Following the closing credits for the movie “Moola,” there’s a special thank-you to Omniglow LLC, crediting the company for its help – without which the independent comedic film would never have been inspired or made.
Both the “Moola” storyline and the name of its fictional company, OmniGlow Light Sticks, are inspired by the real Omniglow. However … the real story of the Bovine Beacon fertility indicator begins not necessarily in Massachusetts, the corporate headquarters of Omniglow LLC, nor even in San Francisco – home to company founder Stan Holland – but instead, on an Idaho farm just outside the large town of Meridian.
THE BRAINS
In 1993, Kevin Herriott, not long out of school and having returned to his family’s farm after working for a while in Seattle, was serving as the herdsman for its 300-head dairy. One of his tasks was to oversee the artificial insemination of cows; naturally, keeping up with bovine cycles and detecting females “in heat” was a big part of his job.
At the time, he said there was one product to help identify a cow in heat: It was a patch of sorts, to be glued to the cow’s back just north of its tail, filled with a dye that turned red when the cow was mounted by another.
“When cows are ready to breed, they will actually ride each other,” Herriott pointed out.
Even with this patch Herriott said the farm was still missing a lot of “heats” for inseminations. Cows that aren’t breeding also aren’t lactating – which is the crux of the multibillion-dollar dairy business.
One day, while at a friend’s house, he noticed some Omniglow light sticks – plastic tubes filled with a phosphorous liquid that glows when the stick is bent to break an inner glass ampule, allowing the glowing chemical reaction to occur. The friend, who was in the military, explained they used them for light while on night maneuvers.
Holland said the U.S. government employed a version of these light sticks for the military during the Vietnam War. In 1986, he and four partners overhauled and patented similar technology and began Omniglow LLC to market their new product. Perhaps best known for “fun” uses – nighttime fairs and festivals – the technology also has medical and safety applications.
Herriott glued some of the sticks to where he would normally affix the dye patch on his cows; after they’d been successfully tested, he contacted Omniglow with his idea. It was a quiet day when Holland and his partners took the call – but not for long.
THE BACKING
“So, we’re rolling on the floor,” Holland explained of their amused reaction to the news, “and as soon as we came to our senses, we flew him in.”
The partners liked Herriott’s idea so much they sent an engineer to his dairy farm to learn more, and within two years Omniglow launched its new Bovine Beacon indicator at the 1995 World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wis.
“It’s amazing what all happened with it,” Herriott mused, adding the Beacon was marketed in the U.S., England, France, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. “I remember the flight home (from meeting with Omniglow), pinching myself and thinking ‘Is this really happening?’”
For him, that initial meeting in San Francisco wound up more than a simple sales pitch. Omniglow used Herriott as a consultant until it launched the Beacon – since he owned the patent – then hired him full-time for five more years as the company’s business manager for that product. His favorite part of the job was traveling, to train distributors such as Select Sires and Universal Marketing Services.
“We’re all milking cows, but it’s done very differently in different parts of the United States,” he explained.
It also gave him the chance to see other innovative consumers using the Beacon for sideline livestock purposes – such as for nighttime roping practice on steers in Texas, and after-dark raccoon hunting for dog handlers in Indiana.
On his family’s farm, Herriott said in using the light sticks he saw a 10-25 percent improvement in bovine conception rates. He explained further that the glow works for farmers checking their herds before dawn because cows tend to ride others in heat at around 2 a.m., when the temperature is cooler outside.
THE DIRECTOR
Because not every idea gets its own feature film, it’s only fair to note that Holland has connections in the entertainment industry. His brother-in-law is Don Most, a director and actor probably best known for his role on the 1970s sitcom “Happy Days” as carrot-top teenager Ralph Malph.
Holland served as executive producer for Most’s 1999 directorial debut “The Last Best Sunday” as well as for “Moola.” Most saw a story in the people behind Omniglow and the Bovine Beacon, and so did Holland, who – with Most’s help – worked up the initial script treatment for what eventually became a movie showing the big-business angle of modern agriculture.
