Mark Knauer is no stranger to the “grind culture.” As a Division I wrestler at Iowa State University during the legendary Cael Sanderson era, Knauer knew making it out onto the mat required a daily discipline that could only be achieved through doing hard, repetitive work until it’s perfect. Whether it was a 6 a.m. workout or a 3 a.m. trip to the North Carolina State University swine research farm, the discipline to be successful remains the same.
Walking On to a Legacy
After a heartbreaking loss in his high school state finals by one point, Knauer says he felt like he wasn’t done wrestling. After attending the University of Wisconsin-Platteville for a year, he transferred to Iowa State University with a goal of walking onto the wrestling team.
“Coach Bobby Douglas allowed me to walk on and probably thought I would keep or cull myself over that first semester,” Knauer says. “I remember one of my first practices was a morning practice at 6 a.m. The Iowa State indoor track was maybe 300 meters or something. I gave that first lap everything I had to come in first, but then the next laps after that, I did not come in first. I was just trying so hard to make an impression on the coach.”
His wrestling season went well from there. He walked onto the team and started three years, winning more matches than he lost. Although he admits wrestling was his main focus during his undergrad years, he developed a passion for his animal science classes which led to a graduate student assistantship with Kenneth Stalder at Iowa State for his master’s and Todd See at North Carolina State University for his Ph.D.
The Danger of “Barn Blindness”
Growing up on a 50-sow purebred, commercial-focused, farrow-to-finish operation in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Knauer grew up with a passion for agriculture, but his experience at Iowa State helped guide him specifically to the swine industry.
Early on in his career, he invented the sow caliper, a tool many people use today in the U.S. and across the world. The caliper has moderate correlations with muscle, fat and sow weight, Knauer explains. It measures the angle of a sow’s back. As a sow gets fatter, her top gets wider and more level, and that’s what the sow caliper measures.
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