Colin Wilson Elected New PFI
President
Hail to the Chief! In a bipartisan election held in conjunction with
the PFI Annual Meeting, the PFI Board of Directors elected Colin
Wilson to be its new president. Wilson, a Paullina farmer and
fifteen-year member of PFI, takes charge after serving as the
organization’s Vice President. Susan Zacharakis-Jutz, Solon,
became Vice President the same evening, and, incidentally, PFI’s
first female officer.
These two step to the helm at an exciting time in PFI’s history.
Colin writes, “At present I see the PFI board shifting their
energies in a little different direction. In the past we have
focused mainly on grants for our funding, but as we continue to grow
and diversify our organization we are finding it necessary to find a
more reliable funding source for the day-to-day operations of the
organization. Thus the decision to start an endowment fund which
would only support the day-to-day operations like membership
services, the newsletter, office supplies, etc. With this decision
comes the shift of energy for a year or so until we get the
endowment fund under way. This doesn’t mean that we have forgotten
or abandoned the other parts of PFI, only shifted some time and
energy away from them for a while. The amount of time that we have
to shift will depend a lot on how much help we get from the
membership at large. So stay tuned to see where and when your help
is needed.
There are a couple of areas that I find quite exciting in PFI. The
first is the continued diversification in both the membership and
the programs. The whole area of local foods systems opens up a lot
of opportunities for a lot of members whether you are a meat
producer, fruit and veggie producer, or a specialty grains producer.
It is exciting to see the possibilities that spring up as we bring
the food consumers closer to the food producers.
(Colin
Wilson, continued.)
