Where are They Now? Featuring: Jim Schultz by Cheri Kemp Catching up with Jim Schultz was not as easy as you would think for someone who is retired and in their late 70’s, but I did manage to catch him between his many ‘hobbies.’ Jim retired from Crest Foods in 2012 after spending 38 years at Crest in our Dairy Ingredient Division developing product and processes for Crest. One of his main interests was in the making of cottage cheese. Making cottage cheese is not just simply adding a lactic culture to milk, letting it set until it coagulates and then cutting the curds to release whey. It is much more complex than that. Since our Ingredient
Division produces the products needed by large manufacturers to produce the delicious cottage cheese you find in the store, Crest, and Jim, spent a lot of time developing these processes to best help our customers. In fact, Jim Schultz wrote, and published, a book in 2012 called “The History of Cottage Cheese”. (Jim blames Max Ballard, Ingredient Division Technical Service Director, for this creative name). This book is primarily used in the industry as a handbook for cottage cheese production facilities. Jim chuckled and said “I am not on a National Book Tour yet!” Jim and his wife, Sharon, divide their time between their home in Oregon, IL, and their home in Castalia, Iowa, where Sharon maintains flower and vegetable gardens. When in Oregon, they volunteer time for church activities through the Oregon United Methodist Church. They also try to squeeze in a little travel along the way. With two daughters who live in Chicago (one lives in downtown Chicago and the other lives virtually a half block away from Wrigley Field) they do get to Chicago on occasion. In Iowa…well that is where his biggest hobby starts. “After a 50 year hiatus from farming, I am back on the fam- ily farm where my father was born in 1913. Sharon and I built a cabin on the farm in 2003. We have acreage in the Conservation Reserve Program and have to maintain the land to certain specifications by mowing, killing any weeds, and then planting prairie grasses (like big blue stem) and numerous native prairie flowers. Every few years we have to burn it off so that the land can be maintained as a prairie. If ever needed, then the land can be turned back into productive crop land.” Then we have the trees. I could tell from the tone in Jim’s voice as he talked about tree farming, that he has found a new passion. In the last several years Jim has planted 15 to 20,000 trees. In fact, he planted 1,000 trees in 2018! “I spend a lot of time tree farming”, said Jim. “People think you just put them in the ground and let them go. That is not the case. You have to spray them, mow around them, and trim the branches. A District Forester came up with a plan on preparing the ground and what kinds of trees to plant. We planted black walnut, sycamore, silver maple, river birch and swamp white oak. When I get the trees, they are about 10 to 12 inches tall. I have attended a lot of forestry seminars and field days to learn about it.” Thinking about the sheer quantity of trees to be put into the ground, I asked Jim how someone goes about planting so many trees (thinking there might be some machine that is used). He said “You use a spade, dig a hole, plant the tree and tamp it down. I had some neighbors and their kids help plant trees and we could plant about 200 trees per - day per person. You can plant about 500 to 600 trees per acre but a mature forest can support only about 50
18 Crest Ink October, November & December 2018
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