Dave Gettel ’74

I was born in Great Falls and spent most of my life on our family farm near Power, Montana. I attended elementary and high school at Power Public Schools. While growing up, I did the typical stuff kids do in small Montana communities — a lot of sports and a lot of farm work. I taught myself to weld when I was about eight years old. My bike was broken, and my dad was busy farming. In 1969, my dad and I planted our first no-till crop. That field hasn’t been plowed since.

I attended Montana State University in the fall of 1970 and earned a B.S. in Ag Science in the spring of 1974. I thought I was going to build golf courses. I ended up working for Schafer Farms north of Great Falls. Fred Schafer was a Bobcat wrestler and Paul Schafer was my hero on the Bobcat football team. We farmed land from Great Falls to 20 miles north of Browning. During this time, I learned many of my problem-solving skills.

In 1976, I went back to our family farm near Power and spent 36 years there. I married Patti, the love of my life, in 1982. We have been blessed with four children. During this time, I earned both my “master’s degree and doctorate” in the “school of hard knocks.” Farming in the western triangle of Montana is hard. The soils are shallow, and the annual precipitation is about half of what it is in Bozeman. I experimented with many crops and started growing peas and lentils in 1992.

Late in 2011, I started my job as the Farm Operations Manager at MSU. I have seen a huge growth within the university. The great faculty and staff have been responsible for educating thousands of students and have developed many innovations and crop varieties. These, in turn, have been a great asset to Montana Agriculture. I am content in helping play a small role in elevating Montana agriculture through my work at Montana State University.