Ex-farmer makes pads for pigs

By MARIMAR ROSARIO

Photo by Tom Campbell

In his retirement, Dick Ward, BS ’43, has become an inventor. The metal pads he holds and stands on are designed to keep pig litters nice and warm while keeping energy costs down.

When the phone rings at Dick Ward’s home in Crawfordsville, Ind., it’s almost always his wife, Jeanne, who answers. And if you ask for him, you’ll usually get the same answer: “He’s working in the barn.”

Dick Ward, BS ’43, definitely isn’t your typical retiree. During the 1960s, he began developing heating pads to keep the piglets at his Montgomery County hog farm warm while using as little energy as possible. He’s still at it today, eight years after he retired from farming, and his invention is finally showing a considerable profit.

Ward, an agricultural economics major, had taken courses in agricultural engineering when he was a student at Purdue. It was this preparation and his curiosity over using direct heat as opposed to infrared radiant heat from lamps that led him to play around with the idea of heating pads for his piglets.

“I was using heat bulbs to keep the pigs warm, but they were very expensive to run and I figured there had to be a cheaper way. I had heard of latent heat, so I decided to research it,” Ward says.

Eventually his research paid off, and he created a heating pad made of concrete that reduced his heating bill because it held heat for a long time, and the power to it could be switched on and off as necessary. There was just one problem: The pads were very heavy and couldn’t be easily moved. Over the next 30 years, he kept working on the pad’s design and experimenting with different materials while managing and operating his three farms: Edgewood Farms Inc., Myrtle Ward Farms Inc., and R&R Ward Farms Inc.

Soon after he retired in 1995 and his son took over the farms, Ward created a heating pad made of stainless steel that could be easily moved from farrowing crate to farrowing crate and that would reduce energy demand by up to 80 percent. He then took his design to Mark Morgan, a Purdue associate professor of food science, who tested the product for efficiency and helped develop a controller box that cycles multiple farrowing rooms at different times to keep down kilowatt demand. The pads also allow the temperature to be decreased as the pigs grow and require less heat.

In 2001, Ward established Edgewood Industries LLC in Crawfordsville and started building heating pads for other pork producers in Indiana and Iowa. Although he’s toying with the idea of turning things over to a distributor, for the time being he is the sole owner and employee of the company.

“If I have to make more, I’ll hire a part-time assistant, but right now I do everything on my own,” he says.

The pig pads, which are 22” by 46” and can take care of about 24 piglets, sell for about $230 each.

“Producers will get their money out of it in one year,” Ward says. “The only way to pay for something like this is by saving electricity, and they’ll save you a lot of money.”

Ward, however, hasn’t limited himself to building pads for pigs. He’s working on a design to aid recovering pets in veterinary clinics and to keep pets warm during the winter. So far he has come up with two designs.

Ward has an attorney looking into getting his pads patented. In the meantime, he continues to make improvements to his original designs.

“For instance, I used to put the pads together with stainless steel screws and now we don’t use any at all. I’ve designed a system that holds them together without screws,” he says.

He credits one of his Purdue professors, E.C. “Doc” Young, for making a difference in his life by encouraging him to think creatively.

“He taught farm management. When we were in class he’d challenge me to think things through in many ways, that’s how he’d convey to us the principles he wanted us to acquire,” he says.

Aside from developing his pig pads and establishing a business, Ward enjoys restoring antique tractors and traveling. In addition, he has been active in the community since he was a young man.

“He’s very community minded,” says Jeanne, his wife of 53 years. “He’s always been like this. When I first met him, he was Sunday School superintendent.”

Ward is the chairman of the Endowment Committee of the Linden Methodist Church, the Linden Library Board and the Purdue University Agricultural Alumni Fund.

“Dick is one of the most dedicated volunteers we have,” says Donya Lester, the executive secretary of the Purdue Agricultural Alumni Association. “I don’t know what we would have done without his work and dedication.”

In addition to his dedication and desire to be an active participant in the community, Ward has another quality that’s obvious to those around him: an unbounded energy.

“He is more active at his age than I will ever be,” Morgan says. “He is constantly working on something … making and marketing these pads, rebuilding an antique tractor, building an addition onto his home, working with the alumni association. He is very innovative and resourceful.”

His wife, too, is not surprised that he has kept working even though he’s retired.

“I expected this to happen,” she says. “He always wants to learn things, and he’s very focused.”

What does surprise Jeanne Ward is Dick’s ability to remain positive no matter what.

“He’s really optimistic,” she says. “He’s always sure everything will turn out OK, even if things aren’t going well.”

Contact Ward at dickward@tctc.com