Texan gives UNL $20 million

LINCOLN — The story of Texas cattleman Paul F. Engler is a classic up-by-the-bootstraps saga.

Engler, now 80, is a legend among U.S. cattle feeders for helping establish the feedlot industry in Texas. He made news in Nebraska Monday when he announced a $20 million gift to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to help aspiring ag entrepreneurs.

Engler, a Nebraska native, is probably best known among non-ag folks as the fellow who led a defamation lawsuit against Oprah Winfrey over a 1996 program on mad cow disease. Engler and his fellow cattlemen lost the suit, but they said they made their point about the safety of U.S. beef.

On Monday, he joined University of Nebraska officials at a press conference to announce the gift from the Paul F. and Virginia J. Engler Foundation for NU to establish an agribusiness entrepreneurship program.

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Chancellor Harvey Perlman described it as the largest gift ever to the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

But at age 13, Engler was a boy chafing at a strict father who believed his children should work hard — without pay. While his father, who owned a filling station near Bassett, Neb., was away on a business trip, Engler slipped off to the sale barn and bought 100 head of cattle without permission.

Since he didn’t have a dime, he afterwards talked the auctioneer into loaning him the money to pay for the animals.

Back home, he said he braced himself for the “worst licking of my life.” But when his father found out, he simply shook his son’s hand, said he was proud of him — and took him to the bank to get a loan with a little better interest rate.

Some 65 years later, Engler’s company feeds about half a million cattle at a time at locations across northern Texas and southwest Kansas. His Cactus Feeders is described as the largest privately owned cattle feeding operation in the world.

Engler says he wants to encourage young entrepreneurs who have that same “fire in the belly” to succeed.

That’s why he made the donation to his alma mater to support the Paul F. Engler Agribusiness Entrepreneurship Program at UNL. The money will be used to provide coursework, a lecture series, training camps, internships and even a venture capital fund to support student start-up businesses.

“I think about myself and my age, and I still have fire in my belly,” said Engler, who remains active in the day-to-day operation of his business.

“We need to identify these boys and girls who have that fire in the belly when they are young and then when they come to the university, expose them to a curriculum that teaches risk — how to evaluate it and how to manage it — because if you do not take risk as an entrepreneur, you are not going to make it.”

Perlman and NU President J.B. Milliken said the gift is in keeping with the university’s goals to foster entrepreneurship and to make life sciences a signature program at UNL.

NU Foundation President Clarence Castner described it as a “transformative gift.”

“It’s a visionary gift,” said Milliken, noting that 70 percent of young Nebraskans interviewed in a Gallup Organization study said they want to start their own businesses.

“We want to capture that spirit, to give students the tools they need to take that spirit and be successful in Nebraska.”

Engler said that although his father ran a filling station, he owned cattle because he thought it was important his children know how to milk a cow. He eventually assembled a small herd with Engler, who said he “didn’t like greasing wheels and changing oil,” responsible for its care.

By the time he graduated high school, Engler had made enough money that he wanted to continue with his cattle herd. But his father insisted that he use his savings to go to college.

After graduating from the University of Nebraska in 1951, he worked for a cattle company in Valentine, Neb., before going to work for Louis Dinklage, a major cattle feeder near Wisner, Neb.

He moved to Texas in 1960, where he became one of the first feedlot operators in that state. He married Virginia “Jinx” Engler, a fellow NU graduate who grew up in Valentine, in 1981. She died in 1996 at age 64.

Before making the donation, Engler said he spent considerable time with IANR Vice Chancellor John Owens discussing how best to teach entrepreneurship to students.

“If we can identify them early, I guarantee you, if you can’t teach ‘em, I can teach ‘em,” he said.

« Metro/Region

Share