Transition at My Rural America

This is an exiting time at My Rural America

Change at the Top: First, we want to congratulate our Founder, Barbara Leach, on her recent appointment as Associate Administrator of the Risk Management Administration within the Farm and Foreign Services mission area of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In this critical management position, we are sure that Barb will continue her hard work for rural America by carrying out the Obama administration’s objectives to bring effective crop insurance and other risk products to farmers in our country.

We will miss her leadership, but are very pleased that she will move to a position where she can help all of rural America. We deeply appreciate Barb’s record of accomplishment in identifying the need for MRA, and in achieving the start-up of our outreach and educational efforts as well as performing the research that made our efforts so effective across rural America, particularly in New Hampshire, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Ohio, Wyoming and North Carolina.

New Leadership at MRA: My Rural America’s preparation for this change began on October 28th with the election of Caren Wilcox as President of My Rural America. Wilcox previously served as Vice President of MRA’s Board of Directors. Caren’s experience includes service as Deputy Under Secretary at USDA from 1997 to 2001. She has worked almost all her life in food production, while members of her family live, farm and ranch in rural communities of the West and the Northeast.

Larry Mitchell who has been serving on the Advisory Committee of MRA has been elected Vice President of the Board, and Lloyd Wright has agreed to remain the Secretary/Treasurer of the organization. You can remind yourself of their wonderful backgrounds in agriculture and rural development by going to our website at www.MyRuralAmerica.org and clicking on the About Us page.

It is the intention of your new Executive Committee to identify others who have been supportive of the strong mission of My Rural America and to ask them to join the Board of My Rural America in the very near future.

We hope that those of you involved in My Rural America via our website, this blog and in our outreach efforts in various states, will send us your advice and counsel as we move to this new stage of our organization. We want to hear from you and you can send messages to: info@myruralamerica.org