Governor's Food and Agriculture Summit

Speakers

March 22-23, 2007
Red Lion Colonial Inn
Helena, MT


The Honorable Brian Schweitzer
Governor of Montana
Helena

Gov. Brian Schweitzer was elected in 2004 as Montana's 23rd governor. He took office on Jan. 3, 2005.

He was raised on his parent's registered cattle ranch in the Judith Basin of Montana. His German and Irish grandparents immigrated to Montana near the turn of the century and homesteaded in Hill County. His parents still farm near Geyser.

Gov. Schweitzer earned a bachelor’s degree in international agronomy from Colorado State University and a master’s degree in soil science from Montana State University. After graduation, he began a career of irrigation development that took him to Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America.

The governor has built hundreds of miles of roads, poured thousands of yards of concrete, buried many miles of pipe, and built hundreds of structures, from houses to warehouses to distillation plants. During seven years in Saudi Arabia, he developed over 28,000 acres of irrigated cropland. The Schweitzers returned to Montana in 1986 to raise a family and to build a ranching and irrigation business. They have owned and operated farms in Flathead, Sanders, Rosebud, and Judith Basin counties.

In 1993, the governor was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture to serve on the Montana State USDA Farm Service Agency committee. He served for seven years with the FSA, and his three-person committee was responsible for the operation of 46 county offices, 300 employees, and a budget of more than $300 million. He resigned in 1999 to pursue a political career.

Gov. Schweitzer has been active in developing and implementing national farm policy and ensuring that the voice of local Montanans is heard. In 1995, he received an award from the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture for outreach efforts to Native Americans. In 1996, he was appointed to the Montana Rural Development Partnership Board. In 1999, he was appointed to the National Drought Task Force, a 16-member national board, to review policy and report to Congress an improved coordination response to drought emergencies nationwide.

Don Addy
MSU Extension Agent
Fort Belknap Reservation

Don Addy has served as the Fort Belknap Extension Agent for the past 30 years. He graduated from Cornell University in 1972 with a bachelor’s degree in agriculture. He went to work for the Wyoming Extension Service at Wind River Reservation for two years before moving to Fort Belknap.

Mr. Addy’s primary work is with agricultural producers, youth, and families. He has received numerous awards throughout his career. One of the most memorable was his adoption into the Assiniboine tribe as an honorary member in 1988.

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Molly Anderson
Researcher / Educator
Arlington, Massachusetts

  

Molly Anderson is an independent consultant on science and policy for social justice, ecological integrity, and community-serving food systems. She works with the Community Food Security Coalition as research coordinator for the Farm and Food Policy Project, a national convening of more than 300 non-governmental organizations to identify and support policies for the next Farm Bill that will enhance economic opportunities for farms, ranches, and rural communities; reward environmental stewardship; promote new markets and rural entrepreneurship; and end hunger and increase access to healthy food.

Ms. Anderson is on the governing board of the Community Food Security Coalition and the advisory board of the Henry A. Wallace Chair in Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University. She is also on the editorial boards of Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems and the Journal of Hunger and Environmental Nutrition. She serves as clerk of the New England Earthcare Ministry Committee (Religious Society of Friends).

She also consults for the Agribusiness Accountability Initiative, facilitating international partnerships and developing research products to increase public awareness of the concentration of wealth and power in our food system and its threats to sustainability. In addition, she is a coordinating lead author on the North America/Europe section of the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, an international project bringing together scientists from universities, public agencies, and non-governmental organizations to evaluate and make recommendations on the application of agricultural science and technology.

Between 2002 and 2005, Ms. Anderson was employed by Oxfam America as senior program officer and then interim director of the U.S. Regional Office, supporting programs and policy that help poor rural communities in the United States. Before that, she worked at Tufts University for 14 years as a professor, administrator, partnership builder, and researcher. She directed the Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE), which coordinates environmental education and research across all departments of Tufts University.

