Dr. James W. Lloyd lives in rural Michigan on the same farm where he was raised. Before taking over as dean of the University of Florida College of Veterinary Medicine in 2013 — a position he held for six years — Dr. Lloyd was an associate dean and professor at his alma mater, Michigan State University. He is a 1981 DVM graduate and holds a doctorate in agricultural economics. Today, his focus is on ecology, diversity and, as the founder of the consulting firm Animal Health Economics, the future of the veterinary profession.
1. You stepped down as dean at the University of Florida in 2019. Why? Did you consider retirement?
A family situation brought me back to Michigan. On rather short notice, I left the deanship and basically checked out of veterinary medicine for a year and a half to be a dad and a grandpa. I wasn’t ready to retire as I was still very passionate about veterinary medicine. I got busy leveraging the network I’ve built up over the years and started emailing folks and having conversations. That led to a little project here, a little project there.
2. What are you doing these days?
I remain fully employed in the veterinary profession and am mostly interested in workforce issues. My focus is not only on veterinarians but also on veterinary specialists, veterinary faculty, and veterinary technicians and nurses. I am bringing my perspectives as a veterinarian and economist to bear. It’s fun working together to create the future of veterinary medicine. I’m still Dad and Grandpa, but I’m back stirring the pot.
3. Did you grow up with animals?
Interestingly, I grew up in the house I’m sitting in, so it’s kind of a circle-of-life experience. We had pets then, and they were important to us. We also had horses, cattle and wildlife. I was very interested in wildlife, and I still am.
4. How did your experience with animals influence your veterinary journey?
My undergraduate degree is in wildlife biology and ecology and wildlife management. At the end of my bachelor’s degree, I got to a spot where the questions were, “What are you going to do to make a living?” and “What kind of jobs are available?”
5. What did you decide?
I come from a small town, small high school. I’m a first-generation college student. I think Dad was happy he was able to finish high school. Academically, I never thought I could get into veterinary school. I heard all these stories about how tough it was. After I had a couple of years of college under my belt and did OK in my classes and coursework, I thought, “I’ll never know unless I give it a try.” During my veterinary school interview, the interviewers asked me, “Do you want to be a wildlife veterinarian?” At the time, there were maybe two zoo veterinarians in the entire country. I said, “Well, I’m realistic. If there is a job available, that would be great. I would enjoy that.” I ended up moving on to more traditional pathways in veterinary medicine, but my interest still is in wildlife and their environment through an ecological approach.
6. Do you have any pets today?
We just obtained a couple of puppies. I’m joyfully engulfed in the companion animal world again.
7. Anything to share about your pups?
Luca and Charlie are lots of fun and both female. We picked out the names before we picked out the pups. We wanted a couple of gender-neutral names. Charlie is short for Charlotte. Concerning Luca, we’d just seen a show with Luca, who was a female attorney, and we also knew a Luca from an old movie, The Godfather. It seemed like an interesting name.
8. Did you have any memorable mentors?
Certainly. When I was a teenager, my employer owned a sheep and beef farm a couple of miles away. Also, there were high school teachers and college professors. As we change and grow and our journeys proceed, we get different people, different role models.
9. What is your biggest mistake, regret or disappointment? Any lessons learned?
I don’t think in those terms. Life happens. You make your choices, and as they turn out, you deal with them and move on. Not that I haven’t made mistakes. We all make lots of mistakes. I often refer to this T.S. Eliot quote: “Success is relative. It’s making the best of the mess we’ve made of things.”
10. When you make mistakes, do you give yourself a break or beat yourself up for a while?
You look at it and say, “What did I do? What can I learn from that? What did I do well? What did I do wrong? What was out of my control? Is there something I might do differently?” You don’t get do-overs, and you can’t undo the past. Whatever your feelings are, let them happen and gradually figure it out.
11. What does a day in the life of Dr. James Lloyd look like?
It depends on the day. I don’t have a routine. I spend a lot of time business traveling now. I also spend time in my home office. If I’m working at home, I get up, log in and review my prioritized list. I generally don’t have heavy plans on nonworkdays. I’ll do some family things, do things around the farm, do things outside, and do some hiking. It is extremely variable.
