Dairy Tales
Steve and Doug Feldkamp photo by Thomas Boyd
As Umpqua Dairy celebrates its 90th year in business, company owners and longtime employees look back on some of their most memorable moments.
Story by Dick Baltus
On a misty Friday morning, a door slides open on the side of a refrigerated warehouse in Roseburg’s Mill-Pine district and through the heavy vinyl curtain emerges Doug Feldkamp in white lab coat and mask, clutching a fist full of envelopes.
It’s payday at Umpqua Dairy, the semi-weekly ritual that gives the company CEO the chance to touch base with every employee while personally delivering their paycheck, an exercise he shares on occasion with his brother, Steve.
“You know, we’ve grown so much it’s getting harder to remember everybody’s name,” says Feldkamp, whose father, Bob, led the company before him, succeeding his own father, Ormond, who co-founded the dairy with Herb Sullivan.
This year marks Umpqua Dairy’s 90th year in business and Doug’s 33rd at its helm. When he took the reins of the company, the new boss only had to remember 88 names. Today there are more than 290 individuals on the payroll, and while Feldkamp can’t hand deliver checks to all of them (the dairy now has nearly 110 workers in its seven distribution centers outside of Roseburg), “being able to remember as many names as he does is pretty darn amazing,” says longtime employee Don Fisher.
Neither Doug nor chief operating officer Steve ever thought they’d be celebrating Umpqua Dairy’s 90th anniversary from inside the organization. After graduating from Oregon State, Doug was working as an auditor (“and basically being a ski bum”) at Mt. Bachelor Village in Bend when in 1985 he decided to move back closer to family. Steve, also an OSU graduate, was working as a marine biologist in California but decided to return home to the family business when the Feldkamp’s father was diagnosed with cancer.
“We’d worked in the dairy during summers, but neither of us felt we’d come back after college,” Doug says.
Plans change, as do businesses that last 90 years. We asked the Feldkamps to share some of the most memorable events in Umpqua Dairy’s history before and during their tenure with the company.
The dairy crew in 1939.
THE FIRST DELIVERY
Umpqua Dairy’s first milk delivery in 1931 went to “Mrs. Parrott” who, the Feldkamps surmise, was Rosa Parrott, a local legend whose historic home has been transformed into a restaurant.
“Somebody ran up to me and said ‘Hey, the Dairy’s on fire’. We ran outside and the whole sky over here was orange.” — Steve Feldkamp
THE BIG BLAZE
In 1974, a major fire devastated the dairy, temporarily shutting it down completely.
“It was January and I was playing in the band at a Roseburg High basketball game,” recalls Steve. “An announcement came over the P.A. system ‘Would Bob Feldkamp please report to the office?’ Then they asked all dairy employees to report to the office. Somebody ran up to me and said, ‘Hey, the dairy’s on fire.’ We ran outside and the whole sky over here was orange.”
Adds Doug: “It was just before my 15 birthday, and I had been looking at this Suzuki motorcycle and was hoping I’d get it as a gift. I remember walking down the sidewalk with Steve looking at that fire and him saying to me, ‘Well, you can kiss that motorcycle goodbye.’ Scarred me for life.”
“I don’t remember saying that,” Steve counters. “But I probably did.”
Other Oregon dairies lent the use of their plants so Umpqua could continue producing until the local facility was usable again.
YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN
Doug returned to Roseburg and the family business in 1985; Steve followed in 1988, the year Bob Feldkamp lost his battle with cancer. In the 18 months before and after his death, the dairy lost about 250 years of experience through the deaths or retirements of other long-term employees. At the time, Doug was just 28. Steve was only 31, “and neither of us knew anything about the business,” Doug says. They were quick studies.
A dairy representative with customer in 1967.
DAIRY GROWTH
After operating exclusively in Douglas County for its first 40 years, Umpqua Dairy expanded into Grants Pass and Coos Bay in 1969.
The dairy would build a distribution center in Grants Pass in 1978 then begin expansion into Medford. In 1990, another distribution center was built in Coos Bay followed by centers in Portland and Klamath Falls in 1994, Eugene in 1999, Central Point in 2006 and Springfield in 2019.
ON WORKING TOGETHER
“We’ve had our moments,” says Steve, wryly. “Some of those moments have lasted years.”
