We lost some great ones in century’s first decade: Roy Wallace

Roy Wallace

Roy Wallace, a founder of the national Beef Improvement Federation, died Jan. 20, 2008, while — fittingly — attending the National Western Livestock Show in Denver.

Wallace, an Ohio native, spent more than 40 years in service to U.S. cattlemen through his career with COBA/Select Sires, where he started in 1967 as a beef field representative, and became vice president of beef programs 20 years later. During his tenure at Select Sires, he acquired more than 600 beef bulls from 19 breeds to be marketed throughout the world, and, through his involvement with the Beef Improvement Federation, helped mold genetic evaluations into what they are today. A strong proponent of performance testing, Wallace served in an advisory capacity to several breed associations in the area of sire evaluations. He was also a chairman and member of the beef development committee of National Association of Animal Breeders (NAAB) and, in 2004, Wallace was recognized as one of BEEF Magazine’s Top 40, an honor given to 40 people that had made major contributions to the beef industry throughout the past 40 years. His early acceptance and promotion of EPDs as a tool to make genetic progress helped to make EPDs well known in the beef cow-calf industry. Through collaboration with reproductive researchers at major universities, Wallace helped to develop several effective A.I. synchronization programs, including Select Synch and CIDR-Select.