People: Karen Richter new National Pork Board president
Karen Rickter has been elected the president of the US’s National Pork Board (NPB) at a meeting held in conjunction with the recent World Pork Expo in Des Moines, Iowa.
Richter farms with her family in Minnesota on a wean-to-finish operation with 600 hogs and contracts 3,000 gilts through their feeder-to-finish operation. She also raises corn and soybeans on 600 acres. Richter succeeds Conley Nelson, a farmer and pork producer from Algona, Iowa, who will remain on the board’s executive committee as immediate past president.
She is in her second three-year term on the National Pork Board and serves on the Checkoff’s Domestic Marketing Committee and Pork Safety Quality and Human Nutrition Committee. She has been actively involved with the Minnesota Pork Board serving as president and secretary, as well on the local level with the Le Sueur
Serving alongside Richter for the next year is Dale Norton, a pork producer from Bronson, Mich., vice president; and Derrick Sleezer, a pork producer from Cherokee, Iowa, treasurer. The three executive officers will serve one-year terms in their positions beginning immediately.
Dale Norton of Bronson, Mich., is a partner in Kendale Farm, which is primarily a farrow-to-wean operation with 1,450 sows but also finishes about a third of the pigs. He is involved with a cow/calf operation and raises corn, soybeans, hay, peppers for processing and seed corn on more 3,500 acres.
Nationally, Norton is serving his second three-year term on the National Pork Board. He serves as the Pork Checkoff’s representative on the U.S. Farmers & Ranchers Alliance (USFRA) and serves on the Swine Health Committee. Norton is the past chair of the Animal Welfare and Finance Committees and has served on the Pork Board’s Administrative, Resolutions/Advisements and Domestic Marketing Committees.
Norton is a board member and past president of the Michigan Pork Producers and is the chair of the Michigan Swine Health Committee. He is a member of the Michigan Farm Bureau and was appointed by Governor Granholm to the Michigan Ag Commission, serving from 2005 to 2009.
Derrick Sleezer of Cherokee, Iowa, is an owner and employee of Sleezer, Inc., a farrow-to-finish, farrow-to-wean and farrow-to-feeder operation that has 700 sows and markets 15,000 hogs annually. The operation includes 2,000 acres of corn and soybeans. Sleezer also works for Kerber Companies as marketing and product support specialist and safety and compliance coordinator.
Sleezer is serving his second three-year term on the National Pork Board. He serves on the Animal Welfare, Finance and Producer and State Services Committees and represents the Pork Board on the U.S. Pork Center of Excellence Board. He is a member of the 2010 Pork Leadership Academy and an avid Operation Main Street speaker who has given more than 40 presentations, with many in urban settings.
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