Russell, Salm to be Inducted into Wisconsin Meat Hall of Fame

Ron Russell and Christopher Salm will be inducted into the Wisconsin Meat Industry Hall of Fame this fall in Madison. The program aims to honor individuals for their lifetime contributions to the meat production industry.

Russell is a long time faculty member of the Meat Science and Muscle Biology Laboratory in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Animal Sciences. He recently retired as a senior lecturer after 36 years of teaching and outreach service to the university. He had a tremendous impact on hundreds of students, teaching courses such as Animal Growth, Composition and Evaluation; Introduction to Meat Science and Technology; and Meat-Animal Evaluation, Products and Marketing. He was able to utilize his relationships with livestock producers and meat processors to enhance his teaching efforts by providing hands-on experiences for students.

Salm's industry experience includes years at Oscar Mayer, Johnsonville Sausage and ConAgra with roles as principal scientist, plant manager, product developer, technical trouble shooter, brand manager and lastly, as vice president of research and development. He stepped away in 2003 to found Salm Partners with three of his brothers. Salm Partners pioneered a novel co-extrusion technology and a cook-in-package process that yields preferred products that have exceptional shelf-life, free of microbiological contamination. The company has expanded multiple times and currently produces over 15 percent of all the pre-cooked sausage sold in the U.S. In 2015, he co-founded Ab E Discovery, a new venture designed to aid university scientists in the commercialization of their discoveries and inventions that are focused on animal agriculture and human health.

The Wisconsin Meat Industry Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held on October 13 at the DoubleTree by Hilton Madison East. The event, which will take place during the inaugural Wisconsin Meat Industry Coalition conference, will begin with a social at 4:30 p.m., followed by dinner and keynote speaker at 5:30 p.m., and the induction ceremony at 7:30 p.m.

The Hall of Fame program, which was created in 1993, is coordinated by and housed in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Meat Science and Muscle Biology Laboratory.