In 1981, straight out of high school, Dave Davis did not expect that his part-time job at MMPA would lead to a lifelong career of serving the dairy industry. Working at MMPA’s Constantine, Mich. plant with his father was only a means to get him through college, but 43 years later he finds himself in a leadership role as Constantine’s Plant Manager. Dave was recently recognized with the 2024 Industry Service Award for his dedication to Michigan dairy farmers.
“I worked here part-time while taking classes at Southwestern Michigan College. I became an evaporator operator, separator operator and post-graduation I went into management as a supervisor, then a production manager and now plant manager,” said Dave.
He has gained extensive experience working in various departments of the plant and has remained dedicated to his roles, finding the work at the plant highly rewarding.
“It’s satisfying to provide a wholesome food source like dairy products,” Dave shared. “You get to help our members deliver their product to market, and I have always found that very rewarding throughout my
years of working in Michigan.”
Finding fulfillment in his work, Dave relies heavily on his team members, with whom developed strong relationships.
“I am most proud of the team members,” Dave said. “There’s always been a great, very dedicated team here at the plant. A lot of people have been here for a substantial amount of time, and we’ve formed friendships from working together every day to make sure that we do what we’re supposed to do.”
The team at the plant works diligently to ensure they process a safe, high-quality product while also prioritizing their own safety.
Dave stated, “Every day when I come in, I’m strongly focused on food safety and human safety. We have received awards in the past for safety and right now we’re at 950 days without a recordable injury. We are very proud of that.”
During his time in Constantine, Dave and his team have witnessed the plant’s growth and are continuing to prepare for further expansion.
“All through my career, there has been constant growth of this plant. When I first started here, we processed 400,000 pounds of milk a day, now we can process 3 million pounds. The tanker trucks have gotten bigger, they were just straight trucks when I first started here, and now, they’re super tankers that haul 100,000 pounds of milk at a time.”
Dave has watched the Constantine plant grow and sees the same future for Michigan’s dairy industry.
“I envision that the industry will continue to grow, and we see new products developed,” said Dave. “I can imagine more diversification from the traditional commodity market. An example of this is how MMPA has partnered with GoodSport. We’re going from just marketing whole and skim milk to a sports drink that is similar to Gatorade.”
The plant’s most recent expansion, and Dave’s greatest personal achievement at MMPA, was the two million pounds of milk per day ultra-filtration system addition in the fall of 2018.
“That was an exciting project. We needed to have an outlet for more of our members’ milk and as a team we came up with the concept of ultra-filtered milk. It took about six months to build that whole plant and that gave us an additional two million pounds of capacity,” stated Dave.
MMPA continues to grow the plant’s facilities as the Dairy Distillery ethanol-processing plant is set to break ground this summer. One of Constantine’s very own engineers came to Dave with the idea of recycling the plant’s milk permeate byproduct.
“I’ve had involvement on the conceptual idea of the Dairy Distillery plant,” said Dave. “We have a plant engineer, Jesse Mahoney, who found the Dairy Distillery in Ottawa, Canada that was making vodka from milk permeate. At the time we were looking at ways to control cost on the lactose byproduct, so we explored that idea and here we are, set to break ground in August.”
Dave has great experience with the plant, helped it grow and thrive, and he foresees MMPA continuing to be a strong company in the future.
“In 20 years, I think MMPA will still be a strong cooperative,” stated Dave.
It is for that reason Dave was honored as the 2024 Industry Service Award recipient during the Michigan Dairy Industry Conference held in May 2024. The award recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to Michigan’s dairy industry.
“Everybody in the cooperative has helped me get this far. There is great support within MMPA, and as new people come and go, you learn from their past experiences and that’s how I got to where I’m at,” Dave shared. “I was surprised to receive the award – surprised and very appreciative.”
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