“Everything hinged on somebody’s deal coming through,” Holland explained of getting the movie made.
“It has a lot of heart to it,” Most said of his second film, recently released on DVD. “It’s not just broad, silly humor.”
Actor Jeffrey Arbaugh (who has a small role in “Moola”) wrote the final script with input from Holland and Most. It was filmed in about a month’s time, and the scenes inspired by Herriott were shot at a dairy farm in Utah.
Most said Gregg Daniel, a production representative for the film, suggested the comedy needed an equally humorous opening credits sequence – perhaps an animated cartoon featuring cows? They consulted with The Illusion Factory, a production facility in Woodland Hills, Calif., which referred Most to Leigh Rubin.
THE CARTOONIST
Rubes is a cartoon that tickles the fancy of farmers and non-ag readers alike, printed regularly in hundreds of publications, including Farm World and Marketplace. Rubin, who lives in Nipomo, Calif., has been drawing his distinctive line-art cartoons for decades and publishing them through Creators Syndicate for 19 years.
“I don’t know how many countries” publish the cartoons, Rubin admitted. “If they can translate my bad puns, I guess I would be in there.”
Rubin’s only experience with livestock “other than eating them” was having ducks and chickens around when he was a boy. Nevertheless, his cartoons frequently feature all manner of farm animals.
“You can get away with (using) animals in a cartoon, what you can’t get away with (using) with humans,” he explained. Besides, a big cow takes up more space in the frame than a skinny human character, and he doesn’t have to draw as much.
“I’m lazy at heart,” he joked.
Rubin draws still art; his only experience with animation was one year with ABC Television in the mid-1990s to provide material for a brief between-shows network promo during Saturday morning cartoons. Lately, he’s been working with The Illusion Factory to offer online greeting cards based on his cartoons – which is how he ended up being contacted by Most.
“I thought, ‘I haven’t done freelance work in 23 years,’” Rubin said, “and then I thought ‘Why not?’”
Most needed the opening sequence animated and spliced into the film in time for the Newport Beach Film Festival this past April. Most selected from Rubin’s existing cow portfolio and asked for some new still cartoons, and The Illusion Factory breathed movement into them over Elvin Bishop’s catchy song “Party Till the Cows Come Home.”
THE REAL STORY
Given that it affected so many careers and even earned Most an “Outstanding Achievement” directing award at Newport, one might wonder about the success of the real Bovine Beacon.
Art may imitate life – but it doesn’t always follow that life will have a Hollywood ending. Holland explained that just as in “Moola,” the real Omniglow went through a slump.
“We got our act together,” he said. “The cow thing isn’t what saved us, though.”
In 1996, the Omniglow LLC partners became minority shareholders when another company bought out the majority of its stock. Years later, another company purchased the military and safety product lines, and three of the original partners – Holland, Ira Leemon and Bill Heriot (no relation to Kevin Herriott) – became the sole owners once again of the remaining product lines, including Bovine Beacon, which can be seen online at www.omniglow.com
Holland explained as the economy has slowed, Beacon sales have dropped; it’s a more expensive product than the dye patch and similar products. He also said it was susceptible to false negatives under some conditions. He explained Omniglow is “poised” to market three updated versions of the Bovine Beacon in the near future, however – perhaps as soon as next year.
The mid-priced Beacon will continue using light-stick, or chemiluminescent, technology. A less expensive product will compete directly with the dye patch already on the market, and a third, more expensive, Beacon will use LED battery-powered technology for heat detection.
In the movie, there’s a moment where the perpetually cheerful Harry – an OmniGlow co-founder – realizes just how much financial trouble his company is facing and, in a funk, tells another partner, “There comes a time when a man has to realize he’s not full of potential anymore.”
The film, of course, does eventually turn around and ends with the suggestion of financial success for Harry and his partners. Whether the Bovine Beacon’s new potential will imitate the art it has inspired is yet to be told.
-Originally published in Marketplace, June 2008