The Dairy Shrine elected new board members and leadership at its annual meeting held October 3, 2022 in Madison, Wisconsin. Newly elected board members were Ashley Hagenow, a student from the University of Minnesota; Jason Johnson, Farm Relationship Manager with Lactalis U.S. Yogurt; and Lloyd Metzger, Vice President of Quality and Technical Service with Valley Queen.
Hagenow represents a new initiative for the organization as the first student to be a part of the Board of Directors. A native of Poynette, Wisconsin, Hagenow is a senior at the University of Minnesota majoring in agricultural communication and marketing with minors in animal science and food business management. A student board member will be elected each year and eventually the board will be comprised of three student members.
“Youth are a foundation of our Dairy Shrine mission,” says Janet Keller, Dairy Shrine President. “It is important that we as an organization stay engaged with the future of our industry. That philosophy was the guiding principle behind adding students to our board and we are looking forward to having Ashley and other students as part of our team.”
Jason Johnson is a fourth-generation dairy farmer from New Hampshire. Upon graduation from the University of New Hampshire Johnson managed many dairies in the U.S. and Canada. One of those dairies was Billings Farm where he rejuvenated the Billings Farm cheese brand. Five years ago he decided to get deeper into dairy processing and started in his current role at Lactalis. Johnson and his family continue to breed Jerseys under the Johnsonacres prefix, and he currently serves on the American Jersey Cattle Association board as director from District 1.
In his role at Valley Queen, Lloyd Metzger is responsible for leading quality assurance, product development, process improvement and process technology teams. Prior to his current role Metzger was Professor and Alfred Chair in Dairy Education at South Dakota State University as well as Director of the Midwest Dairy Foods Research Center and the Institute for Dairy ingredient Processing. He obtained his Bachelor and Master of Science from South Dakota State University and his doctorate in food science from Cornell University.
The new board members replaced retiring board members Dennis Funk, Joel Hastings and Randy Gross.
In addition to the new board members the membership elected a new president and executive committee members. The new president-elect is Jimmy Huffard, a dairy producer from Crockett, Virginia. Huffard will succeed Keller in the president’s role at the 2023 Dairy Shrine annual meeting. In addition, two new executive team members were appointed. They were Jodi Hoynoski, Executive Director, Holstein Identification and member Services and Holstein Foundation Programs manager at the Holstein Association USA, Inc.; and Joey Airosa, owner of Airosa Dairy in Tipton, California.
For more information regarding the Dairy Shrine, visit here.