Succession Planning Team

The succession planning team is a collaborative effort between the Center for Dairy Excellence and the Center for Farm Transitions. It is specifically for those farms interested in transitioning the business over the next 5-10 years.


Succession Planning Team Application

The Program:

  • Succession Planning Teams have access to $3,500 in funding to cover costs associated with the succession planning team. They also must participate in a “start-up” training workshop.
  • The Center and Penn State Dairy Alliance, an initiative of Penn State Cooperative Extension, provide a “start- up” training workshop for new teams and assign a support person to each team to provide resources and share successful ideas from other teams. Click here for dates and times of upcoming team training sessions.
  • The $3,500 in funding could be used to cover up to 100 percent of all costs associated with the team, including the cost of paid team members (up to $450 per meeting) and the cost of any discovery-related cost, up to $1,000 for any individual component or resource.
  • Examples could include:
    • Using a Practical Dairy Advisor -- an experienced producer hired by the Center and paid by the producer through the Target Team Program to provide consulting expertise to the Target Team farm
    • Using the PA Dairy Tool – developed by Penn State Dairy Extension to help drill down to specific bottlenecks in the operation. Find out more at the PA Dairy Tool website. 
  • The Center for Farm Transitions will participate in every succession planning team. 
  • The producer also identifies team members, which would include a core group of individuals who can serve as advisors on the issue. The team members can represent traditional and non-traditional areas – such as engineering, legal, planning.
  • Succession planning teams must complete an initial and summary questionnaire to document change or improvement resulting from the team’s efforts.
  • The Succession Planning Team must meet regularly to evaluate the progress the farm is making toward accomplishing the goal and to develop/assign the next steps team members and the farm should take in accomplishing goal.

For more information, contact Program Manager Heather Hostetter at 717-346-0849 or c-hhostett@state.pa.us.