Henry Ditterich Receives Honorary Degree

Mr Henry Ditterich was awarded a Honorary Bachelor of Science degree in Dairy Science at the SDSU commencement exercises on 6th May 2006. Mr. Ditterich has dedicated his entire working life (40 years) to the dairy manufacturing industry. Mr. Ditterich does not have a formal education in Dairy Science but over his 40-year career in the dairy industry he has demonstrated outstanding accomplishments, leadership and professionalism. He is self motivated and worked his way up from dumping milk cans to becoming an aseptic supervisor at a major dairy cooperative.

Mr. Ditterich was born in Perham, innesota and graduated from Pelican Rapids High School in 1966. He worked part time after school and weekends for Pelican Rapids Farmers Co-op. After graduating from high school he became a full time employee with the Co-op. He started by washing cream cans, scrubbing horizontal tanks, cleaning milk separators, and bagging milk powder. In 1967, he was drafted into the Army and served in Vietnam until 1969. While in Vietnam, he received the Purple Heart. Upon arriving home, Mr Ditterich went back to work for the Pelican Rapids Farmers Co-op. In 1971 Associated Milk Producers Inc., (AMPI) purchased the Farmers Co-op. In 1980, Mr Ditterich was transferred to Clarkfield, MN where he worked in the AMPI milk grading lab. 1982 AMPI moved the cheese and whey operation from Clarkfield to Dawson, MN and Mr Ditterich was promoted to Lab Manager. Mr. Ditterich was the primary aseptic operator when in 1985 one of the first aseptic process and packaging systems in the state of Minnesota was installed at the Dawson AMPI facility. This aseptic department continues to process and package up to 100,000 cases of product per month on 3 aseptic processing lines and 4 aseptic packaging machines. In 1987 Mr Ditterich was promoted to an aseptic department supervisor position. He retired in March 2005.

During his career Mr Ditterich learned a huge amount of information relating to all aspects of the dairy manufacturing business from various sources including regulatory agencies such as FDA, NFPA, USDA, and State and many independent auditing agencies. In addition to the regulatory agencies Mr Ditterich was involved with meeting all of the needs, requests and requirements of several world wide dairy food producers such as Nestle Corp., Sam's Club, Land O’ Lakes Corp., Conagra Corp., Gerber Corp., Heinz Corp., Kerry Ingredients and others. While employed with AMPI, as a department supervisor, he attended the "Better process and control" school at the University of Minnesota "Aseptic Process and Packaging" Workshops at Purdue University. Mr Ditterich has also completed numerous management training courses relating to employee supervision, department loss control and other effective staff management related areas.

In spite of a lack of a formal college degree, Mr Ditterich is a highly dedicated colleague who is well respected by the industry, his peers and more importantly by the people that he has supervised. He has also served as a mentor to other employees. Some of these mentors include SDSU Dairy Science graduates who have worked for Mr Ditterich’s organization. He is regarded as one of the most important employees to the AMPI aseptic department success. Mr Ditterich never missed work due to illness or sickness. He worked 40 years of 10 - 12 hour days, 6 and 7 days per week, in the dairy manufacturing industry with perfect attendance.

6 May 2006

South Dakota State University / Dairy Science Department
Dairy Microbiology Rm 109 / Phone: 605-688-4116
College of Agricultural and Biological Sciences