Transition Consultants

John Black is an agricultural business consultant with Farm Credit.  John has over sixteen year experience in farm tax accounting and farm business analysis. He grew up on a dairy farm and was a partner in the family business for 25 years.

Wayne Brubaker is a consultant with Horizon Farm Credit, where he has 32 years of experience as a farm accountant and 11 years as a farm consultant. He has helped perform more than 100 consultations for farms, mostly centered around feasibility studies.

Dr. Charlie Gardner grew up in southern New Jersey and worked on his uncle’s dairy farm. He attended the College of Agriculture at Cornell from 1967 –1969, then transferred to Veterinary College, and graduated from Veterinary School in 1973. He then joined the Ackermanville Veterinary Hospital, doing mainly dairy cattle practice. He stayed there until 1989, when he started Dairy Management Consultants, a practice specializing in dairy herd management. Dr. Gardner became board certified as a specialist in dairy practice in 1993, and received an MBA from Moravian College in May of 1999. He joined Agway in 1999, and was director of the Agway TSPF Heifer Program. In March of 2004 he joined Cargill Animal Nutrition, and worked with producers to improve animal and financial performance. He retired from Cargill in December of 2014, and has since worked part time as a farm consultant with the Center for Dairy Excellence.

Samantha Gehrett is a Dairy Business Management Educator with Penn State Extension and is housed in Carlisle, PA. Her primary focus is to help dairy producers determine cost of production and develop farm business plans that help farms reach long-term goals and objectives. She brings experience in Accounting, Taxation, and Dairy Processing. This work is accomplished through on-farm visits, workshops and conferences and the development of tools and resources for producers and consultants.

Rob Goodling is an agricultural business consultant with Horizon Farm Credit in the Susquehanna Valley. Rob has over 18 years’ experience helping producers understand their farm business records and analyses to grow their operations. His specialties include financial business analysis, cost of production analysis, cash flow planning and budgeting, QuickBooks consultation and troubleshooting, dairy record evaluation, and team facilitation.

Mike Hosterman is an agricultural business consultant with Farm Credit, based in Chambersburg, Pa. Mike specializes in cash flow and viability analysis, cash flow budgeting and developing cash flow plans, and team and business facilitation.

Jake Lantzsch is an agricultural business consultant with Horizon Farm Credit. He grew up on a dairy farm and graduated with a degree in Dairy Science from Delaware Valley University. He has over 20 years of management experience in both production as well as agricultural support businesses. His consulting focus is on helping with farm business transition plans, feasibility studies, as well as a variety of other business focused aspects

Paula Ledney serves as an Education Program Associate / Financial Analyst in the Business, Energy, and Community Vitality Unit.  Her focus is assisting food, agriculture, and natural resources-based businesses with financial planning; record keeping; financial statement and ratio analysis; budgeting; business and enterprise analysis; and financial literacy and decision making.  Program work in these areas results in measurable improvements made by stakeholders in efficiency, growth, competitiveness, innovation and job creation.  She holds Bachelors Degrees in both Finance and Environmental Resource Management, and a Certificate in Financial Planning, all from Penn State.

Brian Reed, DVM, MBA has spent the last 36 years working with dairy farmers as a veterinarian. Since receiving his MBA degree in 2001, he has also been a dairy business consultant, assisting dairy families with strategic planning, profitability analysis and farm transition planning. Dr. Reed also currently utilizes Center for Dairy Excellence resources to assist farm families going through the farm transition process.

Phil Taylor, M.S. has been a farm business consultant with Farm Credit in western Pennsylvania for ten years. He has more than 35 years of agriculture industry experience, specializing in accounting, financial business analysis, farm succession and transition, feasibility investigations, and team facilitation. He helps farm families understand the importance of complete and accurate financial and production records for making the best management decisions for future success.

Lee Wenger is a consultant with Horizon Farm Credit who has 32 years of experience as a farm accountant and 11 years of experience as a farm consultant. Lee also grew up on a dairy farm.