Marketing Specialist From NMDA
Has Peddled Muy Bulls In Mexico

By David Bowser

SANTA FE, N.M. — Raul B. Tellez spends a lot of time shooting bull.

"The videotape is the key," says the New Mexico Department of Agriculture marketing specialist.

Tellez shoots video and color photos of cattle in New Mexico, pictures he then shows to ranchers in Mexico interested in buying quality cattle. He has produced more than 140 videos in the last 10 years. Working as a team with his wife, Gloria, he'll often do the videos in both Spanish and English.

"Over the years, I have learned to describe the animal like the Mexican rancher wants it described," he says. "I've learned to use the camera. I had absolutely no training on it. I just picked it up. I figured if Joe Blow could do it, so could Raul Tellez. I don't think there is another Department of Agriculture in the United States that videotapes cattle and sends the tapes to Mexico."

His wife will often shoot color photos while he tapes, or if he has to appear in the tape or is busy with a rancher, she will tape the cattle. Both tapes and photos along with any other information on the livestock are made available to potential buyers.

"I will show them to ranchers," Tellez says. "I will leave some there at the numerous livestock associations that we are very familiar with."

"The number one breed that we're selling to Mexico right now is Charolais," Tellez says.

The 13th largest Charolais breeder in the United States, Grau Charolais near Grady, N.M., has sold 778 animals in the last 10 years with the assistance of the department.

"I estimate that it's a little over a million dollars," Tellez says. "He's always had a market for his bulls into Mexico. I remember one year, I think it was 1991, he sold all his calf crop to Mexico."

The program’s benefits sometimes spill over into other states. Tellez got a call this morning from a man in Chihuahua who wants to buy six to seven Charolais bulls.

"He specified an age," Tellez explains. "I know that the Charolais breeders we have in New Mexico do not have those bulls, so I go to our neighboring states. I've made some calls to Texas. I've made some calls to Colorado."

He's sold cattle out of Wyoming, as well.

Tellez has also sold Angus from San Jon and Herefords from Las Cruces.

"Our objective is to help anybody who has quality bulls to sell," Tellez says. "I stress quality. Just because a bull has his tools, doesn't necessarily mean he has the genetics."

It is that reputation for quality, Tellez says, that has increased sales over the years.

Tellez was born and reared in La Mesa, N.M., about 17 miles south of Las Cruces.

"My great-grandfather came into the valley there when it was still part of Mexico," Tellez says. "My family's been there, including my grandkids, seven generations."

Growing up in southern New Mexico, Tellez was active in the FFA, where he was the first Hispanic elected to state office in 1958.

"I served that year with a very good friend by the name of Garrey Carruthers, who later became governor of the state," Tellez says.

Tellez later served as a Doña Ana County commissioner and on a variety of state boards. Since 1984, he has been employed by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture as a marketing specialist working on trade with the state's neighbor to the south.

"Dr. William Stephens hired me Sept. 24, 1984," Tellez says.

But Tellez has been working to increase trade with Mexico since he was appointed to the New Mexico-Chihuahua Border Commission in 1971.

He has worked with sales of sheep, farm equipment and plants.

"We assisted a group of farmers who purchased a cotton gin," he says.

Tellez has also helped provide Mexican farmers with assistance with peanut processing equipment and with dairy animals.

He and his wife travel throughout Mexico, but he enjoys success in some areas more than others. He has close connections in Chihuahua, Sonora and Durango. He does quite a bit of business in Coahuila. But he doesn't travel much to Nuevo Leon.

"It's very close to Texas, and those ranchers down there like the Simmentals," he says. "We don't have but about two or three Simmental breeders in New Mexico."

And the market is always changing. In 1991, the New Mexico Department of Agriculture assisted New Mexican ranchers in exporting 1612 animals, mostly bulls. In 1997, six years later, they exported 952 animals. Out of those, 14 were bulls. The rest were females.

"The drouth has broken," Tellez says. "They are purchasing more heifers."

The one thing that doesn't change, though, he insists, is the demand for quality and the trust that Tellez has built over more than a decade.

