Subject Matter Expert
Keith DeHaan brings Blue Stone a lifetime of experience in the farming, ranching and meat processing industries. Raised on a family farm and ranch enterprise in South Dakota, Keith holds over 40 years of professional agriculture experience.
Keith is a partner at Protein Processing Services in Columbus, Nebraska that specializes in business planning, feasibility analysis, livestock production, and technical assistance in the meat processing sector. As a four-company conglomerate, Protein Processing Services provides all services for turnkey meat processing plants that collectively involves business planning, full meat plant processing design, wastewater design, permitting, construction, and start-up process training.
Keith is a managing principal for the Food & Livestock Planning, Inc., a technical service company part of the Protein Processing Services conglomerate, which focuses on providing research, business planning, and management services to the meat and livestock industries. Keith has conducted projects in 21 U.S. states and 6 foreign countries in areas of: technical service and management services to start-up and start-over meat companies and plants, feasibility research and business planning for new or changing food companies, food related market research for companies and agencies, and commercialization of new technologies into the meat and livestock industries.
Prior to his work at Protein Processing Services, Keith worked for Farmland Industries as a research scientist for university trials, as well as, managed company nutritionists, supervised feed formulation, and managed a production business serving as a liaison amongst cow and calf producers, feedlot owners, and National Beef Packers. Keith was the President at DemKota Ranch Beef in South Dakota serving as a chief planner and administrator of a 1,500 per day beef processing plant. Keith managed day-to-day startup operations and developed the entire management team. Keith also held executive leadership positions with Beef America Packing as a Vice President managing food safety, quality, regulations, product development, and business development. At Beef America Specialty Foods Division, Keith served as the COO managing operations for specialty portion cutting, specialty processing, and packing beef and pork.
Keith holds a Ph.D. in Nutrition/Biochemistry from the University of Nebraska, a M.S. in Animal Science (Reproductive Physiology), and a B.S. in Animal Science from South Dakota State University.