Farm Hands on the Potomac: Senate confirms McCabe

Janet McCabe was confirmed by the Senate in a 52-42 vote to be the next deputy administrator of the EPA. McCabe is a professor of practice at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law at IUPUI and director of the Environmental Resilience Institute at IU. McCabe previously served as acting assistant administrator of the Office of Air and Radiation at the EPA under the Obama administration from July 2013 to January 2017 and as principal deputy in that office from 2009 to 2013.

President Joe Biden intends to nominate Jennifer Moffitt to be USDA's next Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs. Moffitt currently serves as the undersecretary at the California Department of Food and Agriculture, where she served as deputy secretary from 2015-18. Before that, she worked on her family’s organic walnut farm and processing operation for 10 years. She also served on the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board and worked for American Farmland Trust. To read more on Moffitt, click here.

The Department of Agriculture has announced new individuals that were named to senior leadership positions. Karama Neal now serves as the administrator for the Rural Business-Cooperative Service. Before this position, Neal served as president of Southern Bancorp Community Partners, a nonprofit community development loan fund located in rural Arkansas and Mississippi. Mike Schmidt is the new senior adviser in the Office of the Secretary. Schmidt had served since Jan.20 as a senior adviser in USDA’s Farm Production and Conservation Mission Area. He also served as senior professional staff for the Senate Ag Committee under then-ranking member Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. He also held many positions at USDA during the Obama Administration. Lisa Ramirez was named director of the Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement. She most recently served as the chief innovative officer for the Lubbock Independent School District in Lubbock, Texas. She has previously held a series of positions at the Department of Education, including director of the Office of Migrant Education and director for the Office of School Support and Rural Programs. Doug McKalip is now a senior adviser in the Office of the Secretary. Most recently, McKalip was a senior adviser in USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. He has also served as a senior policy adviser for rural affairs at the White House Domestic Policy Council and held several positions at USDA, including senior adviser to the secretary and director of legislative and public affairs in the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

House Ag Committee Chair David Scott, D-Ga., has added one new individual and promoted two on his committee staff. Lyron Blum-Evitts has been promoted to the role of director of outreach and legislative operations. Blum-Evitts has been with the committee since 2019, previously as member relations coordinator. Ross Hettervig will now serve as the committee’s communications director. Hettervig joined the committee in 2019 and most recently served as a digital director. Josh Tonsager will join the committee and serve as the staff director for the General Farm Commodities and Risk Management Subcommittee. Before joining the Committee, Tonsager served as the vice president of policy and communications for the National Association of Wheat Growers.

Tracy Stone-Manning has been tapped by President Joe Biden to lead the Bureau of Land Management as the new director. Stone-Manning most recently served as the senior adviser for conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation. She has also worked on the staff of former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.

Bill Northey has started his own consulting business, WHNorthey. His focus is on agriculture, conservation, and sustainability issues. Northey is the former Farm Production and Conservation Undersecretary for USDA during the Trump Administration.

Nufarm Americas Inc. has tapped Ken Barham to be the vice president of crop protection sales for the U.S. Barham brings 20 years of experience in the crop protection industry to his new position. He most recently served as Nufarm’s North America vice president of customer and brand marketing for the last four years. Before joining Nufarm, Barham worked for Syngenta leading the post-patent strategies for herbicide and insecticide marketing. He also has eight years of experience working for Adama Group Companies.

Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux, D-Ga., has been appointed to serve as vice-chair of the Subcommittee on Water Resources and Environment for the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. The subcommittee’s jurisdiction consists of water resources development, conservation and management, water pollution control and water infrastructure, and hazardous waste cleanup.

Dr. Mortimer Neufville, president and CEO of the 1890 Universities Foundation, has joined the World Food Prize’s council of advisers. In this role, Neufville will help review, advise and guide the World Food Prize leadership on policies and the design and implementation of foundation programs. Before joining the foundation, Neufville was the executive vice president and director of federal relations for the Association of Public Land Grant Universities; the dean of agriculture and vice president and president of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore; and president of Coppin State University. 

Senay Simsek has been tapped to be the new head of the Department of Food Science at Purdue University. She has spent the last 14 years of her career at North Dakota State University, where she most recently was an endowed professor. She received her bachelor's degree in chemistry and a master's in biochemistry from universities in Turkey. She then traveled to Purdue to pursue her doctorate in food science, before heading to North Dakota.

Danielle Crop has joined Albertsons Companies as the company’s new senior vice president and chief data officer. Crop most recently was the chief data officer at American Express.

Retired vice president of DuPont Ag Products, Dale Edward Wolf, passed away at the age of 97. He received his bachelor’s from the University of Nebraska and then went to Rutgers University, where he received the nation's first Ph.D. in weed science. He then co-authored the first textbook in the field. He taught at Rutgers for a year and then was hired by DuPont where he spent 38 years of his career. He moved from research chemist to group vice president of agriculture products and also served as the chairman of the board for pharmaceuticals.

Former senior vice president for government relations and public policy for Feeding America, George Braley, died March 28 from complications of congestive heart failure. He was 72. In his career, Braley served as the deputy administrator for special nutrition at USDA's Food and Nutrition Service. His career spanned 32 years at USDA’s FNS. He also served as acting administrator during presidential transitions before retiring in 2007.

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