Board Member Spotlight: Dick Okray
Each member of the Farming for the Future Foundation’s board of directors brings advanced knowledge in agriculture, education or the state of Wisconsin. We’re honored to have state experts informing and guiding our path forward and know that each member is crucial in deepening the relationships between people, their food and growers. Check in each month to meet a member of our team and learn about their role in the future of farming.
Get to know Farming for the Future Foundation: Board of Directors Member Dick Okray
Dick Okray has explored many paths in life. He attended colleges around the country before graduating from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, moved to South America, and nearly embarked on a career teaching Spanish at the university level. However, after being offered a full-time role at Okray Farms, he returned to the land his family has owned since 1905 and brought his own, unique perspective and array of experiences to a well-established company and industry.
In college, Dick enjoyed economics and accounting classes. After doing various jobs at Okray Farms, he moved into the office and served as bookkeeper. He quickly became interested in finding innovative ways to make improvements to the business.
“I was probably 28, just starting in the office, when I told my dad we should have some meetings with the company. He told me I could have them, I but had to run them,” Dick said. “I called all the managers into the basement conference room. I handed out agendas and asked what new things were happening in agriculture. We began discussing the advantages and disadvantages of new irrigation systems, automatic packaging machines and new, smaller options in packaging. We established that change didn’t mean anyone had been doing anything wrong but that things were evolving and that we must evolve with it.”
As Dick’s role on the farm changed over the years, his inquisitive nature and willingness to take chances and try new things has served Okray Farms well. In 2015 the company earned the National Potato Council/Environmental Protection Agency Environmental Stewardship Award. They’ve also been named a top 100 grower in the United States for over twenty years.
“Not every decision we made was the right one,” said Dick. “Some decisions required us to go backward and start over again. That happens with every business. I always say that I’m lucky that 52 percent of the decisions I’ve made in my life are the right ones.”
In addition to his work at Okray Farms, Dick began joining community boards including, M&I Bank, St. Michael’s Hospital, WI Migrant Labor Council, and Intevation Foods with fellow FFTFF board member Dick Pavelski. He made investments into local companies that were creating jobs in the agriculture field and sat on a long-range planning committee for Portage County. Dick’s life work on the farm helped to educate the local communities about what agriculture is and what it means to work in the field. He has helped the public to understand that agriculture is bigger than most of us realize and includes nurseries, breweries, paper mills and grocery stores.
Dick joined the Farming for the Future Foundation board of directors in 2019 and looks forward to the development of the Food + Farm Exploration Center. He envisions a place where the growth of agriculture in central Wisconsin will unfold and where the future of the field can flourish.
“I’m always in awe when I get to go through someone else’s company, and I see what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. My brain just starts clicking with ideas about how we can use that in our field too,” said Dick. “The center is going to be a place where that happens, where so many different people can riff on each other. The visitors and vendors, civil and corporate leaders, students from local schools, grade schools to tech schools and universities, they’re going to have light bulbs going off over their heads with new ideas about how to use technology better and update our practices.”
Farming for the Future Foundation thanks Dick Okray for bringing his creative problem-solving abilities and innovative ideas to the board of directors.
More about Dick Okray:
Best way to enjoy a potato: Watching it grow in the field.
Piece of technology I couldn’t live without: Reyburn Cybertuner
Favorite place to be: Anywhere quiet reading non-fiction.
Mantra to live by: Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.
