An innocent neighborly challenge led Doug Maddox to blaze an unparalleled trail in dairy farming. “In 1951, a family friend gifted me a 2-month-old grade heifer with the expectation that if I accepted it, I would attend college.” During high school, Maddox registered his first female calf and became a member of the National Junior Holstein Association. In college at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) in San Luis Obispo, he built a herd of 14 cows and 14 heifers.