Before Y2K was a worry, before email was invented — certainly before it was something checked from a phone — and long before the weekly calculations of American Angus Association expected progeny differences (EPDs), Lou Ann Adams replied to a blind classified ad in the local newspaper.
“There was this little, itty-bitty ‘help wanted’ ad in our local paper that just said ‘COBOL programmer,’ and that’s what I wanted to be,” says Adams, who recently retired after 41 years at the Association, most recently as chief information officer (CIO).
Without knowing who was asking for a programmer or her exact job responsibilities, she applied. After a programming test and an interview, Adams was hired, and that 2 x 2-inch ad changed the Association for the better.
“Most breeders wouldn’t really have any idea of all that her fingerprints are on,” says Mark McCully, Association CEO.
From early records submission to handling the immense amount of data that comes with genomics, Adams has been an instrumental part of the information systems (IS) team who has helped bring countless innovations to life in the last four decades.
“She has touched all of that and really helped lead the design of the tools and efficiency of how we deliver the tools every week, and at the same time the ease of use for producers to submit data,” McCully says.
Adams retired in June, and leaves a legacy at Angus that spreads far beyond her programming work.
Joy in the challenge
A Saint Joseph, Mo., native, Adams knew of the American Angus Association growing up but wouldn’t have envisioned a lifelong career at 3201 Frederick Avenue.
A four-year break from college took her to Austin, Texas, where she worked her way up from a key-punch job to operations at the big city newspaper.
But Missouri was always home.
In 1983 she graduated from Missouri Western State University with a programming degree, got engaged, started her career and got married.
“I didn’t know anything about Angus,” Adams says. “I was just going to work here awhile and move again, but it drew me in, and I never left.”
There’s not a singular explanation, but a combination of the people and the problems they got to solve together, she says.
Her then-husband grew up on a dairy farm, and Adams would come home at night full of questions. By day, the small team she worked with offered lots of opportunities for hands-on learning.
“We were using punch cards, and they were keying into these, what we call dumb terminals into the mainframes,” Adams recalls.
The data was stored on huge tapes that they shipped to Iowa State University or the University of Georgia for the twice-yearly growth and carcass EPD calculations.
The tools and methods for doing her job were changing rapidly. Moving from the mainframe to servers, switching to modern coding language and reengineering homegrown programs all fell onto her team, which was just two programmers, a director and an administrator to start. Now, with an added focus on security, numerous employee needs and large amounts of data, the team numbers 18.
“You’ve got to keep up with technology, and that’s the hardest part of the job,” says Adams, clarifying that challenge was also a favorite part.
They debuted personal email in the late ’90s.
“We gave everybody a personal computer and a mouse, and slowly took away the typewriters,” Adams says. “Then we were faced with the Y2K problem.”
Birth years were all coded as two digits in the systems, and that posed a large challenge for age of dam and other calculations as the year 2000 neared. The looming deadline emphasized the need to retool the internal database and the move to the Windows servers.
The new millennium brought even faster change, from the introduction of AAA Login and bringing the genetic evaluation in-house to adding more traits and indexes to launching and relaunching www.Angus.org.
A computer gal in a cattle world
Adams learned programming work and the breeder perspective in tandem.
“We don’t do the cattle work, and so it was up to people to tell us what they needed,” Adams explains.
Through the years she drew on conversations with breeders she now calls friends when making improvements.
Adams held many roles during her tenure, from programmer to director of IS. When she was promoted to CIO in 2021, she began working even more closely with the Member Services team.
“She’s always been just easy to talk to and down to earth, just very approachable. You can talk to her about anything, whether it’s work or personal,” says Jason Kenyon, vice president of information systems for the Association, who has worked with Adams in varying capacities since 2005. “She cares about everybody. It always amazed me how she knew everybody’s families and kids and what was going on. I think it meant a lot to people — it did to me, personally.”
Work life turns to retired life
That same sense of concern applied to the Angus cattlemen and women she served.
“When I think of how Lou Ann works, just the amount of care she has for the evaluation, for the data, for the members is unparalleled,” McCully says. “She knows the critical points of when things are being done and regardless of whether that’s a Wednesday afternoon or a Saturday morning, she’s going to be right there checking on it.”
Her analytical brain coupled with her conservative decision-making style led Adams to meet big ideas with a series of questions.
“She’s not going to make knee-jerk reactions, but her intuition is fantastic,” McCully says.
She even acknowledges there were times she thought they couldn’t do what was being asked of them.
“I have got to ask a lot of questions. I have to see it in my mind,” Adams says. “Let me get over it first.”
Then, when they worked out the details, it was full steam ahead.
“I don’t know anyone who works harder than her,” Kenyon says. “She was always somebody that if there was a difficulty or issues, she was my sounding board.”
At her desk with a cup of coffee and maybe a yogurt — usually before anyone else arrived at the office — she was ready to work on whatever puzzle her job presented her with for the day. She didn’t leave until her team left.
“I don’t feel like my parents ever drove that into me, I think it was just how much I loved my job, really and truly,” Adams says.
In the early days there were 10 p.m. stops at the office when an emergency required in-person IS support. Oftentimes, her son, Lee, would be in tow — perhaps the only interest that had more of her heart than Angus.
Now, he and his wife, Jillian, are expecting their first child, and Adams saw the promotion to Grandma as a sign that it was time to retire. That doesn’t mean it was easy to leave.
She might still wake up early, but plans to read more, hone her golf game and make many visits to that grandson in Texas.
“I still hope she doesn’t change her cell number,” McCully says. “She’s been a valuable resource with so much institutional knowledge that we may need to tap into from time to time.”
Most of all, they’ll miss her presence around the office.
“Her unassuming leadership style is fun to be around. She’s very funny and witty and clever,” McCully says, noting he’ll try to carry a bit of Lou Ann’s influence on, “in that of sincere interest and care for people.”
Adams is nervous about staying busy enough and getting her “data fix,” but she promises to be the breed’s biggest behind-the-scenes supporter from her new vantage.
“There are a lot of impactful things that are coming up. I can’t wait to see how those go, and with no stress at all,” she says. “It’s going to be fun to watch.”
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American Angus Association – 2025
