The Progressive Agriculture Foundation® announced the election of its executive committee as well as the appointment of three new members to its board of directors for 2022 during the board’s triannual meeting.
Frank Dowdle with the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Extension system was re-elected to serve as the chairperson. Jeanette Dame with TC Energy and Tyrone Gentry with the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension were re-elected to serve as the vice-chairperson and secretary, respectively. Joining the Foundation’s board of directors’ executive committee is Brittany Jablonsky with Farm Credit Council elected to serve as treasurer.
New board members appointed include Kayla Hinrichs, Robert Marshall, and Jose Perez.
Kayla Hinrichs, a food, nutrition, and health extension educator with Nebraska Extension, was appointed to serve as one of the Progressive Agriculture Safety Day coordinator representatives on the board. As an extension educator, she is passionate about helping youth and adults make food choices while enhancing their culinary education, along with having been a Progressive Agriculture Safety Day coordinator for 23 years.
Robert Marshall is currently the senior director of global safety for Bunge, the world’s largest vegetable oil producer and a major player in the food and agriculture supply chain. Marshall is no stranger to safety and health education working in nearly all areas of safety, including personal and process safety to help Bunge’s employees and contractors achieve the company’s vision of a zero-incident culture. He is appointed to the board as a Progressive Agriculture Foundation sponsor representative with Bunge currently being a 5-star sponsor to the Foundation.
Jose Perez serves business units located in the United States, Mexico, and the FIJI Island as director of corporate environmental health and safety for The Wonderful Company, a longtime supporter of the Foundation. His daily responsibilities include regulatory compliance, implementation of safety programs and policies, in conjunction with the development of environmental, health and safety training material – seamlessly aligning with his newly appointed role as a safety specialist representative on the Foundation’s board. Perez has also served as both a volunteer presenter and most recently as a lead coordinator with the Foundation’s Progressive Agriculture Safety Day® program.
Returning board members include Frank Dowdle, chairperson; Jeanette Dame, vice chairperson; Tyrone Gentry, secretary; Brittany Jablonsky, treasurer; Dr. Susan Jones, member, Western Kentucky University; Dr. Josie Rudolphi, member, University of Illinois; and Andrea Lear, ex-officio member, Canadian Agricultural Safety Association (CASA).
In addition to the elections and appointments on the board of directors, the Foundation extends sincere thanks and appreciation to those whose terms concluded in 2021. These individuals included Jane Graves, formally serving as treasurer, and LaMar Grafft with the North Carolina Agromedicine Institute. The Foundation also expresses its gratitude to Jamey Henne, who stepped down from the board due to additional commitments in his role with Bunge.
To see a full list of board members, visit: http://www.progressiveag.org.
