Dr. Chet Fields, Ph.D., was inducted into the American Feed Industry Association‘s Liquid Feed Hall of Fame, the highest award offered by the AFIA Liquid Feed Committee and the liquid feed industry.
The honor was presented to Fields at the Liquid Feed Symposium Awards Luncheon in St. Louis, Mo. The meeting is the country’s largest gathering of liquid supplement leaders in manufacturing, nutrition, quality, sales and marketing.
Fields founded C.L. Fields, Ph.D., Inc., an independent consulting company that provided nutrition and management counseling to feedlots and ranches throughout North America and across the globe. He also served as a technical liaison to the feed, veterinary, pharmaceutical, meat packing, legal and insurance industries, universities trade associations and governmental agencies.
In 1998, he joined one of his company’s clients, the U.S. Sugar Corporation, as the manager of product development and nutrition. The U.S. Sugar Corporation, which merged with Westway Feed Products, LLC in 2007, produces and markets molasses and liquid feed. During his tenure at U.S. Sugar Corporation, Fields drafted a petition to the Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) to delete the erroneous term “BRIX” from all feed definitions. This petition was presented by AFIA staff and approved by AAFCO with the new definitions appearing in the 2008 AAFCO Official Publication.
Fields served two terms on the AFIA Liquid Feed Committee and served as the committee’s chair in 2003. Always a strong supporter of research, Fields was instrumental in promoting several research projects supported by the Liquid Feed Committee’s Research and Education Fund.
Fields was born in the Terrebonne parish of Southern Louisiana. He served four years in the U.S. Coast Guard before earning a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness from Nicholls State College, later obtaining master’s and doctorate degrees in nutrition from the University of Kentucky. Fields retired from Westway Feed Products in 2012 and is currently a member of the American Society of Animal Science and the American Registry of Processional Animal Scientists.
