CLINTONVILLE, Wis. -- While he's milking cows or harvesting crops, dairy farmer Andy Herro doesn't have time to daydream about his previous career as a dancer performing in dozens of countries.
Still, the former dance captain with the modern dance company Pilobolus has found similarities between farming and dancing, including the magic of motion -- whether it's people on a stage, machines in a field, or cows in a milking parlor.
All those examples require synchronized efforts.
Dancers, Herro said, strive to be predictable in their movements on stage so they don't collide with one another. That's also true for operating big harvesting machines that have trucks circling them in a field.
And farming, like dancing, requires discipline and the willingness to put in long days. "It doesn't matter if it's a weekend or a holiday," Herro said.
"Many people can dance, but one really has to work at being an artist and a performer," he once wrote.
Getting into agriculture wasn't necessarily part of their life plan, but plenty of people have made the transition from other careers.
Herro graduated from Marquette University in Milwaukee in 2003 with a degree in theater arts. Not long afterward, he landed a job with Pilobolus, where the dancers are known for extraordinary flexibility and athleticism.
Herro danced, toured and taught with Pilobolus for six years, serving as dance captain for three years. He appeared with the company on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Ellen DeGeneres' The Ellen Show as well as the Academy Awards.
His wife, Julia, was an actress. The couple enjoyed living in New York, but with Andy on tour six months of the year and having little time to spend with his toddler son, it was hard on their family life.
So the Herros made the difficult decision to switch careers and move to northeast Wisconsin where Julia's parents owned a dairy farm.
"As with most things that have happened in my life ... I kind of go with it," Andy said, adding that he knew nothing about farming until they moved to Clintonville, about 35 miles west of Green Bay.
In Walworth, about 50 miles southwest of Milwaukee and near the Illinois border, Terry Woods milks a dozen cows on his small farm where he's setting up a creamery and cheese-making operation.
It's quite a contrast from his previous life in Los Angeles and Chicago, where he owned and later managed computer technology businesses and traveled constantly.
"I spent most of my time flying back and forth across the country," Woods said.
His foray into farming came from wanting some land and a place to live outside Chicago, where he and his wife could raise a few animals and some crops. They found a 120-acre farm that's now their home and livelihood.
Woods sold his computer business in less than a week and has never looked back.
"You just leave one community and go to another one," he said about the transition to farming, adding that he doesn't miss the city and purposely runs his farm with as little technology as possible.
Woods, originally from Cleveland, hadn't been to Wisconsin until he bought the farm and found a new way of life.
"I like small towns. ... I can go to the grocery store and see people I know. It's a totally different environment than every day getting on an airplane," he said.
When he was on Wall Street, Mike Hellenbrand's previous job as senior managing director at Bear Stearns & Co. included handling billions of dollars in mortgage securitization deals.
He and his wife, Linda, lived on the 17th floor of a Manhattan high-rise and were at the pinnacle of their careers when the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks changed their worlds and prompted them to reconsider their lives.
Now they have a farm named City Slickers, where they specialize in raising calves from the implanted embryos of purebred dairy cattle.
The farm started as a fairly small operation but has grown to birthing hundreds of calves a year. Some of the calves, highly valued for their genetics, have sold for more than $10,000.
Still, as with other types of farming, many things are out of the farmer's control.
"In my old life, I could always negotiate a transaction ... but with farming, you are up against Mother Nature, and she doesn't negotiate," Hellenbrand said.
Like Herro, Hellenbrand is busy enough running a farm that he doesn't have time to relive his past life in the city.
"Sometimes I will see a particular place on television, and I remember having lunch or a meeting there ... but that's about as close as I get to it now," he said.
His friends from the city don't visit the farm, either.
"It's not something they can understand because they think milk comes from the grocery store," Hellenbrand quipped.
SundayMonday Business on 07/20/2015