Lewis County Public Health Code Enforcement Officer Bill Teitzel, second from right, cracks a small smile as Lewis County Commissioner Edna Fund reads why Teitzel was awarded the 2014 Employee of the Year for the county Monday morning at the commissioners’ weekly meeting.
Bill Teitzel received quite the crash course on the dairy industry in December.
Two weeks before Christmas, Lewis County Public Health had received calls regarding a possible unfolding situation at a dairy farm west of Adna. It was what Teitzel, the county’s environmental services department manager, did over the course of a day that earned him the title of Lewis County Employee Above and Beyond for 2014.
A herdsman caring for the cattle at the farm in the 200 block of Ceres Hill Road had provided two weeks’ notice and quit his job, and reports forwarded to the public health office said several people had walked off the job as well, leaving no one to care for the cattle. Teitzel said the details that caused the situation weren’t clear, but one thing definitely was: About 350 cattle needed someone to feed them and milk them.
“After we had three different people call within an hour, I said, ‘Hey, there’s going to be some real problems.’ Based on info we had, there was not going to be anyone on site,” Teitzel said. “We cannot call an animal abandoned unless it goes without food or water for 72 hours, but we just don’t have the infrastructure to take care of that many animals. We would have to rely on a lot of volunteers.”
The situation had the potential to grow critical rather quickly. Teitzel, who admits he didn’t know much about the dairy industry at the time, couldn’t intervene from a code enforcement standpoint.
Instead, he sprang into action as a facilitator, trying to get in touch with as many people as he could. He spent hours on the phone, getting in touch with the property owner, John Kesting, who also owns a farm in Tenino. He also talked with the company financing the cattle themselves and others in an effort to get the cattle fed and milked as quickly as possible.
“We were very adamant that we had no authority until the 72-hour range, but we had a unique case where we had a property owner and a lessee of the cattle,” Teitzel said. “I was just trying to get the parties to talk. I talked to the financiers of the cattle and they said they were in contact with the cattle owner.”
Kesting, who leases the property for business purposes, told The Chronicle Tuesday that Teitzel reached out to him to seek permission for someone to come onto the property and take care of the cattle. He was out of town that day, but said Teitzel worked to assure him he’d do his best to help find a solution.
“He said he’d stay there all night if he had to until this was resolved,” Kesting said by phone. “I don’t know how he jumped through all the hoops, but he did.”
Teitzel came to understand the cattle in the middle of a possible crisis were extremely valuable, with an estimated value of $3.5 million combined.
“There was the commercial aspect and a health of the animal aspect. There could have been a major financial loss to somebody and we didn’t want that,” Teitzel said.
After interacting with several people, Teitzel and other officials were assured the next morning that people made their way to the property and milked the cattle — turning what could have been a nightmare for the cattle owners and the county into a situation that, save for one day, no one might have guessed what took place.
For his efforts, county commissioners awarded Teitzel the county’s Employee Above and Beyond award for 2014. He reluctantly received the award during the employee recognition portion of Monday’s weekly county commissioners’ business meeting, accepting it to applause from fellow county employees and members of the public gathered at the commissioners’ hearing room.
When speaking to The Chronicle this week, Teitzel said he was heavily reluctant to accept the praise for the award simply because he believed he had an obligation to assist in the matter, as with a number of other issues he deals with in his duties.
“It’s just so tough to talk about things like this. There are a lot of things we do that are just helpful to people,” Teitzel said. “You don’t get awarded for it, but that’s our job.”