"In the past 10 years, I have a rancher in Sonora that has bought 365 bulls through the New Mexico Department of Agriculture," Tellez says. "It gets to the point that I do a video of the bulls, I send it to him and he comes up and will take a hundred. He'll hand me his checkbook, I will write out the check and I'll ask him what he wants to do, 50 percent down? He'll tell me to go ahead and pay for it all."

Tellez says he takes care of that rancher. That trust is hard-won and built over a long period of time, but it is crucial to any trading strategy.

"I look after his interests," Tellez says.

This Sonoran rancher now exports between 15,000 and 17,000 calves per year.

"Before he started buying bulls from us in New Mexico, his weights were about 320 to 325," Tellez says. "Now they're up to 450 to 475. We have seen the difference."

Twelve years ago when Tellez started going to Chihuahua’s state fair, he saw different color Herefords and different sizes. Last year, it was very rewarding, he says, to see the 12 to 16 month-old bulls all the same color and all the same size.

"They were produced in Mexico from New Mexico genetics," Tellez says. "Well, maybe there were one or two Kansas bulls in there, but the satisfaction is there."

During a drouth over the last several years, Mexican ranchers cut herds drastically. The drouth is over, Tellez says, and now producers south of the border who can afford to buy the best genetics are stocking their ranches with superior lines of cattle.

"One of the things I stress to the Mexican ranchers is to buy weaned bulls," Tellez says. "I guess of all the bulls we've sold into Mexico, 10 percent have been over the age of 18 months. The rest have been from seven and a half to 10 and a half, may be 12 months. I emphasize to the Mexican rancher that it's important to buy the bull when he's young and get him acclimated to the terrain."

Besides, he acknowledges, if a producer doesn't buy a good bull when it's young, he may not be able to buy it at all.

"On Dec. 26, 1993, my wife and I and the president and his wife and the secretary of the Durango Cattlemen's Association traveled from Dec. 26 to Jan. 1. We drove almost 2000 miles. They bought 200 bulls. We crossed them on Feb. 13, 1994, six weeks after NAFTA took effect. All the bulls with the exception of six were weaned bulls."

They took Charolais, they took Herefords, he says. They took black Angus, Simmental, Beefmasters and Polled Herefords.

"We pulled cattle from a ranch in Arizona, eight in New Mexico and two in Texas to complete the order," Tellez says. "I needed 70 Brangus bulls. I could not find them in New Mexico. We found them in Chihuahua. We put them together with the Chihuahua breeder who had purchased his seedstock from Diamond A Cattle Company."

Four months later, Tellez went to some of the ranches that had bought the bulls.

"I strongly believe in a follow-through," he says. "One thing that I insist on with our New Mexico ranchers: they will deliver the bulls to Santa Teresa themselves. Do not send Joe or Tom or Dick or James. The rancher must deliver them. If they deliver them in a commercial cattle truck, I want them to go in their pickup and meet them. That is one of the things I stress and will continue to stress. The New Mexico rancher must meet his Chihuahua counterpart."

As another part of that philosophy, Tellez takes New Mexico ranchers to Mexico.

This month, he will take ranchers to the National Cattlemen of Mexico convention in Zacatecas.

"We travel extensively in Mexico," he says. "We make a lot of contacts. We work diligently with them. We escort them and invite them to come back to New Mexico."

Over the last 13 years, Tellez has accumulated six small pocket-sized folders which he carries with him. Each folder contains 200 names of ranchers, trade representatives and contacts.

"I know everyone on these lists personally," he says. "A lot of times, I can recognize them by their voice."

While there are traditional markets in Mexico, Tellez says the Mexican consumer is becoming more sophisticated. There is less demand for grass-fed beef and more for grain-fed. He points to U.S. Meat Export Federation reports of increased sales of American beef in Mexico. While there is an increasing demand for better cuts, there is still a strong demand for traditional exports to Mexico.

"One of the things I like to stress is, ‘who buys our offal?’" Tellez says. "Where does the offal go? Where does the tripe, the heart, the liver, the heads? That is in our favor to the tune of $72 million."

It is demanding work, he admits. The mental tension is exhausting.

"After a long day with 10 people, your brain kind of drains," he says, "but five hours of sleep and a good meal, it charges up real quick. I've been doing this for 13 years. Those 13 years have been the most enjoyable of my life. I love what I do. I enjoy it thoroughly."