Leo Timmerman: From Three Milk Cows to a Nebraska Feeding Dynasty

Who Was Leo Timmerman?

Leo Otto Timmerman was a Nebraska cattle feeder whose small start in dairy and poultry grew into one of the Plains' best-known feeding families. The Cattle Feeders Hall of Fame inducted him in 2013, and his Hall of Fame biography ties him to Timmerman & Sons Feeding Co., Inc., of Springfield, Nebraska.

He married Irene Meister before he started farming, and the pair began with three milk cows and two dozen chickens. They sold the eggs and cream, a living the Hall of Fame says he found lonely and slow-paced.

How Leo Timmerman Got Into Cattle Feeding

The turn came when he bought two or three head of cattle. A banker then loaned him money for six head, and profits from those cattle paid for 25 more. It is a clear example of how many feeders grew: borrow small, turn the cattle, buy more.

In 1945 he gave up the dairy cows and chickens and bought a feedyard in Omaha, which the Hall of Fame calls the foundation of his business.

Building the Springfield Feedyard

The Timmerman family success story says that in the 1950s Leo joined two other feedyard operators to sell cattle directly to meatpackers. Selling direct, rather than through the terminal market, was a shift many feeders made as packing moved toward the feeding regions.

In 1960 he sold the Omaha site to a developer and opened a feedyard in Springfield, Nebraska. He pastured cattle in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana, and by 1970 the operation had a capacity of more than 20,000 head.

Handing the Business to Four Sons

In 1971 Leo sold the business to his four sons: Gerald, James, Norman and Ronnie. He stayed active in commodity trading and cattle feeding in Nebraska, Colorado and Arizona, splitting his time between Omaha and Scottsdale. He died in 1997.

Norman's obituary in a Drovers obituary of Norm Timmerman confirms the 1971 start of the brothers' partnership. Over the next half century it grew into Timmerman & Sons Feeding Co., Inc., with feedyards, ranching operations and leases in seven states.

Gerald, James, Norman and Ronnie each took a different path inside the family business over the years, and the 2012 split let each branch keep its own name. Norman's branch, NA Timmerman Inc., is covered in its own profile on this site, and the Hall of Fame inducted him in 2022, nine years after his father.

The Timmerman Family Today

By the time of the Hall of Fame write-up, Timmerman & Sons had a network of eight feedyards in Nebraska, Colorado and Kansas with one-time capacity of over 90,000 head. The family also ran Timmerman Land and Cattle Company, which held ranching, cow-calf and stocker leases across several states and owned the Omaha packing plant Nebraska Beef.

In 2012 the company split so each family branch could run its own operations, including NA Timmerman Inc., JA Timmerman Cattle Company and Sunset Land and Cattle. For more on cattle families and their land, see farm.FM's ranching section or a farm.FM story about a Nebraska cattle family.

The Hall of Fame biography and the family success story emphasize growth and say little about finances or setbacks. That is why the figures here are described as reported, and why no profit or loss claims are made. What the record does show is a business that kept getting passed forward, from Leo to four sons and then to the next generation.