Peer Roundtable Discussion/Ag Issues Panel Discussion

HUH! (Hear, Understand, Hush)
Developing Efficient Listening Skills
This is a proven program for turning effective listening into a powerful communication tool. Managers and other employees spend more than 50 percent of their time listening to other people but often do it so poorly that the result is misunderstood instructions, misdirected projects and erroneous actions—millions of dollars worth of mistakes just because most people don’t know how to listen.

Jan Hargrave teaches meeting participants how to acquire active, productive listening skills and put them to work—professionally, socially and personally.

After completing an in-depth Listening Self-Assessment, participants will learn to:

Good listening habits are an important ingredient to success. People who practice “full body listening” become more efficient in their jobs, establish stronger relationships and usually get along better with other people. Responsible, patient listening is a rare thing, but it is a skill that can be developed with practice. This workshop uses an interactive learning approach with worksheets, role play exercises, and self-tests to help participants assess and monitor their progress.


SHARE: Connecting Through Values(TM)
The landscape of U.S. agriculture has changed dramatically over two generations. Technological advancements and a focus on efficiency have helped improve productivity, control costs and enhance food safety and nutrition. These increased efficiencies have also created a significant gap between consumers and the people who produce their food.

As the voice of the industry, your members have probably experienced this distancing first hand during conversations with uninformed and sometimes hostile people unfamiliar with modern-day agriculture. Perhaps someone has even personally criticized them and their family’s core values as farmers.

The Center for Food Integrity is offering a new program for farmers engaged in the production of meat, milk and eggs – SHARE: Connecting Through Values(TM) – that will equip your members with new tools to confidently engage with all kinds of people in critical conversations specific to animal agriculture.

Sponsored by the United Soybean Board and administered through CFI’s Animal Agriculture Committee, SHARE: Connecting Through Values(TM) is an interactive course that introduces new communication methods to help people engage in meaningful dialogue focused on our shared values.

Participants will:

Charlie Arnot
CEO of Center for Food Integrity, and President of CMA
Charlie Arnot is CEO of the Center for Food Integrity and President of CMA, a consulting company with offices in Missouri, Iowa and Indiana. The Center for Food Integrity is a national non-profit organization dedicated to building consumer trust and confidence in the contemporary US food system.

In his role as president of CMA, Charlie and the CMA team work with companies and associations across the food system to develop and implement sustainable solutions in issues management, public relations, strategic facilitation and marketing communications.
Charlie spent ten years as vice president of communications and public affairs for Premium Standard Farms; he worked for a public relations agency, was an award winning radio journalist and worked in video and film. Charlie grew up in southeast Nebraska and graduated from the University of Nebraska with a Bachelor of Journalism degree.


Jan Hargrave
CEO of Jan Hargrave & Associates
Jan Hargrave teaches you the ways in which your body communicates to the world around you. Her information could help you to “read” your customers, your family, your students, your associates, in fact, everyone around you. Author of Let Me See Your Body Talk, Freeway of Love, Judge The Jury and Strictly Business Body Language, this popular speaker, distinguished educator, talk-show guest of The Lifetime Channel, Fox News, The Maury Povich Show, The Montel Williams Show, Great Day Houston, E-Entertainment Television and The Ricki Lake Show, describes for you all “hidden messages” you use in your everyday life and shows you how to stop the lies and uncover the truth—in any conversation or situation.

Working with thousands in the field of personal growth and self-expression through seminars and workshops for the past 10 years, Ms. Hargrave continues to inspire many of today’s leading corporations, such as Lockheed Martin, Merrill Lynch, Starbucks, Rockwell, ESPN, Sun Life Financial Distributors, Exxon, Chase Manhattan Bank, NASA, El Paso Energy, Bank of America, and at the USA MWR Training and Development Center in Heidelberg, Germany.

Jan received her Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree and Specialist degree in Business/Psychology from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She is presently CEO of Jan Hargrave & Associates, a Houston-based consulting firm, and served as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston for eight years.


Jana McGuire
SHARE Program Manager
Jana McGuire brings wide-ranging experience in video/audio production, writing, media relations, media training, event planning and crisis communications management to the CMA team. She is a veteran journalist and communications expert with background in broadcast news and public relations.

After stints in radio and television news early in her career, she joined the Office of Public Relations at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). She has done freelance work for such clients as ABC and NBC News, and “America's Most Wanted.” Jana hosted an award-winning news program on Nebraska Educational Television and served as an adjunct faculty member teaching professional communication for the UNL College of
Journalism and Mass Communications.

Jana earned her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.


Dr. J.B. Penn
Chief Economist with Deere & Company
Dr. Penn is responsible for analyzing global macroeconomic, policy, and trade developments. Before joining John Deere in August 2006, he served as Under Secretary for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services in the United States Department of Agriculture for more than five years. Dr. Penn holds an undergraduate degree from Arkansas State University, M.S. from Louisiana State University, and a Ph.D. from Purdue University. He began his career with USDA where he held several increasingly responsible positions including Deputy Administrator for Economics in the Economics and Statistics Service. He also served as Senior Staff Economist in the President’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Following his work in the federal government, Dr. Penn moved to the private sector for more than two decades. He was a founding principal and president of Economic Perspectives, Inc., a firm of economic and food consultants that was acquired by Sparks Companies, Inc., a larger firm in the same field where he served as Senior Vice President and head of the Washington office from 1988 until 2001. Dr. Penn is a member of the Farm Foundation Board of Trustees, the International Food and Agricultural Trade Policy Council, the United States Trade Representatives' Africa Trade Advisory Committee, and a Fellow of the American Agricultural Economics Association.


Sara Wyant
President of Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc.
Sara Wyant is President of Agri-Pulse Communications, Inc., a diversified communications firm with offices in Washington, D.C., Little Rock, Arkansas, and St. Charles, Illinois. As a veteran farm policy reporter, she is well recognized on Capitol Hill as well as with farm and commodity associations across the country.

Her newsletter and web site, Agri-Pulse, includes the latest updates on farm policy, commodity and conservation programs, trade, food safety, rural development, and environmental and regulatory programs. She served as 2007/2008 Chairman of the Farm Foundation’s Board of Trustees, is a member of the Steering Committee for the 25 x 25 Renewable Energy Group, and serves on the Advisory Board of the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center at Iowa State. In 2000, she received an Oscar in Agriculture for excellence in agricultural reporting and in 1996, received the United Soybean Board's producer communications award. She is an honorary member of Women Involved in Farm Economics (WIFE).

Sara gained first-hand knowledge of crop and livestock production while growing up on a farm near Marengo, Iowa, and is still involved with her family’s farming operation. She and her husband also own the farm where his grandparents’ originally homesteaded near Almont, North Dakota, and where his brothers still farm, raise cattle and produce honey.