Mike McCloskey
Founder | Fairlife Farms
Mike McCloskey is Co-Founder and CEO of Select Milk Producers, the sixth largest milk cooperative in the country. He is also Chairman of the Board for Fair Oaks Farms, a highly rated and visited agritourism destination in Northwest Indiana which also brands and processes its own bottled milk, gourmet cheese and ice cream. Dr. McCloskey’s home dairy is Prairie’s Edge Dairy Farms, also in Northwest Indiana, which milks 15,000 cows living in free-stall barns and is recognized as being the leading dairy in the U.S. from many perspectives. Prairie’s Edge Dairy Farms harvest their cow manure and through digesters create more than enough electricity to power all of their farms as well as creating biobased CNG to fuel 42 milk trucks and thus displacing 2 million gallons of diesel use annually.
Dr. McCloskey founded and serves as the acting Chairman of Southwest Cheese Company, a joint venture between Glanbia Foods, Dairy Farmers of America and Select Milk Producers. In 2005, Southwest Cheese Company opened as $230 million cheese plant located in Clovis, New Mexico. It employs 260 people, receives 10 million pounds of milk per day and annually produces 250 million pounds of cheese. It is the largest cheddar cheese plant in the world.
Another strategic initiative Dr. McCloskey leads is to create proprietary value-added dairy products. In this regard, Dr. McCloskey had been instrumental in the invention of patented milk processing & dispensing systems owned by Select and its affiliate, Fairlife a dairy-based health and wellness company. Fairlife’s products range from Fairlife milk, a higher protein, lower sugar, lactose free milk targeted to families to Core Power, a specially formulated athletic drink to Greek yogurt to many food service products.
Dr. McCloskey was awarded his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine in 1976 from the National University of Mexico, after which he completed a two-year post-doctoral study in Dairy Production Medicine at the University of California, School of Veterinary Medicine, in Davis, California. Dr. McCloskey is a Board Member and Officer of the National Milk Producers Federation, Chairman of the Sustainability Initiative of the Innovation Center of US Dairy and is the recipient of the Alumni Achievement Award from the University of California-Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine.