{"id":17,"date":"2012-03-09T16:42:36","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T16:42:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/?page_id=17"},"modified":"2012-05-29T12:55:26","modified_gmt":"2012-05-29T12:55:26","slug":"road-trip-with-bill-1996","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/?page_id=17","title":{"rendered":"Road Trip with Bill 1996"},"content":{"rendered":"
Around 1996 Bill invited me to join him for a road trip through New Mexico and Texas. I\u00a0saw Bill in action as he dealt with customers along the way. He knew everyone and everyone knew him. There were not many cold calls. He understood the problems of a ranchers, feed mill\u00a0owners and \u00a0feed store operators.\u00a0 People were glad to see him and loved talking with him. The guy you might meet at the top of Copper Mountain or on the dock at Carter Lake was the same guy who could share stories with a West Texas cowboy. He would actually yodel as he entered a feed store and the owner knew who had just arrived. During the 1970s and 80s he crossed\u00a0the border\u00a0and through his efforts FPI became the major supplier of nutritional products to the largest dairy business in Northern Mexico. He became\u00a0the chief\u00a0rain maker for the company. But his business charisma was not just a matter of his personality. He knew the latest developments in animal nutrition and how to obtain ingredients at the lowest cost. When he conferred with Jim Olsen,\u00a0the\u00a0FPI nutrition\u00a0specialist, the two of them shared\u00a0ideas and concepts for helping meet a customers needs. They spoke the same language. He\u00a0could walk through\u00a0the FPI warehouse and explain\u00a0how and why\u00a0each\u00a0product was used.\u00a0He was just as\u00a0competitive as a businessman as he was a sailor. The competition was the enemy and the\u00a0enemy must be outmanuvered or outsmarted. He knew every customer and what\u00a0problems they were facing. He\u00a0 tried his best\u00a0to meet their needs and get\u00a0their order to them on time.\u00a0He knew his customers often\u00a0struggled to make ends meet.\u00a0He always tried to help them.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
I enjoyed that road trip. We stopped at Roswell NM.\u00a0He knew I wanted to see where the UFO landed in 1947. He enjoyed going through the museum and seeing a film about\u00a0the Roswell incident. He told me that as a\u00a0kid he loved going to see movie serials about Buck Rogers and Flash Gorden. As an adult he liked the Star Trek TV series and Star War\u00a0movies.\u00a0In many ways Bill had a kid’s imagination. He was not a drama or romance guy although Lynn could talk him into going to a musical now and then. In Roswell he was a kid again and then we hit the road for\u00a0a visit to a very\u00a0dry West Texas.<\/div>\n
—-Bill’s brother, John Kieser<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around 1996 Bill invited me to join him for a road trip through New Mexico and Texas. I\u00a0saw Bill in action as he dealt with customers along the way. He knew everyone and everyone knew him. There were not many … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":2,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-17","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52,"href":"https:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/17\/revisions\/52"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.billkieser.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}