Lead Government Affairs for a District of Columbia-based lobbying firm managing federal and state legislative, regulatory, and coalition building initiatives specializing in agriculture, venture capital investment, biotechnology, sustainability and environmental issues.• Proactive Multi-State Coalition Building: Maximizing relationships toward common legislative and regulatory goals. Board Advisor to the Rural Jobs Coalition. Client/Industry relations and project management outreach with both national and state organizations.• Political Strategic Planning and Government Affairs: Specializing in running political strategy in several states at once. Client representation at the state and federal legislative and agency level. • Policy Development: Senior experience in analyzing complex scientific topics and determining direction toward positive outcomes.

Develop robust vision, strategy and execution plan for managing Farmer Relations and External Agriculture Engagement Lead liaison with Agribusiness, and National Agriculture Associations. • Team Management: Instrumental in overseeing the performance of consultants, Public Relations Firms and Direct Reports. Capitalize on strong leadership ability to manage existing Farmers Relations team and streamline crisis communication. • Improved Plan Development: Analyzed and developed a new external agriculture engagement plan that included partnerships, leadership programs, and Board mentoring. • Influential Outreach: Perform extensive outreach with state and regional dairy checkoff associations for key influential farmers, cooperatives and thought leaders.

Continuously focused on revitalizing operational processes through talent acquisition and development, multi-group management, and federal lobbying strategies. Supervised all federal legislative initiatives and directed operational teams in HI, MN, NC, and DC to complete job duties with proficiency. Coordinated all efforts against cost constraints, time zones, and travel requirements. Authored the steering committee/funding proposal, leaders, and strategy. • Recognition: Selected for the newly created position based on agricultural and industry leadership policy results. • New Team Formulation: Scouted and recruited distinguished class professionals with expertise in lobbying, leadership, and relationship building to reverse the pattern of under-performance among key industry players. • Exercised business acumen to pool resources and address pollinator issues at the federal level through the development of the agriculture and non-agriculture organization group.

Guided the Industry/Government Affairs teams in tandem with US and Canadian agricultural associations and groups to spearhead end-to-end excellence within the organization. Retained a strong presence within national agricultural associations to drive partnerships and sponsorships in 15 boards. • Creativity: Drafted the 1st Relations Team that proved its proficiency in preserving business functions while navigating through complex challenges to deliver results on a consistent basis. • Composed a proposal that outlined common company association management practices, including spending patterns and infrastructure, to hire a new team. • Talent Development: Demonstrated interpersonal acumen to educate employees on best practices regarding lobbying, teambuilding with farmers, and action plans critical in retaining business profits. • Association Leadership: Controlled a $1.16M budget while confirming strong and consistent performance amongst industry associations, including Conversation Technology Information Center (CTIC).• Fulfilled a leadership role to influence positive changes in bylaws, board rotation intervals, policy and legislative strategies, and leadership succession planning. • Business & Legislative Influence: Strategically maintained the Seed R&D and production to stop legislation and regulations aimed at limiting corn seed sales and prevented millions in agricultural impact. • Brought in new lobbyists to form legislative deals instrumental to delivering results.• Reduced association business challenges by closely managing and rectifying crises affecting trade policies.

Managed and trained 10 lobbyists/consultants, 2 interns, and 1 indirect report. Collaborated with agricultural partners to capitalize on relationships to acquire benefits from industry and legislative/regulatory ties for Novartis and Ciba-Geigy. • Partnership Management: Created and strengthened bonds with groups holding interest across 21 states.• Fostered public and private alliances, as well as held leadership roles to retain business flow. • Solidified decision-making relations to resolve product and regulatory issues. • Liaised with state legislatures and regulatory bodies to expand business interests and influence desirable legislation affecting product market positions. • Regularly acquired stewardship funds and gained passage of preemptive laws at the state level. • Tactically influenced government relations in the following states: AR, MO, KS, NE, KY, TN, WV, VA, MD, DE, NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, TX, NM, OK, and HI. • Research & Lobbying: Leveraged analytical skillset to pinpoint Clean Water Act compliance concerns and molded a lobbying strategy critical to preventing $350M in product revenue losses. • Solved the state wheat embargo by persuading the KS Department of Agriculture/FDA testing effort to show residue tolerance with a rapid turnaround in two weeks. • Funding Acquisitions: Captured and capitalized on a 5-to-1 match in state/federal funding to company dollars ($7.5M for 11+ years) while developing and managing public and private environmental projects.• Stewardship Program Establishment: Brainstormed and piloted the 1st industry government, private, and checkoff program to sponsor sound farming practices aligned with environmental protection (WRASP Program); gathered R&D funding, Clean Water Act federal monies, and Corn Checkoff support for the agriculture industry.