I bring over 40 years of grain inspection experience, and over 20 years of senior leadership to my clients. I provide individualized consulting on grain inspection policies and procedures to assist organizations and individuals seeking to understand or modify the U.S. Official Grain Inspection and Weighing Programs. Services include public relations, strategic planning, marketing, and technical assistance regarding appropriate statutes, regulations, and instructions. Government relations include advising clients on their interactions with elected officials, government leaders, and government agencies at all levels, coalition building, issue campaigns, and issue research.

Manage family cattle ranch. Specializing in beef cow/calf production. We take pride in producing quality calves for the marketplace in an efficient and sustainable way.

• Provide assistance in developing and finalizing inspection guidance documents based on previous experience to meet current market activities.• Provide input regarding policy issues and interpretations for nationwide inspection system.• Maintain professional relationships with industry stakeholders and is considered a subject matter expert in inspection legislation, regulations, and procedures.

Provided executive leadership, management, direction and coordination of all Division programs. These programs facilitated the marketing of over $100 billion in annual grain production and approximately $20 billion in annual exports.Directed and lead a staff of over 60 scientist and technical support personnel with a $7 million operating budget.Administered the development and improvement of methods to determine the end-use quality and value of grain, rice, beans, peas and lentils, produced worldwide.Directed the quality control system that ensures the accuracy and consistency of the United States official inspection system performing over 4 million annual inspections.Provided response and solutions to critical and sensitive trade disputes involving exports of grain and rice. Such responses ranged from simple physical quality attributes to sophisticated biotechnology gene sequencing that is only performed by a limited number of laboratories.Coordinated grain testing research with other Agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, Agricultural Marketing Service, Agricultural Research Service and universities trough the provision and receipt of grants and other such agreements.

Provided executive leadership, management, direction and coordination of all Division programs.Directed and supervise the operation of two branches employing 15 professional and skilled employees. Responsible for human capital, budgetary, diversity, information technology, and policy planning and execution to ensure division responsibility accomplishment.Administered the Agency’s program for reviewing all field operations for compliance with statutory, and Agency regulations, policies and procedures.Directed the Agency’s program to authorize over 50 State and private organizations to perform official inspection services on USDA’s behalf. These organizations perform 96 percent of all official grain inspections in the United States and employ over 2,100 licensed employees.Responsible for investigating violations of federal law associated with the United State Grain Standards, and the Agricultural Marketing Acts.Administered the Agency-wide Regulator, Issuance Management, Safety and Occupational Health, and Homeland Security programs from 7/11/04 to 1/5/07.

Lead the Agency’s Quality Control/Quality Assurance program to ensure that the United States grain inspection program’s analyses performed by 2,500 persons conducting in excess of 3 million inspections annually are both accurate and consistent.Increased inspection result accuracy to 96 percent nationwide.Lead development and implementation of a Process Verification Program to facilitate marketing of U.S. grain by providing credibility to industry-derived processes.Lead the external review of the Agency’s quality and oversight programs and developed and implemented nationwide changes to take advantage of electronic data collection, analysis, and distribution to reduce costs and increase customer service.Solicited customers’ needs and communicated program enhancements to our diverse and divergent customers so that services effectively met their needs, serve American agriculture, and benefit the public.

Reengineered the Agency’s national quality control program. Planned software development, database structure, and national training. Developed user manual and delivered training to over 100 users and persons supervised by the program.Researched, responded, and initiated corrective actions resolving customer complaints unable to be resolved at the local level.Developed employee position descriptions, detailed employees to other agencies to prevent furloughs, developed National Performance Review standards and results, prepared the division’s workforce plan, and lead high profile projects, such as Karnal Bunt discovery response and other projects requiring sensitive verbal and written communications with congressional personnel.Developed and implemented official interpretations and applications of inspection regulations and procedures to inspectors and general public. Answered questions and resolved complex, financially significant, and politically sensitive issues.Responsible for inspections that determined contractual compliance of food purchased by the Department of Defense for service personnel worldwide and the USDA for all domestic and overseas food assistance programs including the National School Lunch, Women, Infants and Children, Food for Peace and CARE.Planned, developed, and conducted 18 training sessions in various field offices and other locations for inspectors and industry representatives resulting in improved inspection service.Wrote 2 inspection regulations, 10 instructions, and 4 handbooks to ensure performance of processed commodity inspection service conforms to marketing changes.Represented the Agency in India to evaluate packaging and food inspection enhancements implemented prior to shipment. Met with recipients, transportation, storage, distribution, religious, government health, and government representatives to hear their concerns and suggestions and to provide assurances that USDA-provided food is safe and nutritious.

Reviewed and revised USDA food purchase contracts to meet customer expectations. Represented Division Director and Deputy Administrator on interagency projects and committees, including food processing, distribution, and recipient groups to improve USDA food quality and distribution.Developed congressional testimony for the Deputy Administrator and Under Secretary and performed resource person duties at two congressional hearings.Prepared congressional and public correspondence to inform and resolve complaints.Made final interpretations on contractual specifications and Governmental purchasing regulations and answered inquiries.

National contact for official interpretation and application of inspection regulations and procedures to managers, inspectors, and the public for food purchased by USDA and Depart of Defense (DOD).Managed the Agency’s response to DOD’s Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf.Developed and implemented a generic inspection certificate that reduced the number of certificates needed from nine to one, thus reducing program cost and administration.Coordinated and implemented computer automation of the national testing laboratory and electronic distribution of results to field locations, thus providing results to customers sooner and with a greater degree of accuracy.Created efficiencies resulting in maintenance of 1984 user fee levels throughout my tenure.

Review Branch 9/10/85 – 12/21/86Conducted on-sight administrative and technical reviews of field offices and USDA sanctioned Official Agencies inspecting and weighing grain, pulses, and rice shipments.Tracked Official Agency performance.Recommended official agencies’ retention or removal to perform inspection service.Audits and Investigations Branch 10/1/84 – 9/9/85Conducted investigations of Federal law violations pertaining to the Agricultural Marketing Act and United States Grain Standards Act and recommended appropriate punitive actions.Assisted USDA’s Office of Inspector General in investigating serious violations of Federal laws pertaining to grain and commodity inspections. Developed a statistical sampling plan for reviewing documents to provide validity to audit and investigation findings.

Mobile Office 1/3/83 – 10/13/84; 2/10/80 – 12/27/81Successfully managed equipment checktesting program for seven southeastern States to ensure accurate and consistent grain inspection results.Sampled and inspected various grains, pulses, rice, and processed grain commodities to facilitate export and domestic shipments.Supervised all aspects of grain inspection and weighing performed by State and sanctioned private inspection agencies in seven southeastern States to assure uniformity and accuracy.Tampa Suboffice 12/28/81 – 9/24/82Sampled and inspected grain for association of feed manufacturers supplying egg producers.Implemented the Agency’s first field level Thin-Layer Chromatography aflatoxin testing.Received inspection requests, scheduled inspections, certified results, and billed customers.

Inspected grain and cotton warehouses for compliance with USDA requirements under the United States Warehouse Act (USWA) and regulations to ensure that farmers’ commodities were secured both physically and financially.Administered USWA grain grading examinations to commercial warehouse personnel to determine their ability to ascertain the quality of grain received from and stored for farmers.

Managed all aspects of a 3,000-acre corporate sugarcane farm, and administered a $2 million annual budget.Successfully coordinated work of 10 to 40 ethnically diverse employees.