Afton, IA, August 14, 2024 –Donald J. Leith of Afton, Iowa, has been recognized as a Professional of the Year for 2024 by Strathmore’s Who’s Who Worldwide Edition for his outstanding contributions and achievements in the field of manufacturing.
About Donald J. Leith
Donald J. Leith is the founder and president of New Homestead USA, a distributor-owned company that manufactures certified healthy products for the building industry. The company specializes in customizing log homes and helping customers design a home to fit their personality, lifestyle, and budget. He is also the owner of HealthMark, and Home Run Buildings as well as Healthy New Homes which offers sustainable construction materials to create certified non-toxic, “breathable,” healthy homes all over the world.
“For the past 50 years, as New Homestead USA, we’ve been providing building supplies and log structures nationally and internationally from our mill in Payette, Idaho. We also offer certified healthy construction solutions for building conventional housing in a most unconventional way,” said Leith. “Our goal is to promote an interest in non-toxic construction and energy savings within the building trade by explaining the health benefits of this construction compared to standard building approaches.”
In addition to his work with New Homestead USA, Leith has held numerous leadership positions and founded several companies. He was past president for two terms and a 10-year board member of the American Salers’ Association and had the honor of receiving a Salers’ bull from French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing as a gift to the American people in 1976. Leith is a member of the American Limousin Association, a French cattle breed, and a board member and contributor to the Lake Country Resort in Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. He also serves on the board of Malibu Investment Company, headed by Don Lamberti President of the Casy’s Stores, and has been a Board Member of the Jerusalem Methodist Church for 30 years.
As a lifetime member of International Biology & Ecology, Leith is part of a certifying organization for inspectors with over 6000 members worldwide who are trained in health inspection of buildings and scoring of buildings according to all health-related aspects. He also founded North Payette Milling, a milling company that milled wood products to the specifications of 30 retail companies, in 1991.
In the 1980s, Leith worked with the Federal Reserve to set up joint ventures in Russia, establishing a company to fund 17 sawmills. He is the owner and president of Lazy L-5 Ranch Co, which held yearly seed stock production sales attended by customers from all over and researched 12 English and European breeds to determine what crossbreeds would give the most high-quality consistency, production capabilities, and healthy certification. He is also the founder and president of Ranch Connection Inc, a high-quality health beef company that was the first to have a USDA label for nutrition and had four-unit producers that could furnish up to 10,000 head per year. Leith is 50% owner of Evergreen Laboratories in Fort Collins Colorado. The Leiths were awarded the honor of being the National Winner of the “Prettiest Place in the Country” by Farm & Ranch Magazine in 1984.