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Gail Gordon
ggordon at uwyo.edu |
Gail Gordon is a
Business Development & Family Economics Specialist and faculty
member at the University of Wyoming (UW) Cooperative Extension
Service in Laramie, Wyoming, USA. She serves in two departments at
the College of Agriculture -- the Department of Agricultural &
Applied Economics and the Department of Family & Consumer Sciences.
She grew up in the Republic of Panama, where she attended junior
college before transferring to Wyoming. Upon earning a Spanish
Literature degree at UW, she decided that computers were more her
style. She was a UW computer programmer for several years before
returning to academia to earn a Masters of Business Administration.
As an Extension specialist, she develops programs and teaches
classes in personal financial management, family resource
management, consumer issues, micro enterprise development, and
managing rural family businesses. Prior to her work at the College
of Agriculture, she was director of the UW Business Assistance
Center and a Department of Management & Marketing faculty member in
the College of Business for many years. She also directed the UW
Small Business Development Center (SBDC) and is a certified business
counselor. Gail completed the Western Integrated Ranch/Farm
Education (WIRE) Course in 1999. She has received awards from the
Governor of Wyoming and the U.S. Small Business Administration for
her role in providing educational and consulting assistance to
Wyoming’s business community.
More about Gail.
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John P. Hewlett
hewlett
at uwyo.edu |
John Hewlett is a
Farm/ranch Management Specialist at the University of Wyoming and
Coordinator of the Wyoming WIRE program, as well as Regional WIRE
efforts. He grew up in Washington State, USA, where he worked eight
years (four as foreman) on a large stocker-cattle/crop operation.
John holds a BS degree in Agricultural Business from Montana State
University and a M.S. degree in Agricultural Economics from Oregon
State University. He came to the University of Wyoming, Department
of Agricultural & Applied Economics in 1987. Since then he has been
involved in a number of state and regional extension programs,
receiving three Western Agricultural Economics Association awards
for outstanding extension programs, two UW Cooperative Extension
awards for creative excellence, and one American Agricultural
Economics Association award for professional excellence. John's
current extension interests include integrated management,
enterprise budgeting, financial analysis, agricultural
recordkeeping, and applications of technology in agricultural.
More
about John. |
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Lorne Owen
owenl
at agr.gc.ca |
Lorne Owen has over 25
years experience working with family farm businesses as a business
management specialist in Alberta and BC. He grew up on the present
family farm in Southern Alberta and still has an active interest in
this farm. He holds a Ph.D. in Rural Studies at the University of
Guelph. He enjoys facilitating, consulting, and speaking. He
currently is employed with the BC Ministry of Agriculture Food and
Fisheries where he works with agriculture boards and commissions on
improving governance and decision making. His consulting business
specializes in organizational development and human resource
management; Lorne assists agriculture businesses to increase their
productivity and competitive edge through people. Lorne is the
author of numerous business and management publications including
"The Canadian Farm Employers' Handbooks", "Managing the
Multi-Generation Family Farm", and most recently "Farming with
Neighbours", a handbook on preventing and resolving farm/community
conflicts over farming practices and agriculture resource use. As
operator of a private consulting firm, he provides facilitation as
well as management training and organizational development workshops
to farm, government and agribusiness clients in New Brunswick,
Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. He currently assists a family
business with the management of 12,000 acres of farmland in AB and
SK as part of their advisory board.
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John Reeve
jreeve at seqwater.com.au |
Meet John Reeve from
Queensland, Australia. John has been involved in Agriculture for 25
years, primarily in the livestock industry. He presently serves as
a trainer for a community education program, called Futureprofit,
that focuses on planning for the long-term financial viability for
family farms. John has also served as a financial counsellor,
assisting farm family businesses through difficulties of uncertain
weather and industry changes. Through his work, John began to
recognise that even though credit was a basic requirement of a
business, such acquisition by a farm family could be a threat to the
stability of the farm family. This led John, through a series of
focus groups, to gather opinion on attitudes towards debt. John is
also a member of the Board of Directors of Lifeline, a telephone
crisis counselling and outreach service. Lifeline was active in
supporting farm families during the major drought that pervaded
Queensland in 1998.
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Bill Taylor
Weston
at uwyo.edu |
William (Bill) Taylor
grew up on a small grain and cattle farm in northwestern Montana,
USA. Bill received his B.S. Degree in Agricultural & Industrial Arts
Education from Montana State University (MSU) in 1970 and his M.S.
Degree in Agricultural Education from MSU in 1985. He spent sixteen
years teaching high school vocational agriculture in North Dakota
and Montana and has served as Weston County University Extension
Educator in Newcastle, Wyoming for the past ten years. He completed
the Western Integrated Ranch/Farm Education (WIRE) Course in 1993
and the WIRE Financial Management Course in 1995. He was certified
by the Wyoming Small Business Development Center as a Business
Counselor in 1999. Bill is presently Weston County Chair for the
University of Wyoming Extension Service and Northeast Area
Farm/Ranch/Business Management Educator. His local and area
responsibilities include agricultural and natural resource
education, including horticulture. He also has responsibilities for
youth and 4-H programming and community development. Bill serves as
team chair for the Wyoming Extension Profitable and Sustainable
Agricultural Systems Initiative Team, and serves on the Wyoming
State Extension Coordinating Committee. He has received the Wyoming
Extension Creative Excellence Recognition award for developing and
co-chairing the Wyoming Extension Showcase on Technology in 1998 and
2000, and the Diversity Enhancement Recognition Award for his work
in civil rights. Bill also received the National Association of
County Agricultural Agents Achievement Award in 1997.
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Randy R. Weigel
weig at uwyo.edu |
Dr. Randy Weigel is an
associate professor and extension specialist in the Family &
Consumer Sciences department at the University of Wyoming in
Laramie, Wyoming, USA. He has been at UW since 1987 as faculty and
administrator in the Cooperative Extension Service. He has a BS
degree in psychology from Colorado State University, a M.S. degree
in human development and family life from Kansas State University,
and Ph.D. in professional studies from Iowa State University. Randy
has taught the human resource section of the WIRE course since its
inception. Prior to coming to UW, he worked for Iowa State Extension
and taught techniques for addressing farm stress to Iowa farmers
during the farm crisis of the mid 80s. His current extension and
research interests include personal life planning using the WIRE
model, wellness, leadership development, and human relations in
agricultural families.
More about Randy. |
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