Susan Zacharakis-Jutz Elected PFI President

Hope and enthusiasm mark Susan Zacharakis-Jutz’s PFI Presidency. It’s an office she assumed on January 19, 2002, following a unanimous election by the Board of Directors. She succeeds Colin Wilson who fulfilled a two-year term as President while Susan was Vice-President. Also elected on January 19, Mark Tjelmeland is now Vice-President.

Colin Wilson’s work included sorting out PFI’s endowment affiliations, grappling with the voting rights issues for PFI members, and, perhaps most notably, hiring Robert Karp as PFI’s first Executive Director. Wilson received a tribute for his service at the PFI Annual Meeting in Ames on January 19. He continues to be an active PFI member and an advocate for sustainable agriculture.

Like her predecessor, Susan juggles multiple demands of family and farm, along with PFI leadership. She and her husband Jeff farm in Solon with their four children. They are partners in Local Harvest CSA and daily milk a commercial dairy goat herd. They are actively involved in home schooling, on-farm research, church and 4-H. Susan says that she could not take on the leadership of PFI without the support of her family. And she has taken it on with gusto.

“When we look around us, the statistics are frightening. Farmers are going out of business at an alarming rate. Yet glimmers of hope are on the horizon. Mark Ritchie alluded to that at PFI’S 2002 annual meeting. There’s a turning point in agriculture. Things are changing in the political climate of Iowa. Even ISU is looking at issues that it wasn’t 5-10 years ago. In the midst of all the bleakness, there’s hope. Practical Farmers of Iowa represents that hope.

People – whether farmers or consumers – need to support us. PFI staff wouldn’t have stuck with it so long if they hadn’t been passionate about what the organization represents.”