Beef Board Elects Leadership
The Cattlemen’s Beef Board elected officers and representatives to its 2010 Executive Committee and the Beef Promotion Operating Committee during its annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas, on Jan. 30.
New Beef Board Officer Team
Newly elected Beef Board Chairman Dan Dierschke was the 2009 vice chairman of the Board. He was originally appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture in 2006. Dierschke is a fifth-generation cow-calf producer and farmer. As a Beef Board member, Dierschke has served on committees including the Beef Promotion Operating Committee, the CBB Audit Committee, and the Joint International Markets Committee, for which he served as vice chair in 2006. He and his wife, Marilynn, raise cattle near Austin, Texas. He is a past chairman of the Texas Beef Council; former Texas Farm Bureau State Director; and a Board member for the U.S. Meat Export Federation, where he currently serves on the Executive Committee. Read more about Dierschke here .
Elected as the 2010 Beef Board Vice Chairman, Tom Jones, is a third-generation farmer and rancher from Pottsville, Ark., where he runs a beef cattle operation with his wife, Jayne. He holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business from Arkansas Tech University. On the Beef Board, Tom has served on the Executive Committee, the Beef Promotion Operating Committee, the Joint Issues Management Subcommittee, and the CBB Administration Subcommittee, which he chaired in 2008. Jones also serves as the Secretary of the Arkansas Farm Bureau and as a Making American Agriculture Productive and Profitable (MAAPP) Committee member for the American Farm Bureau.
Elected as the 2010 Beef Board secretary/treasurer, Robert Fountain has served as the third-generation owner and operator of his family farm since 1990, including a cow-calf operation and farming of pecans, small grain, timber and hay. He holds a bachelor’s degree in management and agricultural economics and an MBA in management and finance, both from the University of Georgia. His list of service to the beef industry and his community is lengthy, including the Georgia Farm Bureau, Pineland Telephone Cooperative, Emanuel County Farm Bureau, Georgia Cattlemen’s Association, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, and more. As a Beef Board member, Fountain has served on the International Markets committee, CBB Administration Subcommittee, is a current member of the CBB Executive Committee and Beef Promotion Operating Committee; and is a past member of the Board for the U.S. Meat Export Federation.
CBB Executive Committee
In addition, the Board elected members to serve on the Beef Board Executive Committee and the Operating Committee. The 12-member CBB Executive Committee includes the Board’s three officers and eight members elected at large. In addition, the immediate past chair of the Beef Board (Lucinda Williams of Massachusetts) serves on the committee as an ex-officio member.
The CBB elected the following members to its 2010 Executive Committee: CBB Vice Chairman Tom Jones, Arkansas, who will serve as chairman of the Executive Committee; and members Dan Dierschke, Texas (CBB chairman); Robert Fountain, Jr., Georgia (CBB secretary/treasurer); Virginia Coelho, California; Virginia Davis, Indiana; Will Frazee, Iowa; Wesley Grau, New Mexico; Kristy Lage, Nebraska; Hank Maxey, Jr., Virginia; Daryl Berlier Owen, Texas; Sid Sumner, Florida; and Lucinda Williams, Massachusetts (ex-officio). The Executive Committee operates under the direction of, and within the policies established by the full Board and is responsible for carrying out Beef Board policies and conducting business and making decisions necessary to administer the terms and provisions of the Act and Order between meetings of the full Board.
Beef Promotion Operating Committee
The Beef Promotion Operating Committee was created by the Beef Promotion and Research Act to help coordinate state and national Beef Checkoff programs. The 20-person committee includes 10 members of the Cattlemen’s Beef Board, among them the Board’s three officers and seven others elected directly by Beef Board members.
CBB members elected to the 2010 Beef Promotion Operating Committee during the annual meeting in San Antonio include: CBB Chairman Dan Dierschke, Texas, who will also serve as chairman of the Operating Committee; Vice Chairman Tom Jones, Arkansas; Secretary/Treasurer Robert Fountain, Georgia; Glenda Flora, Kansas; Ted Greidanus, California; Richard Hodge, Texas; Al Pedigo, Kentucky; John Schafer, Minnesota; Don Stewart, Illinois; and Weldon Wynn, Arkansas.
The other 10 members of the committee are representatives of state beef councils, including the chair and vice chair of the Federation of State Beef Councils and eight other members elected by state beef councils. These members are as follows: Scott George, Wyoming, who will also serve as vice chairman of the Operating Committee; David Dick, Missouri; Sally Angell, Missouri; Dave Hamilton, Nebraska; Cevin Jones, Idaho; Linda Joy Stovall, Texas; Sid Viebrock, Washington; Craig Uden, Nebraska; Becky Walth, South Dakota; and Jim Wilson, Oregon.
(Editor’s Note: For additional information about individual CBB members, visit the member-profile section of www.MyBeefCheckoff.com. Profiles of all continuing members are available, and new-member profiles will be added upon appointment.)In addition, the Beef Board unanimously elected Texas rancher Dan Dierschke to serve as 2010 chairman of the Board, with outgoing chairman Lucinda Williams, dairywoman from Massachusetts, handing over the gavel as she ended her chairmanship. Arkansas cow-calf producer Tom Jones was elected vice chairman, and Rob ert Fountain, Jr., cattleman also from Arkansas, was elected to serve as secretary/treasurer of the Beef Board for the year.
Editor’s Note: This article was provided as a news release by CBB. For more information visit www.beefboard.org.