Rep Spotlight: Bolton Uckele, MWI Veterinary Supply

Going the Distance
Ironman competition gives Bolton Uckele an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. It’s not bad for weight loss, either.

Put on a few pounds, driving from clinic to clinic, munching on burgers, hot dogs or bacon-turkey-cheese on Focaccia? It’s hard, with the long hours and long distances, to stay as fit as you were in high school. Then one day, when you’re getting out of the car to call on one of your accounts, you notice that stomach of yours, or perhaps your thighs, and you think, “I’ve got to do something right now to get back in shape.”

It didn’t happen exactly that way for Bolton Uckele, territory manager for MWI Veterinary Supply, covering southwestern Michigan. But close enough. “I had become a little overweight as a sales rep,” he says. So, at age 40, he decided to do something about it. Something drastic, by many people’s standards. He decided he’d train for a triathlon – a grueling combination of swimming, biking and running.
It was all new to him. On the day of the event, he dove – literally – into the 48-degree waters of Lake Michigan, one of three competitors without a wet suit. “It was a one-armed gasping festival,” he says. “I was gasping to swim.”

Uckele has learned a few things since that event seven years ago, including the importance of wearing a wet suit. But he still feels he has some things to learn. “Training for Ironman [the most extreme of triathlon events] is crazy. I thought people who did it were nuts. So I’m not sure why I signed up for this one coming up,” he says, referring to an upcoming Ironman in Cozumel, Mexico, Nov. 29, in which he is competing.

Pigs financed college education
Uckele was born in July 1962 in Blissfield, Mich., in the southeastern part of the state. At the age of six, he moved to the Washington, D.C., area, but moved back to Michigan when he was in eighth grade.
Farming and animal health run deep in his roots. His grandfather raised a couple hundred sows on a farm in Blissfield, and young Uckele found himself there quite often, helping out. As a youth in 4-H, he had a couple of horses, which he would show at fairs and other events. In high school, he took on responsibility for raising 50 sows on his own. The income he got from doing so helped finance his college education at Michigan State University in Lansing.

He also spent time in high school and college working at Uckele Health Nutrition, a family business founded in the mid-60s by his father and grandfather. “It started out with a need in the area,” he says of the business. “Local farmers wanted to buy supplements and other things the elevator didn’t have.” In the beginning, the business focused on wormers and antibiotics for pigs, then it expanded into supplements for cattle and horses. Today, Uckele Health Nutrition – which is now owned by a cousin – focuses on providing proteins, vitamins and other nutritional supplements to the equine and human markets.

Cargill sales rep
Uckele graduated in 1988 with a degree in animal science, then went to work for Cargill as a salesman in its feed division. His job consisted of selling seed for alfalfa, corn, soybeans and other crops to farmers throughout Michigan. There were a number of things he liked about the job, which he retained for four years. “It was interesting being on the farms, working with the farmers,” he says. “You got to see a lot of different things. And you were always outside.”

The job was highly consultative. Uckele and his colleagues would help farmers determine which hybrids would yield the best crops on their farms, given their unique soil conditions. “We did a lot of field evaluations,” he says. “We had to help the farmers make their decisions for next year’s planting based on those evaluations. If you made bad recommendations, you wouldn’t be around the next year.”
While he enjoyed the job, the hours were long. And he wanted to do something more along the lines of animal health, given his experience with Uckele Health Nutrition as well as his degree in animal science. A friend showed him an ad for a sales spot with Burns Veterinary Supply (now Butler Animal Health), and he got the job, calling on clinics in western Michigan (all the way up to Sault Ste. Marie) and northern Indiana. It was his first experience calling on small-animal vets. In fact, soon after he started, he called on a vet in Blissfield – Lisa Bucht – who would later become his wife.

Transition to veterinary sales
Making the transition from selling feed to selling veterinary products and equipment was easy, he says. “I loved it.” Given his experience on the family farm, in the family business and at Cargill, he had a leg up on many rookies in that he understood the needs and language of his customers. That said, he did have a learning curve when it came to small animals. “I didn’t understand that from the get-go,” he says. “But within six months, it was pretty clear.” Having a vet for a girlfriend – then fiancé – didn’t hurt.

The consultative selling experience at Cargill also served him well. He found that veterinarians don’t want anything pushed down their throat. “You have to do more consultative selling. You can help them out with what they need and make recommendations based on past experience. I can share with them what has worked in other practices, and what hasn’t, and talk about [products and equipment] that may or may not have sold.” And, just as it is difficult to face a farmer with a poor crop yield based on the feed representative’s input, so too is it difficult for a veterinary equipment rep to call on a practice with an underused piece of equipment that he or she sold them.

In 1997, after working for Burns for about four years, he joined a Michigan-based, family-owned distributor, Vetpo Distributors, which was acquired by MWI in 2005.

