Presenters
Jimmy Daukas has been with American Farmland Trust since 1997 handling senior project management, communications and marketing responsibilities. In his current position, Daukas oversees AFT's campaign to transform U.S. agriculture policy to provide a better safety net, enhance conservation, improve rural development and expand access to healthy foods. Daukas coordinates efforts throughout the organization including policy research and design, alliance building, legislative and communications. Prior to the campaign, he oversaw activities in the following areas: communications (publications, media relations and electronic communications) and marketing (consulting services).
Before AFT, Daukas was director of marketing and later acting vice president of marketing and communications for Earth Force, a children's environmental action organization. In those roles, he had responsibility for strategic planning, direct response communications, database management, revenue-generating projects and budgeting.
Prior to that, Daukas was vice president of marketing for Working Assets, a San Francisco-based company offering innovative, donation-linked services that raise money for nonprofit organizations. Prior to Working Assets, he was a product manager at MCI Telecommunications.
Daukas holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Middlebury College and an MBA and Masters of Public Management from the University of Maryland.
Mark Muller is director of the Environment and Agriculture Program at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. The program addresses environmental concerns through the development of regional food systems, the emerging bioeconomy, and improved agricultural cropping systems. The challenges and opportunities in the forthcoming Farm Bill have been a focus of much of Muller's recent work. He has worked at IATP for nine years. Prior work experience includes positions as an environmental engineer, high school science teacher, and farm hand. Muller holds a master's degree in environmental engineering.
Rich Pirog has been with the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University since 1990; for the past six years he has been Program Leader for the Center's Marketing and Food Systems Initiative. Pirog also served as part-time associate director for Practical Farmers of Iowa in 2003 to spring of 2004. Currently Pirog is the project director for the Value Chain Partnerships for a Sustainable Agriculture (VCPSA) project, a collaboration with Practical Farmers of Iowa and Iowa State University. Pirog leads the Regional Food Systems Working Group, one of four VCPSA working groups. He also serves on the Iowa Food Policy Council.
Pirog's work on food miles, ecolabels, and place-based foods has been cited in magazines and publications across the United States and is used in college courses that focus on food systems and sustainable agriculture. In 2003, he received the Iowa Sustainable Agriculture Achievement Award from Practical Farmers of Iowa, and in 2004 he received the Iowa State University College of Agriculture Award for Outstanding Achievement and Service.
Patty Cantrell developed and directs the Michigan Land Use Institute's innovative Entrepreneurial Agriculture Project, which is designed to enrich communities with good jobs, great food, and green spaces by building support for community-based food systems. In northwest Michigan, the project's Taste the Local Difference effort includes local food marketing, farm-to-cafeteria programming, and business development activities. Ms. Cantrell grew up on a farm in the Missouri Ozarks, earned a Fulbright Scholarship and bachelors degree in economics, and holds a masters degree in business administration. She was a business reporter for a daily newspaper and magazines before
joining the private, nonprofit Michigan Land Use Institute in 1998. More at http://www.mlui.org/ and http://www.localdifference.org/.
Dr. Ginni Ishimatsu (Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley) is Associate Professor of Hindu studies in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Denver, specializing in South Indian temple ritual traditions. She has authored articles in journals such as Contributions to Indian Sociology and Journal of Oriental Research and has collaborated on a critical edition and annotated translation of the Kriyakramadyotika (Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, forthcoming in 2008), a medieval Sanskrit ritual text used in contemporary South India. Dr. Ishimatsu has also written "Between Text and Tradition: Hindu Ritual and Politics in South India," a book manuscript under review by RoutledgeCurzon Press, and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion.
Dr. Ishimatsu teaches courses on South and East Asian religions, as well as topical courses on the relationship between food and religion, ritual theory, and South Asian religion and politics. In Spring 2006, Dr. Ishimatsu received the William T. Driscoll Master Educator Award at the University of Denver. She is currently the undergraduate advisor for Religious Studies and the director of the Asian Studies program.