Hank Kauffman was raised on a dairy and horse farm in Ohio. From a young age he was trained in conformation, herd management, and animal husbandry techniques. An electronics engineer by education, he founded and was CEO of three biomedical electronics manufacturing, sales and marketing corporations that were sold in 1990.

Hank and his wife, Connie, live at Kauffman’s Timberwind Llamas in Martinsburg, Ohio and raised llamas and alpacas for 25 years. They showed llamas for 18 years, founded and were superintendents of a number of Llama Shows, and were llama 4-H club advisors for 10 years. Hank is a frequent speaker at conferences and meetings and a writer for industry magazines. Many of you have read his column “Ask the Herdsman” in the Llama Banner. He is currently working on a book titled “Ask the Herdsman” to be published in 2008.

A charter member of the Ohio River Valley Llama Association, Hank served on the ORVLA Board of Directors six consecutive years, serving two of those as president. He is a former member of the ILA Research Committee, the Lama Medical Research Group, and served two terms as president of the Alpaca & Llama Show Association (ALSA). He conceived and developed the Regional and Grand National championship show programs and chaired the first ALSA Grand National Committee. He also served as the show superintendent for the ALSA Grand National for the first 4 years. Hank has been an ALSA Level III llama judge for 19 years and an ALSA Alpaca judge for 13 years. He was also an ALSA Judges’ Clinics instructor for 10 years. He is currently on the board of directors of ICI.