Lee & Beth Hitzfield were married in 1981 and began their farming career together as conventional row crop producers and confinement livestock operators. Much has changed since 1981. Inspired by their personal journey to persevere through family health difficulties, Lee and Beth developed a passion and vision to change their farming methods and pursue practices that would help heal and nourish the land and those who would eat of its harvest. As a result, Seven Sons Family Farms was founded in 2000 with the goal of reaching individual consumers with nutrient-dense pasture-raised foods. Today Lee and Beth are responsible for the broad oversight and direction of our operations.
In addition to overseeing day to day farm operations, Blake is responsible for the careful planning and management of livestock grazing rotations, winter stockpile reserves, forage rotations as well as animal health and genetic improvement.Through several years of trial, error and success in pasture-based farming, Blake has many insights to offer others and routinely provides consulting to producers venturing into pasture-based livestock production.
Blaine has spent his life working on the family farm. During high school Blaine pursued an interest in multimedia design and marketing. Blaine's interest in marketing served as an integral part of helping his family develop a direct marketing business. Today Blaine is employed full time at Seven Sons and is responsible for overseeing daily marketing and distribution activities. Blaine enjoys sharing the Seven Sons story by speaking to consumer and producer groups and has offered consulting to numerous direct marketers and has written for Allan Nation's Stockman Grass Farmer.
Brice is the 3rd of the Seven Sons and works full time on the farm overseeing every aspect of our poultry enterprise. Currently, Brice manages over 2,500 laying hens and at full production, he is responsible for handling and packaging over 150 dozen eggs on a daily basis. In addition to daily chores, Brice is responsible for flock health, raising replacements pullets, managing feed rations, and pasture rotations and is also responsible for ensuring the viability of this enterprise.
Brock started working for Seven Sons in 2012. His main responsibilities include assisting with order fulfillment and inventory management as well as helping manage our on-farm retail store. He also supports the farm by providing property maintenance services. Brock is a skilled photographer and videographer and has put his talent to use by creating professional video promos and mini-documentaries for our farm. We appreciate the unique talents that he brings to our team. Brock enjoys spending time with friends, playing sports, and is also pursuing an interest in computer and web programming.
Brooks chose to join our team taking a full time position in 2014. His core responsibilities include managing daily accounting activities as well as heading up our email and phone support. Each week Brooks is also working directly with our fulfillment team as well as our club leaders to coordinate our packing and delivery logistics. He also plays an intricate role in business development and strategic planning. Brooks's attention to detail and unique ability to effectively manage the many moving parts of our operation make him a valuable asset to our team.
Bruce recently chose to join our team to pursue new opportunities with our poultry operations. Bruce works directly with his brother Brice to manage our several thousand pasture-based laying hens operation. Bruce now manages two thousand hens of his own and leads up our operations egg processing team. Bruce's goal is to continue to bring growth, innovation, and direction to the poultry operations as they move forward.
Brandt is the youngest of the Seven Sons Family. After school and during the summers Brandt lends a helping hand wherever it is needed. He currently assist with order fulfillment and retail store operations as well as lending a hand with livestock production. Work’s never done on the farm so there’s always plenty for Brandt to do!
Kim Hitzfield is married to Blake Hitzfield and is a happy mother of two daughters and two boys. Kim has become an integral part of our marketing efforts. With a knack for photography she is responsible for most of the photographs seen on this website including our product photos. Kim also heads up the Seven Sons blog.
Charis Hitzfield is married to Blaine Hitzfield and is a happy mother of three little boys (future farmers). In addition to homeschooling and helping her husband with his busy travel schedule, Charis also contributes to our ongoing marketing efforts by editing content for our newsletter and social media post.
Catherine Hitzfield (right): Catherine joined the family in September 2017 and is married to Brooks (5th son). She enjoys life on the farm and is thrilled to be serving our local customers.
We welcomed Hayley as new fulltime member of our team earlier this spring to assist with customer service and administration.
She is an absolute joy to be around and already we couldn't imagine being without her.
As a former General Manager who leadup a large staff in the foodservice industry, you can bet that Hayley knows how to keep us on our toes and keep the ship running smoothly.
Hayley enjoys opportunities to travel and spend time with close friends. One of her favorite placed to travel to is the Bahamas 🏖
Chad earned his Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the St. Louis College of Pharmacy in 2001 and went on to practice pharmacy in long-term care until July 2011. After a decade of monitoring and managing sickness and disease with medications as part of a healthcare team, he was inspired to help others become more proactive with their health.
He and his wife of 18 years started and have since led an online health and fitness coaching business whose goals is to help adults be more active, eat more nutritiously and achieve their desired health outcomes.
In growing that business, Chad identified some key principles that he consistently noticed contributed to the success of their business and created happy, successful clients and customers.
An avid learner, Chad has gone on to further study and develop skills related to better connecting with and an achieving a "successful partnership" with new and existing customers. He has actively sought out high-level mentorship, completed multiple certifications and courses, and tested and put into practice the latest thinking in marketing, copywriting and email marketing in eCommerce.
We're happy to say John joined the delivery team and began driving for us in the summer of 2018. He's done an great job! High quality person.
We decided to ask a few fun questions so you could learn a little more about him.
What do you enjoy most about working at Seven Sons?
- "Meeting the new customers and also knowing with every box, you are delivering highly nutritious, excellent quality food to every individual."
Favorite hobbies or pastimes?
- "I love trout fishing and also going on a nice hike. Camping and anything outdoors."
Favorite meal(s)?
- "Big fan of Mexican food."
What inspires you?
- "To be a loving husband and to be a good role model to my son Austin."
Favorite destinations/places to travel to?
- "Love to visit the National Parks around the country. One of my most memorable places has been climbing Mt. Whitney which is the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states at 14,200ft."
Any secret talents?
- "I dont want to boast, but I enjoy and am fairly skilled at wood working."