Mauro Caldera, a native of Zacatecas, Mexico, had no idea what opportunities awaited him when he immigrated to the U.S. in 1975. Now, after working on dairy farms for more than 30 years, Mauro is the general manager at Aurora Organic Dairy in Dublin, Texas.

Efficiently managing a dairy's assets, such as cows, feedstuffs, equipment, farmland, facilities and machinery, is critical to surviving in today's economic conditions. Managing the people assets, however, may be the most important job a dairy owner or manager performs.

Employees use all of these other assets to help produce a profit; how effectively they do so may be the difference between success and failure. What are the key factors in employee management that allow a dairy to excel and profit?

When one thinks of a dairy farm, one may only think of the milking process.

However, the truth is that a dairy is divided into many areas where different types of workers are needed. Luis Rodriguez, the parlor manager at Plymouth Dairy in Le Mars, Iowa, helps maintain unity among all the different areas and workers on the dairy farm.

At 21 years of age, Wolfgang Albarran, a native of Mexico City, immigrated to the U.S. with the goal of saving enough money return and start a business in Mexico.

However, as time passed and after facing several challenges and learning from those experiences, that idea gradually transformed into a new plan.

Artemio Salazar, a milker at Burk-Lea Farms in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, learned the meaning of “working for a living” at an early age.

He maintained the work ethic he learned as an adolescent with every job he had. Salazar has worked milking at dairies, a job he is content with, for the past seven years.