Taste of triathlons
While working at Cargill, Uckele started playing winter league in a sport he truly loves – ice hockey. “So I wasn’t totally out of shape,” he says. Nevertheless, when he hit 40, he decided to take his physical activities to the next level. Hence, in 2003, his first triathlon.
“I finished,” he says. “I wasn’t the last, but I was three spots from last.” One thing that stands out to this day is what happened after the event. “I came home and slept three hours. It was like a lethargic haze. I felt like you do after eating turkey on Thanksgiving. I couldn’t wake up.”

Eventually he did wake up, and he found himself wanting to do more. So he competed in several Half Ironman events. Then in September 2007, he competed in his first full Ironman triathlon in Madison, Wis. (An Ironman consists of more than 2 miles swimming, 112 miles riding, and 26 miles running.)

Ironman Wisconsin
The day started auspiciously, with Uckele’s wife, Lisa, informing him that she was pregnant with their fourth child. (They have four kids: Johanna, 11; Allison, 9; Maddox, 6; and Marissa, 1.5 years.)
And it went uphill from there, if grueling competition is your idea of a good time. “There were a lot of things about that race that were really neat,” beginning with the swimming portion, he recalls. “Elbows were flying, people were bumping you in the head.” The bicycle portion was “crazy,” he adds. “I was going 47 miles an hour top speed downhill. It was very hilly. I remember getting off the bike and pretty much thinking, ‘Now all I have to do is run a marathon.’ It was 3 in the afternoon.”

The run was challenging, but had its fun parts. It took the competitors in and around Madison, including a couple of laps around Camp Randall Stadium, home of the Wisconsin Badgers football team. The crowd support throughout was terrific, he says. At one point, Uckele questioned whether he would be able to finish. But workers were serving chicken broth, and that picked him up for a while.

Beer and pizza temptation
“We kept running through downtown Madison; all these people were out cheering on each side of the road,” he recalls. The course took them through what he refers to as “the bar district.” “People were sitting, drinking beer and eating pizza, and I just wanted to put on a sweatshirt, sit down, and drink a beer and eat pizza too. It was tempting.” That was around Mile 17 or 18. But he didn’t. Instead, he finished the race with a time of 13:13:41, that is, 202nd out of 346 competitors in the 40-to-44 age division. (He completed 2.4 miles of swimming in 1:20:58; 112 miles of biking in 6:27:24; and 26.2 miles of running in 5:04:26.) Even at 8 p.m., the finish area was packed with supporters. “It was awesome running through the finish with all the crowds there,” he recalls. “I had an overwhelming sense of accomplishment.”

Though he has participated in marathons and triathlons since, he hasn’t participated in another Ironman. But that was scheduled to change in November, when, along with his cousin Andrea, he will compete in the Cozumel event. At press time, he was nearing the peak of his 36-week training, which consisted of various combinations of running, swimming and cycling. Training started at 10 to 11 hours per week, then peaked at 18 to 20, then tapered off in the final weeks before the event.

Why he does it
“The reason I did Ironman was because I wanted to do it,” he explains. It’s like climbing Everest – it’s just there. To be sure, it is difficult to balance the time demands of training with work, family, church and other aspects of his life. And, truth be told, after Cozumel, he probably won’t do another Ironman for quite some time, at least until the kids are older. But he will do shorter events. “I need a goal,” he says. “As long as I sign up for smaller races, I’m OK. If I don’t, it’s hard to keep up the training.”

Ironman has, literally, improved his health. Before the Wisconsin event, he had reached 230 pounds; on the day of the event, he was 184. At press time, about less than seven weeks before Cozumel, he was 195. “I’ll lose the 10 pounds this month without even trying,” he says. His cholesterol, blood pressure and resting heart rate have all dropped as well since he began competing.

The psychological benefits of competing are worthwhile as well. Getting up at 5 a.m., and working out till 7 or 7:30 p.m., helps one put the upcoming day in perspective, he says. “A lot of days, you can come out a nervous wreck about work.” But with a one-and-a-half-hour bike ride under your belt, “You’re like, ‘I can do this.’ The whole day comes to you after a workout like that.

“After you start doing triathlons, it’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” he says. “You’re thinking, ‘I want to do the next one.’ My cousin goaded me into signing up [for Cozumel]. Then it hit me, ‘What did I do? This is crazy.’ But you definitely know you’re alive when you’re done with an Ironman.”

Sidebar:

Measuring a triathlon

“Triathlon” is a generic term for an event consisting of swimming, cycling and running. There are a variety of different types of triathlons, depending on the distances involved.

Sprint distance:
Swim: 750 m (0.466 miles)
Bike: 20 km (12.4 miles)
Run: 5 km (3.1 miles)

Olympic distance:
Swim: 1.5 km (0.93 miles)
Bike: 40 km (24.85 miles)
Run: 10 km (6.2 miles)

Half Ironman:
Swim: 1.9 km (1.18 miles)
Bike: 90 km (55.9 miles)
Run: 21.1 km (13.1 miles)

Ironman:
Swim: 3.8 km (2.36 miles)
Bike: 180 km (111.8 miles)
Run: 42.4 km (26.3 miles)