Ms. Anderson co-founded and for five years directed the Agriculture, Food and Environment Graduate Degree Program in the School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts. She was a faculty fellow in the University College of Citizenship and Public Service and served on the steering committee of the Mystic Watershed Collaborative, a partnership between Tufts University and the local community-based watershed organization.

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Alison Harmon
Assistant Professor of Food Production and Food Access
Montana State University, Bozeman

Alison Harmon is an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Human Development at Montana State University, where she directs the dietetics program and teaches courses in life-cycle nutrition, community nutrition and food cultures, and the U.S. food system.

Ms. Harmon earned a doctorate in nutrition and a master’s degree in forest resources at Pennsylvania State University. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Michigan.  Her research interests include raising awareness about poverty and hunger, community-based strategies for increasing food security, the ecological implications of our food choices, and strategies for educating about sustainability and the food system.

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Hank Hudson
Administrator, Human and Community Services Division
Helena

Hank Hudson is administrator of the Human and Community Services Division of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services. His division addresses issues of poverty and hunger. It is through these professional responsibilities that he has become involved in the Governor’s Summit on Food and Agriculture. Mr. Hudson previously worked in child welfare, aging services, and education in several western states.

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Crissie McMullan
Coordinator, National Center for Appropriate Technology -- Grow Montana
Missoula

Crissie McMullan coordinates the Grow Montana project of the National Center for Appropriate Technology, a broad-based coalition promoting a Montana-based food system. In this position, she facilitates FoodCorps, a team of four full-time VISTA volunteers creating four new farm-to-cafeteria programs across the state. She also serves on the board of Garden City Harvest and chairs the Food Security and Access committee of Missoula’s Community Food and Agriculture Coalition.

Before working for Grow Montana, Ms. McMullan co-founded The University of Montana’s Farm to College program while earning her master’s degree in environmental studies.

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Joan Miles
Director, Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services
Helena

Joan Miles became head of the Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services on September 12, 2005. Prior to her appointment by Gov. Brian Schweitzer, she served for 18 years in the Lewis and Clark City-County Health Department in Helena, the last 11 as director of the department.

Earlier in her career, she worked as a law clerk for the Montana Supreme Court and served two terms (1984-88) in the Montana Legislature as a representative of central Helena.

Ms. Miles has a bachelor’s degree in medical technology from State University of New York at Albany, a master’s degree in environmental studies from The University of Montana in Missoula, and a law degree from the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento. She is licensed to practice law in Montana and California.

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Paul Miller
Emeritus Professor of Sociology
University of Montana, Missoula

Paul Miller is emeritus professor of sociology at The University of Montana. His primary teaching and research areas are community studies, poverty, and social policies. He has participated in a number of hunger studies in Montana, beginning in the early 1990s. Since the passage of the Welfare Reform Act of 1996, he has completed a number of studies of the implementation of the faith-based initiatives as part of a larger national study funded by the Rockefeller Institute of the State University of New York.

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Nancy K. Peterson
Director, Montana Department of Agriculture
Helena

Nancy K. Peterson has served as director of the Montana Department of Agriculture since January 3, 2005, when she was appointed by Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Raised on the family homestead in Hill County, she has carried on her family's tradition of farming and ranching.

Ms. Peterson served as chair of the USDA Farm Service Agency State Committee in Montana from 1992 to 2000. Her agricultural experience includes more than 30 years as a farm and ranch owner/operator, producer of a cow/calf operation, winter wheat, spring wheat, durum, barley, oats, peas, lentils, canola, chick peas, mustard, flax and safflower. She operated a private grain laboratory in Havre for two years, grading small grains. Her farm corporation, of which she is sole owner, has cooperated with the Northern Ag Research Center at Havre since the late 1970s on projects including variety trials, sawfly resistance, integrated pest management, and the use of global position systems (GPS) to map protein and nitrogen levels.

