Montezuma, GA |
If you’re looking for the Bronx, you need to look elsewhere. This is Montezuma, Georgia — where the cows number in the thousands, the milk is measured in millions of pounds a day, and the man behind it all grew up surrounded by concrete, not cows.
Pete Gelber was the youngest of five kids. His father wanted them out of the city in the summers, so he bought a small cabin three and a half hours north of New York. Getting there required crossing a cow pasture — and that’s where Pete’s older brother found a job, and where a future Georgia Farmer of the Year found his calling.
“When I was about fourth grade, it was the first time I ever got to milk a cow. My older brother was my hero, and so that’s really all I wanted to do,” said Gelber, the 2026 Georgia Farmer of the Year. “When I got out of high school, I went to a two-year ag and tech school near that farm, and my eyes kind of got opened into agriculture. I realized, ‘Hey, I can make some money. I don’t have to move back to the Bronx.’ Then I transferred to Cornell University and got a degree in animal science.”
At Cornell, Gelber began learning the business side of agriculture — and became convinced that if he was going to make a living milking cows, he needed to think bigger than most dairymen were willing to at the time.
“I said when I was 18 years old, I wanted to milk 500 cows, and everybody milking 50 at the time thought, ‘What does he know? He’s from the Bronx,'” Gelber said. “Comes to find out, I was right — and they fell behind, and hardly any of them are in business today.”
The ambition was there. What Gelber needed next was experience — and that came working for New York dairyman Ron St. John. Gelber jokes he didn’t exactly climb the ladder. He just kept getting handed the next job that needed doing.
“I always joke with Ron about that. I got put in charge of feeding the baby calves when we learned the calf feeders didn’t show up that day. Same with the milking parlor — it couldn’t stay on time. So I took over milking the cows,” Gelber said. “I say I got promoted one disaster at a time.”
What started as a job grew into something much more. St. John became Gelber’s mentor, eventually his business partner, and one of his closest friends. In 2011, St. John was named Florida Farmer of the Year and earned his own trip to Moultrie to compete for the Southeastern Farmer of the Year. Fifteen years later, his former employee and protégé is following the same path — this time representing Georgia.
“Ron gave me a partnership opportunity, and then he gave me the opportunity to buy him out. He was my banker when I first got going,” Gelber said. “He took a chance on me, and he believed in me.”
The lesson Ron St. John passed down wasn’t just about dairy — it was about relationships. And Gelber has taken it to heart. Three longtime employees at his operation now receive a financial stake in the dairy’s success through an incentive program modeled after what St. John once offered him.
“One thing Ron St. John’s father used to say was, ‘We’re all renters in this land and in this world. We’re here for a short time and then we’re gone — so whatever we own, somebody else has it when you pass away.’ You may as well give it away and move it down the line and make it possible for the next generation to come in and do well,” Gelber said. “A relationship needs to be a win-win. Everybody needs to do well.”
From a small dairy in upstate New York to more than a million pounds of milk a day in Middle Georgia — it’s quite a journey for a fourth grader from the Bronx who once stood in wonder at a 200-cow operation and couldn’t wrap his head around it.
“I went to see a 200-cow dairy when I was in 12th grade and I just couldn’t get my head wrapped around how big it was,” Gelber said, looking out over his own operation. “And here this is — just on steroids.”