18th Illinois Agricultural Leadership Class Chosen
Thirty men and women have been selected to be fellows in the Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation (IALF) Class of 2018. This will be the 18th two-year class in the organization’s 34-year history, and participants were selected following a competitive application and interview process.
The class represents a diverse mix of agricultural expertise – a unique characteristic of the IALF program. There are 21 members who work hands-on at a farm each year, along with representatives of multinational agricultural companies such as Bayer Crop Science, Monsanto, Syngenta, CME Group, and ADM. Also represented are employees of The Climate Corporation, GROWMARK, The Maschhoffs, LLC, Helena Chemical, Osborn Barr and Prairie Farms Dairy, among others. The class also includes two county Farm Bureau managers/assistant managers, and employees of 1st Farm Credit Services and Farm Credit Illinois.
“This class is geographically diverse,” said Don Norton, IALF President & CEO. “We have members from 23 different counties in Illinois.”
There are eleven women in the class. “As women move into more leadership roles in agriculture, we’re pleased that so many qualified women applied and were accepted into this class,” Norton said.
Beginning in August 2016, the Class of 2018 will experience 14 seminars over 19 months to build the skills, knowledge and character to be global leaders in agriculture. In August of this year, the IALF will have graduated more than 490 leaders since its founding in 1982. Graduates include two, 10-year Presidents of the Illinois Farm Bureau, one of three members of the U.S. Farm Credit Administration board in Washington, D.C., the first woman to be Illinois Director of Agriculture, the incoming Presidents of the American Soybean Association and National Pork Producers Council, and global leaders in agribusiness.
“When the Class of 2018 graduates in 19 months, we will have more than 500 graduates of our program,” Norton added.
The following individuals have been selected for the Class of 2018:
Sean Arians, Normal; Randy Barth, El Paso; Berkeley Boehne, Shabbona; Jennie Bunger, Ashton; Tasha Bunting, Emington; Rodney Connor, Dwight; Kenin Eubank, Bourbonnais’ Kristen Ewing, Rushville; Luke Fraley, Kampsville; Aubrey Freitag, Normal; Jeremy Frerichs, Princeton’; Logan Frye, Decatur; Carolyn Gehrke, Elgin; Jeffrey Hackman, Havana; Nicole Hasheider, Belleville; Jason Kieser, Shirley; Jacki Langlois, Grant Park; Joanna Litchfield, Chicago; Wade Meteer, Athens; Matt Murphy, Carlyle; Dale Pitstick, Genoa; Jonathan Schneider, Addieville; Bob Schroeder, Mahomet; Tim Stock, Monticello; Ryan Voorhees, Washington; Katie Wang, Granite City; Tim Wolfe, Clinton; Anna Ziegler, Normal; Susanna Zimmerman, Decatur; and Clayton Zwilling, Champaign.
The Illinois Agricultural Leadership Program is a comprehensive education series that develops knowledgeable and effective leaders to become policy and decision makers for the agricultural industry. The program is funded by the Illinois Agricultural Leadership Foundation, a 501-c-3 non-profit organization comprised of individuals, companies, organizations and institutional partners. Program participants are selected from diverse backgrounds in Illinois agriculture, and program graduates have attained the highest level positions in commodity organizations and the nation’s leading agribusiness corporations. For more information on the program or foundation, please contact IALF at (309) 837-7711 or visit www.agleadership.org.