Kemper Marley

Who wants a trophy for second place?

Kemper Marley

Reinventing the Cow Business

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            I saw that look on Kemper’s face several times through the course of events that brought us together. Two were associated with the plight of a common friend who was facing bankruptcy.

            The first time we were unloading the Remington soapstone destroyed on a spur of the moment airplane trip from Burbank to Phoenix. The second was standing on the knoll at the Peach Tree looking across the valley at the ranching legacy of George Mee. Travelers Insurance declared it one of the best five ranches in America.

            The meeting

            The first time I met Kemper Marley I had spent the night with that friend at his ranch with the intention of meeting Kemper’s plane when it arrived the next morning. Unknown to me the process had been a long time coming and I was nothing more than a bit player in the most recent act. I had been asked for a favor to structure a pro forma for part of a presentation to the man who was going to assist in structuring a workout.

            The day started badly with a late start. Our friend didn’t seem to grasp the gravity of his situation. He overslept.

It wasn’t because I didn’t try to wake him. It was because the wing of the house he was in was locked up like a fortress. I couldn’t get his attention by banging on doors and windows. I even tried calling the phone that rang by his bed.

            By the time I decided he must need medical attention and was in the process of starting to break down a door, he appeared … nonplussed and wondering what all the commotion was about.

            We arrived in Salinas after driving way too fast. The saving grace was the airport was socked in and the flight had been diverted. They had landed at Paso Robles waiting for the fog to clear.

            The day got more complicated when, sitting down to the business meeting, I was prompted to make the presentation! It wasn’t my bankruptcy and I surely wasn’t informed of all the circumstances, but I presented as best I could.

            I know I must have been agitated because, during a break, Mr. Marley put his big hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye.

            “You did fine,” he said. “I know what’s going on … always have. Let’s just see how this plays out.”

            Over time, I commuted to Phoenix a number of times both with our friend and alone to follow up on the discussion. The process ended with yet another meeting at the ranch near San Ardo. It was at that meeting I saw the look on Kemper’s face as we stood together outside the sprawling Frank Lloyd Wright designed main ranch house looking off across the valley.

He had been talking to me and stopped. I turned to look at him and saw the emotion on his face. He was talking from his heart on the only matter that really mattered to him so late in life and the final battle he was fighting. He couldn’t help our friend because our friend wouldn’t help himself. He also couldn’t help because his own health battle was nearing its end. He had neither the strength nor the time.

“The only thing I really want to claim in life is to have known a bit about the cow business,” he finally said.

His life

Kemper Marley’s life story had more intrigue and suspense than a dozen lives. My relationship with him was largely blind to the greater stage of his endeavors. I knew a bit about the California Angels ownership, the booze businesses, the Caterpillar dealerships in Mexico, the Phoenix holdings, the farms, the cotton gins and oil plants and even the suggestions of his ties to a dark side of politics, but my relationship was predicated on the preference for cattle. I didn’t really care about the rest, and that remains the case today.

I was honored with a note from him asking me to attend a “little celebration” some folks were going to throw for him. It turned out to be his native state’s tribute to him. Wondering what I had gotten myself into, he came to greet me when he saw me standing alone in the hall’s entrance.

We were still there talking with Jack Roddy and Dale Smith when Barry Goldwater walked in. He walked directly to us and greeted first Kemper like a brother and then me like he knew the mother of my first dog.

Later, Kemper sent me a copy of the Phoenix Magazine with his story. I still have it.

Then, I heard he was gone. His race had ended … or had it?

Back to cow business

As we bow to Mother Nature, Brazil is running right by us in the cattle business. A friend of mine who has come to know Brazil talked recently about what is happening.

He talked about the concept of production units designed around slaughter hubs. He described the introduction of African grasses that provide nutritional strength in place of native tropical grasses that don’t. He talked about the emphasis of genetic technology that Americans are currently void of duplicating. He talked about the counterpart to our USDA actually emphasizing agricultural pursuits rather than social and wealth redistribution programs.

He also talked about Brazilian government’s target investment. That government has pledged 40% of investment capital for protein production. That seems incomprehensible, but that is the number.

America has no such concept. There has never been such a plan.

American investment in protein production has long been the domain of private investment. Recent year government investment has an environmental or human health slant.

The federal government, through its land management agencies, has even declared that (federal) EQIP improvements on federal lands cannot be reserved for livestock. Consider that.

American ranchers on federal lands are urged to invest in cost sharing improvement plans while knowing all such improvements cannot be expected to be matched with livestock increases. All improvements are reserved for wildlife.

This is an industry that cries for capital improvements. It is an industry that has suffered from the long absence of substantive capital infusions. What other industry on earth is urged to invest in itself, but the results can only be shared as peripheral externalities?

The Brazilian capitalization pledges stand in stark relief … as will their future in protein production.

Where the champions once roamed

As the environmental concerto thumps away in the boom box, the western cattle business must employ defensive measures and delaying tactics to hold itself together. In the land of the most iconic American model, the industry is engaging in tactics of retreat.

Then, several weeks ago, I saw a news release that made me smile. The release described an endowment to the University of Arizona for the purposes of “strengthening the ecological, economic, and social viability of Arizona ranching in the 21^st Century.  The Kemper and Ethel Marley Foundation had pledged $4.5 million to the cause!

I must admit the accompanying words of enhance, ecological, social viability, and sustainability were tedious. My hope, though, is that the stewards of the foundation will enforce the character of Kemper Marley in the application of those funds.

This effort is important. We need to renew and reinvent this industry. We need to do it in a manner that deals with the antagonism we face as well as the real opportunities that exist.

The emergence of this name and the embodiment of his character should be welcomed. Perhaps it will serve to prompt similar actions.

 Kemper Marley, who was first and foremost a cowman, reemerges to be with us. There is something timeless about that.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Kemper smiled when he told me he was unaware of any patriarch in his immediate family that died a natural death … he was indeed Western.”