A Face in the Crowd: Brian Paulsen’s PSF Role Requires Many Hats
Brian Paulsen is officially manager of environmental affairs for Premium Standard Farms (PSF), but his job requires much more than management skills. In order to meet the challenges inherent in modern agriculture, Brian, in essence, becomes a farmer, scientist, weather forecaster, businessman, and environmentalist, depending on the situation.
After joining the government affairs department of PSF’s processing business in 1993, his role with the company has continued to grow as he held a variety of positions before being named to his current title in 2002.
While the challenges Brian and the entire PSF team have faced are substantial, the company’s commitment to the environment, along with the marketplace trends and weather patterns, all have spurred PSF to create new and innovative ways to meet the diverse challenges of animal agriculture. For example, excessive rainfall during the past three years has challenged Brian and his team to develop new and innovative approaches to safely and successfully land-apply excess water while continuing to protect the environment. His team is constantly developing new technologies, ways to reduce costs, and ways to better recycle and reuse resources to the benefit of the environment. Among their chief accomplishments is the development of Next Generation Technology, born from 10 years of research, to address odor.
Brian and the PSF team view these challenges as opportunities to learn and to apply their expertise in new ways. He remarked that in order to effectively respond to all these pressures, the company has needed to adopt an attitude of teamwork.
“No one person makes or breaks anything,” Brian said. He attributed the success of the company to the combined efforts of people, such as their land application team, production team, legal team, environmental team, and the company’s leadership. “Everyone is involved in this effort,” Brian stated, “all the way up to the president of the company. Everyone must understand the environmental management system and how they should do their part. There must be accountability at every level.”
Premium Standard Farms is a subsidiary of Murphy-Brown, LLC. Click here to learn more about PSF and their environmental systems.
