the curve on some of that. Looking at our grazing chart we didn’t have enough grass for the summer, so we went ahead and pulled the trigger in April and that bought us time to pivot. We’ve done a lot more work through the feed lot, the skid-steer business where we’re mulching brush and land and cleaning things up for folks. That gave us time to create some cash flow because we knew there was a pretty good chance things were going to get rough in the summer.”
Regarding the day-to-day life that comes with running a ranch, Clark said, “You never really know what you’re going to do any given day. It’s all going to be in the general field of agriculture, but you might be a mechanic, you might have to take on more of a CEO role, or you might have to become more of a veterinarian. There’s a set of skills that you learn you being out there and every one of them is critical, but you never have the same day twice.”
Clark decided to dive fully into the family business seven years ago.
“When I came back in 2015, I was just a pup as far as learning the business side of it,” Clark said. “I knew how to do all the chores and the tasks, but that’s really when my education in the business side started. Then in 2018 I moved into a managerial role and had a couple of little baby projects I got to work on and hone some of my skills there.”
Clark’s father recently decided to step away from some of the responsibilities he formerly, and a seamless transition is among the rewarding aspects of the work for Jay.
“From more of an emotional family perspective, having a successful transition of management and ownership has been the most rewarding.,” he said. “You see so often that’s where businesses fall apart, but I feel like we have a good plan in place.
“Secondly, when everything is working right, it’s easy. But very few times is everything working right. It’s always ‘what do we have to figure out today?’ and there’s no instruction manual that comes with a ranch. It’s all ingenuity and grit and knowing your strengths and improve on your weaknesses or being somebody else. That to me is one of the most rewarding parts, you get this attitude where it doesn’t matter what’s going to happen, you’re going to figure it out. That serves me well in life, as well as others, and I’m very appreciative of that.”
Clark is also a Brown County Farm Bureau board member, which is District 7 of the Texas Farm Bureau.
“It’s a fantastic organization and I got involved about two or three years ago,” Clark said. “I have a good time, and I want to learn. The only way you’re going to get better is if you continue to push yourself and expand your opportunities. It’s the same in business as it is in education. You’re either getting better or getting worse, you’re never the same as you were the day before.”
Clark is also Brown County Farm Bureau’s chair for the young farmer and rancher committee, on the Texas Farm Bureau Commodity Advisory committee for sheep and goats, and is involved with the Gordon Wood Hall of Champions, ABC Club, boards at church and with Brown County Ag Extension.
Clark and his wife Francie have three children – J.W., ClaraAnn and J. Boone.
“Francie’s the one that mans the fort when I’m gone traipsing around the North America continent with farmers and ranchers,” Clark said. “I’ve got a fantastic team at the ranch with three full-time employees, not including mom and dad. I have fantastic employees that allow me to do what I do at a high level which is important to me, and that’s a two-way street. The first thing I tell them is ‘what do you need me to provide you – skills, resources, knowledge – to be successful?’
“It all goes back to the customer. If we align ourselves with the customer and what they really need and want, we take care of that, that gives us specific targets and what we need to produce. So, from the employee side they have those specific targets, the two or three things they need to do well to excel, and that’s pretty simple. That approach has worked well.”