World Dairy Expo just named its 2026 class of honorees — and this year's picks tell the story of where dairy has been, where it's headed, and who's actually doing the work to get it there.

A man walks into a Quebec AI center in 1966. He's 21 years old. They hand him a bull nobody wants — a young sire the industry has already written off. He doesn't flinch. He backs the bull anyway. Six decades later, Robert Chicoine's fingerprints are on the genetic evaluation systems, the progeny testing programs, and the global export infrastructure that Canadian dairy genetics runs on. His story is a masterclass in what happens when one person sees what an entire industry refuses to.

A sixth-generation Wisconsin farmer trades the editor's desk at Hoard's Dairyman for the economist's chair at CoBank — without ever leaving the barn. Corey Geiger spen ...