Dr. Charles A Hjerpe Fellowship

Mike McCloskey is Co-Founder and retired CEO of Select Milk Producers, the sixth largest milk cooperative in the country.  He is also Chairman and CEO of the Board for Fair Oaks Farms, the nation’s largest agritourism destination located in Northwest Indiana. Dr. McCloskey’s home dairy is Curtis Creek Dairy Farms, also in Northwest Indiana, which milks 16,000 cows living in free-stall barns, 800 cows in a robotic milker dairy and 1000 cows on an organic dairy. The farm is recognized as being one of the leading sustainable dairies in the U.S. Curtis Creek Dairy Farms harvest their cow manure and through digesters create more than enough electricity to power all of their farms as well as creating renewable CNG to fuel 42 milk trucks and thus displacing 2 million gallons of diesel use annually. Curtis Creek Dairy Farms opened one of the largest and most state-of-the-art robotic milking dairy farms in the world in February of 2019.

Dr. McCloskey has been instrumental in creating proprietary value-added dairy products, patented milk processing & dispensing systems which have led to the creation of fairlife, a dairy-based health and wellness company, which is now solely owned by The Coca Cola Company.  fairlife’s products include fairlife milk, a higher protein, lower sugar, lactose free milk targeted to families, Core Power, a specially formulated athletic drink, and fairlife Nutrition Plan, a high protein meal replacement/nutritional enhancement drink. Dr. McCloskey now serves as chairman of the Board of the fairlife company.

Dr. McCloskey was awarded his Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine in 1976 from the University of Mexico, after which he completed a two year post-doctoral residency in Dairy Production Medicine at the University of California, School of Veterinary Medicine, in Davis, California.  He is still the only Resident to have received the Resident of The Year Award for two consecutive years. And years later, Mike received the recipient of the Alumni Achievement Award from the University of California School of Veterinary Medicine.

Mike was also awarded an honorary Doctorate in Business by the Graziadio School of Business at Pepperdine University for his leadership and business acumen in addition to a Doctorate of Laws from the University of Guelph for his leadership in agriculture.

Dr. McCloskey is the past Chairman of the Sustainability Initiative of the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy and is currently the Chairman of the Environmental Committee of the U.S. Dairy Innovation Center. Currently, Dr. McCloskey is focusing on the reinvention of tropical dairy cattle through his newly established company, Proterra Genetics. Dr. McCloskey is also a founder and partner in VARCOR Technology, which is a revolutionary manure management technology for large-scale animal care producers. Recently, he and his wife, Sue, established the Dr. Charles A. Hjerpe Foundation, which focuses on preparing young dairy veterinary practitioners to become the leaders of the dairy enterprise of the future.