12. You live in the house where you grew up. How has the property changed?
The farm, as I knew it, is gone. There are no fences anymore. We have lots of animals, but they’re all wild. We have a different variety of species and different numbers compared to when I was growing up. The habitat has changed over the years. We no longer have cattle or horses on the farm. We now have deer, coyote, sandhill cranes, geese, beavers, wood ducks and mallards. At this moment, as I look out my window, I see two deer that walked onto the field. Sometimes, I see an eagle fly by, and one day, I had a pair of raccoons trot by. I never know what I will see.
13. Did you intentionally create a new environment for wildlife?
It’s been a multiyear process. We did it as the farm transitioned from a working farm into something more ecologically sound. We were interested in enhancing the wetlands and decreasing soil erosion. Carbon sequestration is also important to us.
14. Do you provide particular feed for the deer and birds?
I feed them what we grow. We have places where we plant pollinator species for the bees. We are planting milkweed so that the monarch butterflies have food and come back.
15. What else have you created in your environment?
The trees we plant are all native species. As an example, we had a field of Scotch pine trees that Dad planted and that people would cut for Christmas trees. Scotch pine are not native. We replaced them with native red pine. Eventually, the red pine might have some commercial value, but in the meantime, it’s great for sequestering carbon from the environment and for wildlife habitats. The grassy areas gradually switched over to a more native prairie grass mix. Making that shift to more native plants will likely be successful and healthy for the environment.
16. The veterinary profession appears to have renewed interest in ecology, wildlife management and pollinators. Were you ahead of your time?
I was interested in it as a kid and teenager, and I spent a lot of time outside. My first topic of study in college was ecology and wildlife management, wildlife biology. So, it’s been there my whole life.
17. When you’re not working, which activities bring you joy?
We have lots of trails and a little motorized side-by-side that we drive on the trails. I think about constructing new trails, grooming the trails I have and just spending time out there. We ride the side-by-side, hike, snowshoe or cross-country ski, depending on the weather.
18. Which trends in veterinary economics do you find most concerning, and how do you see them shaping the future of animal health?
As an economist, I’m looking at the future of the profession. From the education standpoint, it’s workforce-related. I am interested in the number of people we’re training and putting into the market and what they’re able to do. But my biggest interest — it’s a concern — is that we don’t reflect the diversity of our society. To truly meet the animal-related needs of an increasingly diverse society, we must figure out how to get there as a profession. It isn’t just about mirroring but really understanding culturally, literally and figuratively the language of the people we’re serving. We need to serve their needs through their animals and their animals’ needs through them. It’s a tough problem to solve and one that will take years as people recognize the issue and then sit together and make creative solutions. The reality for us as a profession is that if we’re going to meet the needs and enable growth, we must provide access to health care for underserved communities. We need to recruit the next generation of veterinarians and technicians from marginalized communities. It starts in classrooms.
19. Is the needle moving in the right direction?
We’ve got some momentum. I attended the AVMA’s DEIW Summit [diversity, equity, inclusion and well-being] a couple of weeks ago. We have people working on these issues and discussing how to solve them.
20. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Incredible scientific advancements are going on that undergird this discussion with you. As a former dean, I recognize the importance of research and the movement and alignment of science with human health and environmental health. I don’t want to lose that. I started out a very long time ago thinking, “What can I see under a microscope?” It’s that interest in science that has gotten me here. It’s exciting for me to see the scientific advancements coming to fruition and to continually think about how we can use them to meet all the needs we’ve discussed.
CRUNCHING NUMBERS
Dr. James W. Lloyd warned in a 2023 call-to-action study that “A shortage of 14,000 to 24,000 companion animal veterinarians could well exist in the U.S. pet health care market by 2030.” The American Veterinary Medical Association commissioned another study that provided differing results and forecasted no shortages until at least 2035. Read Dr. Lloyd’s work, Pet Healthcare in the U.S.: Another Look at the Veterinarian Workforce, at bit.ly/4gKY890.