Norm Dinis is a first-generation U.S. citizen whose father, Jack, moved to the U.S. from Azores, a small group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean. Jack grew up dairy farming on the tiny islands, immigrated to Toronto, Canada when he was 17 and worked various jobs until he decided to sell everything he owned to move to Colorado. There, he joined a cousin who was milking cows. Eventually, when his son Norm had graduated from high school, Jack bought a dairy farm of his own.

David Jackson always knew he’d be a dairyman. Sure, he left the farm for a few years to attend junior college and work for a gravel company, but his love of cows brought him right back.

He got his professional start in 1984, leasing a dairy and milking 38 cows. These days, he and his wife, Jodi, own Bentwood Dairy, where they milk 400 cows. They also farm and raise Brangus beef cattle.