I grew up on a small beef cattle farm in West-Central Arkansas. I still love beef cattle but have spent my career in the poultry world as a broiler service technician, commercial broiler grower, university researcher, and Extension poultry specialist. Poultry production will play a large part in feeding the world as we look toward a world population approaching 10 billion people by 2050. One of the main goals of the poultry industry these days is sustainability, and becoming more efficient while, at the same time, lessening the industry's carbon footprint. It's a different poultry industry today than when I started my career. All the old challenges still remain, but there are new challenges today that no one could have imagined back then. Most of what I know about chickens and (to be perfectly honest) about life and how to get along with a variety of different folks, I learned during the years I spent as a broiler service technician. The chicken business is really not the chicken business. The chicken business is actually the people business, and all the contacts and relationships made along the way, the chickens just come along for the ride. I learned that pretty fast as a service tech and it made me a better service technician, broiler grower, researcher, and Extension specialist. My research has involved several different areas over the years in Arkansas, Mississippi, and now, Tennessee: poultry housing and environmental management, composting poultry mortality, poultry water quality, energy efficient lighting, ventilation and cooling poultry during summer, and litter management. My outreach efforts support the commercial poultry industry and backyard flock keepers.