CBB Cattlemen Beef Promotion and Research Boar : Beef Board Elects 2016 Leadership Team

Contact: Diane Henderson, 303-867-6302; [e-mail]

Date: Friday, January 29, 2016

Anne Anderson, Brett Morris and Joan Ruskamp are New CBB Officers

Cattle producers Anne Anderson of Austin, Texas, Brett Morris of Ninnekah, Oklahoma, and Joan Ruskamp of Dodge, Nebraska are the new leadership team for the Cattlemen's Beef Board, elected unanimously by fellow Beef Board members during the 2016 Cattle Industry Convention in San Diego on Jan. 29, 2016. Anderson will serve as chairman, Morris as vice chairman and Ruskamp as secretary/ treasurer of the Cattlemen's Beef Board to lead the national Beef Checkoff Program for the coming year.

The Beef Board also elected members to serve on the CBB Executive Committee and others to fill the CBB seats on the Beef Promotion Operating Committee.

NEW BEEF BOARD OFFICER TEAM

Newly elected Beef Board Chairman Anne Anderson is a cow-calf and stocker operator from Austin Texas and was the first executive director of the Texas Beef Council. She and her husband, Jim, own a small cattle ranch in Colorado County and a larger one, which Anne manages, in Menard and MuCulloch counties. In addition to ranching, she spent more than 15 years providing assistance to individuals and groups trying to build new companies - mostly in the beef industry, and all in the food industry. Anne also is a co-founder and former CEO of AgInfoLink Global, one of the largest food-tracking companies in the U.S., with additional international offices in Australia, Canada, Mexico and Argentina.

Newly appointed CBB Vice Chairman Brett Morris is a third-generation dairy farmer and runs a dairy, cow/calf and stocker operation, as well as the Washita Fertilizer Company, in partnership with his father. Theirs is a diversified farm operation, including about 1,000 acres of alfalfa, wheat and grassland, 65 registered Holstein cows for milking, 100-125 beef cows, and 200 stocker calves. Morris served as chairman of the Oklahoma Dairy Commission, vice chairman of the Oklahoma Johne's Advisory Committee, as a district voting delegate to DFA, a director of the Federation of State Beef Councils, and as vice chairman of the Oklahoma Beef Council.

2016 CBB Secretary/Treasurer Joan Ruskamp and her husband, Steve, operate a feedlot and row-crop farm west of Dodge, Nebraska, that has been in Steve's family for nearly 100 years. On the farm, Joan's main jobs include walking pens, cattle doctoring/ processing, and office manager. She is a graduate of the University of Nebraska at Curtis, where she earned an associate degree in veterinary medicine in 1980. Joan has been very active in the beef industry, with service to numerous producer organizations. In addition, she has been a 4-H leader for about 20 years, an EMT for more than a decade, and a religious education teacher for nearly 30 years.

CBB EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

The 12-member CBB Executive Committee includes the Board's three officers and eight members elected at large. The CBB elected the following members to its 2016 Executive committee: Vice Chairman Brett Morris, who will serve as chairman of the Executive Committee; and members Anne Anderson (CBB chairman); Brett Morris (CBB vice chairman), Joan Ruskamp (CBB secretary/ treasurer); Laurie Bryant, an importer representative; Chuck Coffey of Oklahoma; Barbara Jacques of Oklahoma; Jana Malot of Pennsylvania; Paul Moss of Tennessee; Kent Pruismann of Iowa; Mike Smith of California; Janna Stubbs of Texas; and, as immediate past CBB Chairman, Jimmy Maxey of California will serve as an advisor to the committee.

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.

OPERATING COMMITTEE

The Beef Promotion Operating Committee was created by the Beef Promotion 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. The other 10 members are appointed from the Federation of State Beef Councils.

CBB members elected to the 2016 Beef Promotion Operating Committee during the annual meeting in San Antonio include: Chairman Anne Anderson; Vice Chairman Brett Morris; Secretary/Treasurer Joan Ruskamp; Jared Brackett of Idaho; Sara Childs of Florida; Joe Guthrie of Virginia; Jeanne Harland of Illinois; Chuck Kiker of Texas; Stacy McClintock of Kansas; and Gary Sharp of South Dakota.

The Beef Checkoff Program was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. States retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board, which administers the national checkoff program, subject to USDA approval.