Ms. Peterson served as an Emergency Medical Technician State Board examiner for two years. In addition to rural health, first responder, and EMT training, she has taken numerous courses in agricultural finance and planning, futures options and marketing, integrated pest management, pesticide certification and other agriculture-related subjects.

She has been appointed to serve on the Rail Service Competition Council, Montana Wheat and Barley Committee, Montana Agriculture Development Council, the Montana Noxious Weed Management Advisory Council, and various other committees and councils. A member of the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, she serves on the following NASDA-appointed committees: Animal and Plant Industries, Marketing and International Trade, U.S.-Canada Working Group, and the BSE Working Group.

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Ross Racine
Executive Director, Intertribal Agriculture Council
Bllings

Ross Racine’s entire professional career has been spent working with Indian farmers and ranchers to develop and manage resources. As the executive director for the Intertribal Agriculture Council, he has been active in helping the USDA to bring services to Indian producers.

Mr. Racine was promoted to executive director of the IAC in January 2001. He came to the IAC as its natural resources director in 1991. Since 1999, he has served as the director of programs, which involves directing all program activity involving long-range natural resource planning and serving as liaison between IAC, USDA, and Indian Tribes and producers.

Mr. Racine is a Blackfeet Indian and has spent 28 years working on farms and ranches in the Browning area. He earned his bachelor’s degree in agriculture and animal science in 1982 at Montana State University. He began his professional career as a soil conservationist with the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Browning, working with Indian livestock producers on the Blackfeet Reservation.

He accepted a promotion and transfer to the Warm Springs Reservation in Oregon, where he served a short stint as a BIA soil conservationist and then quickly was made the Tribe’s range and agriculture coordinator, responsible for oversight on all BIA and Tribal land programs. While there, he was the lead in creating the Warm Springs Reservation Integrated Resources Management Plan, a precedent-setting document that earned the Northwest Regional Award of the Intertribal Timber Council and is used within Indian Country as a model for Tribal planning on land use.

He has served on the NRCS Chiefs Reinvention Forum Executive Committee, the Chief’s team regarding negotiation of the NRCS-Conservation District agreement, conducted problem-solving outreach for NRCS on a special assignment throughout Indian Country, initiated and participated in the early SCS Harmony workshops, and was co-chairman of the BIA’s writing team on regulation creation for resource planning required under PL103-177.

Mr. Racine has also served on the National Agriculture Statistics Service Advisory Committee, Extension Indian Reservation Program Advisory Committee, Indian Land Tenure Foundation Board, and his local school board. He was chairman of the Agriculture Committee for the National Congress of American Indians.

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Rick Robinson
Director, The Healing Tree
Lame Deer

Rick Robinson is director of The Healing Tree, Inc., a nonprofit organization in Lame Deer, Montana that is working to build the organizational capacity of Native American nonprofits including Boys & Girls Clubs in Montana and Wyoming. In 1993, he was the founding director of one of the first Native American Boys & Girls Clubs in Indian Country. He served six years on the Tribal Council focusing particularly on children and youth programs.

As director of the Boys & Girls Club at Lame Deer, Mr. Robinson started the “Kid’s Café” program, which serves hot meals to hungry children using food from a local food bank. He started a food bank at the club with the Mickey Leland Hunger Foundation/ Congressional Hunger Center and then developed a manual on how to start a food bank on an Indian reservation.

Mr. Robinson also helped start community gardens in Lame Deer for children in the Kid’s Café program and helped increase their knowledge of growing vegetables and improving their nutrition.

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Josh Slotnick
Director, Program in Ecological Agriculture and Society (PEAS)
University of Montana, Missoula

Josh Slotnick is director of the Program in Ecological Agriculture and Society (PEAS), which is part of the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Montana. He is also the farm director of Garden City Harvest, a project that includes a four-acre community-supported agriculture teaching farm and a network of five community gardens dedicated to 1) providing high-quality food to low-income people, 2) providing education and training in ecologically conscience food production, and 3) providing garden sites for the personal restoration of troubled youth and adults. He was a co-founder of both programs.

