For the last 56 years, Norval Dvorak has been a mover and shaker in Wisconsin’s meat and
agriculture industries. Dvorak was born to Joseph and Caroline Dvorak on a farm near
Whitelaw, Wisconsin, one that has been in the Dvorak family since 1864. He graduated from the
University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in agricultural economics in 1943.

Norval married Jean Hird and they are the parents of four sons, David, Stephen, Richard and
Robert. Between 1943 and 1957 Norval farmed with Jean and their sons, and helped to organize
the Lakeland Egg Marketing Coop, Lake-to-Lake Dairy Coop, F.S. Feed – Supply Cooperative,
Badger Breeders Artificial Insemination Coop, and Lakeshore Farm Management Association.
The Dvoraks were named Wisconsin Outstanding Young Farmers in 1957.

From 1956 to 1967, he managed the Wisconsin/Minnesota Feeder Pig Marketing Cooperative,
where he was responsible for much of the organization’s growth and success. From 1967 to
1972, he managed and expanded the Midwest Livestock Producers Cooperative. In 1972,
Dvorak became vice president of corporate growth and development at Packerland Packing Co.
in Green Bay. At Packerland, he was instrumental in popularizing Holstein steers as a respected
source of high quality beef.

Dvorak retired from Packerland in 1989. Following his retirement, he has served as an
agricultural marketing consultant to a number of Eastern European countries, including Poland,
Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria, and the Ukraine as a representative of Volunteer in
Overseas Cooperative Assistance (VOAC). With VOCA, he has assisted in privatizing state
farms and converting them to cooperatives and privately held operations, and he has guided meat
companies in orienting their marketing plans and strategies to a competitive marketplace rather
than a planned economy. He helped in developing the first cooperative founded in Poland on the
basis of U.S. cooperative principles and practices.

Dvorak is currently working to persuade Wisconsin’s Holstein beef feeders to form an
association for dissemination of marketing information. He is also working with state
agricultural officials and the meat industry to win their support for improving animal science
education. It seems that he never stops becoming involved in supporting Wisconsin’s livestock
and meat industry!