Matthew Spangler, associate professor of animal science, has been selected to receive the Wendell Burgher Beef Industry Award from IANR.
The award consists of an annual stipend and monetary award to support his program activities for the next two years. The Wendell Burgher Beef Industry Award was created by a gift to the University of Nebraska Foundation from Louis Burgher, M.D. and Ph.D., President of Clarkson College in Omaha, to memorialize his father, Wendell Burgher.
Wendell Burgher was a prominent cattleman in central Iowa and western Nebraska for nearly 60 years. An auctioneer, order buyer and cattle feeder, Wendell and his father owned the largest sale yard in Iowa in the 1940s. He was co-owner and manager of a livestock exchange in McCook until the late 1960s. The award allows IANR to reward outstanding faculty and advance their academic endeavors.
Spangler received the award in recognition of his efforts and contributions to the beef industry. Since arriving at UNL in 2008, Spangler has had a productive career. He leads the Weight Trait Project which includes working with 24 seedstock producers from seven breed associations with the aim to evaluate and deploy genomic selection tools to the U.S. beef industry. This project was successfully leveraged as part of the USDA funded Feed Efficiency grant and serves as the field demonstration component of the project. Spangler and colleagues have developed a certificate program at UNL (Nebraska Beef Industry Scholars) that is designed to integrate core animal science classes, internships and education trips and experiences to further develop the future leaders of the beef industry. In addition, he has developed and taught two graduate-level courses. And, he is part of a collaborative team with beef breed associations, colleagues in the Statistics Department and at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center that continue to develop and evaluate the use of genomics in beef cattle selection.
Spangler has given 140 invited talks in 15 states and in Canada and Brazil.