At the 2026 national meeting of the National Association of County Agricultural Agents (NACAA) Chuck Schwartau, Goodhue, MN, was one of four members nationwide named to the association’s Hall of Fame.
During his 38 years with University of MN Extension, Chuck served various roles. For about 15 years, Chuck was one of the few Extension Educators in the country who focused on dairy labor management. As a result, Chuck has been an invited speaker at several regional, national, and international conferences and written articles and recurring columns in over a dozen ag publications in the U.S. and other countries.
He was instrumental in developing the Farm Beginnings® program to help young farmers get started with practical knowledge of ag production and management (utilized now by at least fourteen states).
Use of tools he helped develop to assess a dairy’s management, grew into the MN Dairy Initiative. Chuck organized more than fifty dairy farm advisory teams in his region, and he helped write and teach an extensive 12-hour dairy labor management curriculum.
Chuck’s survey of all Minnesota dairies with over 150 cows was instrumental in developing labor management programs.
Chuck wrote and delivered a farm safety program emphasizing dairy farms and worked with University of Wisconsin-River Falls on a similar program for Wisconsin. The program was delivered to over two hundred farm units and morphed into a similar program for pork producers and certified custom manure applicators.
Chuck also wrote parts of a UMN beef correspondence course, reaching four Midwestern States, and conducted extensive research among dairy farm families in a four-county area about stresses on the dairy farm. He also worked with farm mediation, managing initiation of over two hundred requests for mediation by creditors and following through with over one hundred farms that requested mediation.
Chuck was a NACAA National Search for Excellence presenter four times, and had 3 National finalists, 6 Regional finalists, and forty-four state-winning communications entries.
Chuck’s service to NACAA is extensive, serving as the National Treasurer, NC-Regional Director, NC Region and National Communications Committee Chair, NACAA representative to the Education Foundation Board of Trustees, NACAA Education Foundation Trustee (currently), NACAA representative and NACAA program chair for JCEP’s Galaxy III, and Chair of Joint Council of Extension Professional’s Galaxy IV in Pittsburg, PA (2013). He served as President of Minnesota Association of Extension Ag Professionals, consistently attended NACAA Annual Meeting /Professional Improvement Conferences, and was a NACAA Achievement Award (1989) and Distinguished Service Award (1994) recipient.
Chuck’s humanitarian activities are extensive. Of note, Chuck was elected as a lifetime member to the MN State Agricultural Society (MN State Fair), a prestigious honor in recognition of his over 50 years of work with the fair.
He has served on numerous community advisory boards and committees, often in leadership positions. Among those are several terms on the church council for First Lutheran Church, Red Wing, 32 years on the Goodhue County Fair board of directors and over 40 years of multiple positions working at the Minnesota State Fair.
Over his 38-year career with the Extension Service, Chuck served in Dakota, Winona, Wabasha, and Goodhue Counties plus the Rochester Regional Office as a livestock educator and Regional Extension Director.