“I think it helps that we’re from completely different backgrounds,” Doug says. “Steve hasn’t been a marine biologist for 30 years, but he’s still a scientist. And my background is business, so we don’t think the same way about a lot of things. Which I know has driven employees crazy when they are right in the middle of us. But we complement each other.”
“There’s a lot of common ground,” Steve adds. “We trust each other.”
Bob Feldkamp (L) with 4H kids at the Douglas County Fair.
QUALITY FIRST
Umpqua Dairy has won multiple quality awards for its products and in 1998 won the Irving B. Weber Distinguished Award for Excellence, the Quality Chek’d organization’s
most prestigious recognition.
“Our team realizes we don’t have to be biggest to be best,” Doug says. “You can be best by just caring about what you are doing and having pride in it.”
“I think having long-term relationships makes all the difference, whether it’s customers or employees,” Steve adds. “We have a lot of long-term employees who have kept our culture of excellence alive through the years.”
Karol Orth (54 years)
Ray Duncan (31 years)
Left to right, Karen Buswell (41-year employee), Marty Weaver (27 years) and Patty Beamer (30 years)
Jesse Brannon (33 years)
The following is excerpted from our conversation with longtime employees John Harvey, director of plant operations (39 years); Ray Duncan, director of logistics and inventory (31 years); Jesse Brannon, purchasing supervisor (33 years); Karen Buswell, human resources specialist/ payroll (41 years); Patty Beamer, executive assistant (30 years) and Don Fisher, night-time plant supervisor (43 years).
Jesse: “I started in the cooler. There was one chain, and it went in a tiny circle. The product came out and we loaded it onto trucks. Sometimes we had to load the entire truck with a hand truck.”
Ray: “We only had a couple routes because we only had depots in Grants Pass and Coos Bay.”
John: “I was supposed to be here for just for two weeks. That was 1982, when there were no jobs. I didn’t even ask the wage. I didn’t know how much I got paid until I got my paycheck. I was just putting milk in crates. They came off the filler on a little turntable and you just put them in the crate as fast as you could, then grabbed another crate.”
Ray: “When we ran out of milk crates, we’d have to drive around to all the stores, or houses, and bring back the empties.”
John: “We didn’t like people stealing our crates, because you had to run till you were done. So you’d have to stop and run around and get more cases before you could finish your job.”
Patty: “That’s still a problem today.”
John: “I got a text just today from my son proudly telling me he confiscated a milk crate from one of his co-workers.”
Karen: “I remember we took some back from somebody who had pretty much furnished their whole house in our milk crates.”
Jesse: “We’ve seen them in fishing magazines, in dorm rooms at the U of O; even saw one on a crab boat on Deadliest Catch.”
Don: “So, I’ll tell a story about my brother (Ron, who recently retired after a long career at the dairy). I don’t know the year, but it was in the 80s when we were doing home delivery. Ron liked to rush things, and sometimes he might forget to set a brake or something. He was delivering five half gallons of 2% up on a hill in town. After he drops them at the house and starts walking down the steps, he notices his truck rolling down the hill toward a house. It ran into a wall that got pushed right into the headboard in this couple’s bedroom. He goes and knocks on door. The owner gets up — well, he was already up — answers the door and says, ‘You didn’t need to knock.’”
John: “We used to have a full-size plastic cow...”
Jesse: “Oh, you’re going to tell that story?”
John: “...a plastic Holstein we kept in a storage area. One day I went by there and there was some kind of chocolate substance on the floor behind it. Steaming. That was funny right there.”
Patty: “Who was it that got locked in the freezer?”
Karen: “We used to get ice cream fresh out of the spout. One gal decided she wanted to make a sundae with some of the chocolate marble that we used to put in the ice cream. She went into the trailer and the door shut and locked behind her. She panicked a little but they got her out quick.”
Jesse: “In the old days, you’d put on a hair net and run into the ice cream room and they’d put a container under the spout and get you a tub of ice cream, whatever you wanted depending on what they were running.”
On the dairy’s commitment to quality....
Jesse: “It comes from the top down. It’s ingrained in the culture.” Patty: “John always says, ‘We don’t win every contest, but we expect to,’”
