Vivian Baumer joined the Advisory Team for the Block and Bridle Club in 2005. The club has amazed her with the numerous activities that occur through out the year. It has been an experience in which she has learned more from the students than they have from her. The best part of being an adviser is working with the students and seeing the personal growth that occurs from freshman to senior year. It has also been wonderful to work with the other advisers even though Ken’s sweet tooth for brownies has grown. Vivian joined the Department of Dairy and Animal Science in 1978 as a research technologist. Through the years, she has worked with projects that include swine, dairy, sheep, goat, or beef animals as the research model. The majority of the research projects concerned ruminant nutrition with emphasis on utilization of byproducts as feeds and grazing systems. Vivian finds it very rewarding to be involved with research that will benefit livestock producers and the environment by decreasing materials sent to landfills. As manager of a research lab, she has thoroughly enjoyed working with many undergraduate and graduate students through the years. Since the 1980’s, she has been involved with the teaching of the computer labs for the Feed and Feed Technology Class. Vivian also teaches computer labs for several other classes including Beef Production, Sheep Production, and Advanced Canine Nutrition. She joined the team of undergraduate advisors when she was promoted to Research Support Associate,. Vivian was a 4-H member as a youth and a 4-H leader for her daughter’s club. Presently, she is a member of the Centre County 4-H Program Council. Vivian graduated with a BA in Biology from Shippensburg State University and has taken graduate credits from the Pennsylvania State University. Vivian’s office is located in 306 Henning Building. She can be reached at 814-865-1363 or vbaumer@psu.edu

Dr. Ken Kephart is beginning his second term as a Block and Bridle co-advisor, after serving in this capacity about 9 years ago. Ken currently teaches a course in swine management, coordinates a course in nutrient management and assists with teaching a course in Farm Animal Welfare. He also serves as an extension swine specialist for Pennsylvania. He has interacted closely with the packing industry in Pennsylvania in the development of grade and weight programs. He has also worked closely with the major swine producing companies in the state in addition to providing educational programs to both county agents and family swine operations. Ken's extension programs have focused on environmental issues in recent years. Currently he has a supervisory role in an anaerobic digester project, a statewide site assessment program, a certification program for livestock producers, and an education program for commercial manure haulers and brokers. Before coming to Penn State in 1985, Ken served as a livestock specialist at the University of Delaware. Ken received his BS, MS and PhD degrees from Penn State. Ken's office is located in 306 ASI Building. He can be reached at 814-863-3671 or kbk2@psu.edu

Dr. Dan Kniffen joined The Dairy and Animal Science Department at Penn State University in 2001 as member of the Extension Outreach team. His primary responsibility is in the area of Beef cattle. Since joining the faculty at Penn State his teaching responsibilities have expanded to include: Beef Production, Advanced Beef Production, Livestock Evaluation and Advanced Livestock Evaluation. Dr. Kniffen has a long academic and production background with livestock enterprises. He has spent a considerable amount of time focusing on cost-of-production and production efficiency issues. Dan completed his graduate studies at West Virginia University studying both reproduction and cost-of-production. Upon completion he went to Colorado State University where he worked on a Post-Doc for a short time. He joined the National Cattlemen's Association as Director of Producer Programs in the early '90s. His main focus was the IRM program. In that capacity he had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects. He also worked on the Standardized Performance Analysis (SPA) program and a resource-monitoring manual. Dan returned to CSU and their extension team as the Livestock Specialist in Weld County. Kniffen was active in both 4-H and FFA. He participated on livestock judging teams in both organizations as well as during his collegiate career. Dan as an undergraduate was active with the Block and Bridle Club at West Virginia. Kniffen served as the graduate advisor to the Dairy Science Club while studying at West Virginia. Dan's office is located in 320 ASI Building. He can be reached at 865-7809 or at dkniffen@psu.edu