National Association of Conservation Districts Annual Meeting 2027

Terry Cosby was appointed to serve as chief of the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) in May of 2021. In this role, Chief oversees the 3,000 NRCS field offices and their employees across the nation. Cosby began his career with the agency in 1979 as a student trainee in Iowa. Cosby’s roots run deep. Raised on a cotton farm with his eight siblings in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, his love for the land began at an early age. The farm, now in his family for three generations, was purchased by his great-grandfather in the late 1800s.

Zach Ducheneaux was appointed Administrator for USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) on February 22, 2021. In this role Ducheneaux provides leadership and direction on agricultural policy, administering loan programs, and managing conservation, commodity, disaster, and farm marketing programs through a national network of offices. Ducheneaux previously served as the Executive Director of the Intertribal Agriculture Council (IAC) and had been with the IAC since the 1990s. He has also previously served as tribal council representative for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. He has spent his career educating people about the critical role of improved food systems, value-added agriculture, and foreign exports to respond to the enduring economic and social challenges facing Native Americans and reservations.

The Lieutenant Governor is a native of Brocket, North Dakota. She earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a Master of Business Administration degree from Minnesota State University Moorhead. She is a certified public accountant and early in her career spent eight years in public accounting. Lieutenant Governor Miller was a founding member of the Grand Farm steering committee. The Grand Farm Initiative is designed to inspire collaboration among businesses, organizations, and researchers to develop the farm of the future and solve issues critical to farmers worldwide. The Lieutenant Governor was sworn in as the 39 th lieutenant governor of North Dakota on Jan. 3, 2023.

Robert Bonnie is the Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation at USDA. Prior to his confirmation he served as Deputy Chief of Staff and Climate Advisor at USDA. Before joining USDA, Bonnie was at Duke University first as a Rubenstein Fellow and later as an Executive in Residence at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions working on conservation and environmental issues in rural America. In 2020, Bonnie also worked with the Bipartisan Policy Center on its Farm and Forest Carbon Solutions Initiative. He was Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment at USDA from 2013 to 2017, and a senior advisor to Secretary Tom Vilsack from 2009 to 2013. Prior to joining USDA, Bonnie was vice president for land conservation at Environmental Defense Fund where he focused on developing incentives to reward stewardship on private lands. Bonnie has master’s degrees from Duke in forestry and environmental management. He lives with his wife, Julie, and daughter, Lilly, in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Hoffer joined the Biden Administration as a Day 1 political appointee, serving as the Acting General Counsel and Principal Deputy General Counsel of the Environmental Protection Agency. She led the EPA’s Office of General Counsel through the transition until November 2021 and continued to serve as Principal Deputy General Counsel. Prior to that, she worked in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office as Chief of the Environmental Protection Division beginning in 2012 and was named Chief of AG Healey’s newly formed Energy and Environment Bureau in 2015. Hoffer oversaw the work of the Bureau’s attorneys on matters including prosecuting civil and criminal enforcement of environmental laws, proceedings before the DPU, energy policy, and defensive cases. She led the Office’s litigation against ExxonMobil for deceiving Massachusetts investors and consumers about the risk climate change poses to Exxon’s business and global financial markets, and the impacts of its fossil fuel products on climate change. Prior to joining the Attorney General’s Office, Hoffer held senior roles at the Conservation Law Foundation and practiced for many years as a litigator and environmental lawyer at WilmerHale. She also served as a law clerk for the Honorable Magistrate Judge Joyce London Alexander, Boston Federal District Court. She received a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law, Certificate in Environmental Management from Tufts University, M.Ed. from the University of Massachusetts, and B.A. from Hampshire College. In her spare time, she raises a small herd of Nigerian Dwarf dairy goats at her farm in Barre, Massachusetts.

In this role, Galle cultivates cutting-edge new products to fill the innovation pipeline for Ocean Spray. She also leads our strategic sustainability initiatives, as well as work in Consumer Affairs. Galle is also instrumental in further strengthening Ocean Spray’s industry leadership role and unleashing the power of research and development coupled with food safety and quality assurance. She comes to Ocean Spray from Dunkin’ Brands, most recently serving as VP of culinary innovation, for both Dunkin’ and Baskin Robbins teams, where she led her team to create a three-year innovation pipeline aligned with Dunkin’s aggressive growth platforms across the portfolio. Galle is a twenty-year veteran of PepsiCo, where she developed an extensive background in beverage innovation and commercialization and launched many new products globally. She has held prior product development and basic research roles at Seagram’s and Kraft Foods. She has also served on the board of governors for the Flavor Extract Manufacturers Association.

A.J. Kumar is currently Vice President of Sustainability Sciences at Indigo Ag, leading the overall scientific strategy for agricultural carbon credits, supply chain emissions reductions, and more in coordination with key experts. He has built partnerships across the non-profit, academic, and for-profit domain and worked with farmers and ranchers on testing new technologies and practices in production settings. Prior to Indigo, Kumar was the Chief Scientific Officer at Jana Care where he built the R&D team in Boston from the ground up, and led the development of multiple low-cost, point-of-care rapid blood tests for chronic diseases, including partnerships with companies such as AstraZeneca. He has a PhD in Applied Physics from Harvard University and a BS in Physics from Stanford University. He has authored over 20 publications and is an inventor on over 10 patents and patent applications.

A fifth-generation dairy farmer, Ashley E. Randle was sworn in as the twenty-first Commissioner by Governor Maura T. Healey on March 6, 2023. She is the first woman to lead the Department and assumed the role after having served as Deputy Commissioner/Legislative and Policy Director since October 2018. While attending college at Cornell University, Randle developed a deep appreciation for agricultural policy and law. To further her background and understanding of the regulatory aspect of agriculture and farming, Ashley attended Western New England University School of Law. Internships during law school provided a solid foundation and understanding of regional state policies and impacts. Randle is a licensed Massachusetts attorney. Prior to joining the department in 2018, Randle served as Member Services Director for the Northeast Dairy Producers Association, Inc. (NEDPA) in New York and oversaw membership engagement as well as policy outreach and education in the areas of labor and human resources management, CAFO permitting and water quality, New York Dairy’s OSHA Local Emphasis Program, animal well-being, and other timely matters. Prior to that role, Randle served as Marketing Specialist/Special Projects at the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry, where she researched, developed, and implemented a sustainable recognition program for the Maine farming community.

Prior to coming to EPA, Dr. Cash was the Dean of the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Cash also spent a decade in Massachusetts state government where he held a range of senior positions, working to transform the Commonwealth’s environmental and energy policy. As Assistant Secretary of Policy in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs in Governor Deval Patrick’s Administration, he was an architect of a range of nation-leading climate, clean energy and environmental justice policies. All of these initiatives were grounded in the notion that wise environmental policy, economic policy and policies for equity can and should go hand-in-hand. He then served as a Commissioner in the Department of Public Utilities, followed by serving as the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection. In all of these senior roles in state government, he collaborated across government and with communities and the private sector to craft and implement innovative science-based policies around climate, environmental justice, energy, job creation, water, land use, waste management, and grid modernization. Dr. Cash holds a Ph.D. in public policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, a science teaching degree from Lewis & Clark in Portland, OR, and a BS in biology from Yale.