Mr. Slotnick has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Montana and a master’s degree in agriculture extension from Cornell University. He served in the Peace Corps in Thailand.

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Bruce Smith
MSU Dawson County Extension Agent
Glendive

Bruce Smith was born and raised in northeastern Montana on a diversified farm and ranch.  The family farm corporation raised cattle, hogs, sheep, dryland and irrigated small-grain crops, and hay.  He graduated from Montana State University with bachelor’s degrees in agriculture and business.  He also has a master’s degree in business administration from Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo, CA.

Mr. Smith worked eight years managing food manufacturing plants, making frozen vegetables, margarine, and French fries in California, Illinois, and Idaho for three large food companies. He became an MSU extension agent in 1994.  Since moving back to eastern Montana, he has been active in value-added agriculture and economic and community development.

Mr. Smith’s background and experience in value-added agriculture, food manufacturing, and business management have given him a different perspective on Montana’s agricultural future. He is working with the Northwest Area Foundation’s Horizon’s LeadershipPlenty training program and on the development of a farm-to-table restaurant/microbrewery, culinary training school, a regional food system, and an ag marketing cooperative.

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Sharon Thornberry
Community Food Programs Advocate
Oregon Food Bank
Portland, Oregon

Sharon Thornberry has been involved in coordinating gleaning activities, rural organizing, and anti-hunger work in Oregon since 1986. She has in recent years become a trainer and advocate for community food-security issues. She grew up on farms in Iowa and North Carolina and was active in 4-H and Girl Scouts. Her work experience includes food service, retail grocery, and union activities.

Ms. Thornberry is a longtime member of the Oregon Hunger Relief Task Force (appointed by the governor) and is working with an advisory committee to form a State Food Policy Council. She has served on the board of the national Community Food Security Coalition for the past five years, three of them as president. Her experiences have made her a passionate and knowledgeable advocate of community food security and hunger relief.

Ms. Thornberry was the recipient of the Oregon Food Bank Board of Directors Award for Staff Excellence in 2005. Much of her work in the past two years has been focused on Tillamook County and Eastern Oregon.

She is an avid gardener and is working to make her small lot a sustainable model for her seven grandchildren. She loves to share the cooking traditions learned in the farm kitchens of her youth with friends and family.

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Anna Whiting-Sorrell
Governor’s Policy Advisor on Families
Helena

Anna Whiting-Sorrell serves as the policy advisor on families for Gov. Brian Schweitzer. She has spent her professional career working for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, of which she is an enrolled member.

Ms. Whiting-Sorrell developed and implemented a nationally recognized substance abuse prevention and treatment program for the Tribes for nearly a decade. She is a graduate of the University of Montana with a bachelor’s degree in political science and education and a master’s degree in public administration.

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Bill Yellowtail
Endowed Chair, Native American Studies
Montana State University. Bozeman

Bill Yellowtail is the Katz Professor in Native American Studies at Montana State University, with adjunct duties at the Rural Landscape Institute in Bozeman.

Mr. Yellowtail grew up on his family’s cattle ranch on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana. He believes strongly in the imperative to rebuild the social contract between food producers and food consumers. It is unconscionable, he observes, to remain silent about public policy that allows too many Montanans to live hungry, while driving family-scale farmers and ranchers to extinction – all in favor of the industrialization of food.

Mr. Yellowtail holds a degree in geography from Dartmouth College. He has been a rancher, educator, fishing guide, state senator, and congressional candidate. During the Clinton administration, he served as regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, with responsibility for six western states and 27 Indian Tribes.

He serves on the boards of the Rural Landscape Institute, the Burton K. Wheeler Center for Public Affairs, the Montana Committee for the Humanities, the Montana Council on Economic Education, and the National Audubon Society.

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