ASSOCIATIONS/ORGANIZATIONS:
International Poultry Council, Stone Mountain, Ga.
Delair Bolis, head of the global poultry business unit of MSD Animal Health, Gary Johnson, senior director of worldwide supply chain management McDonald’s Corp. and Jerry Moye, president of Cobb-Vantress were elected to 1-year terms to the executive committee. Meanwhile, Dr. Vivien Kite, executive director of the Australian Chicken Meat Federation, and Robin Horel, president of the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council, were re-elected to the board of directors. Also, Jim Sumner, president of the USA Poultry & Egg Export Council, was re-elected president, and Ricardo Santin, vice president of the Brazilian Animal Protein Association, was re-elected vice president. The committee also reappointed Kite as a member-at-large and Horel as treasurer.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Washington, D.C.
Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, announced plans to leave the agency in June. Taking his place will be Stephen Ostroff, who led the FDA as acting commissioner until the confirmation of Robert Califf as FDA commissioner.Since joining FDA in 2009, Taylor has directed the agency’s efforts to implement the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and nutrition-related initiatives. Previously, Ostroff was named the agency’s chief scientist in 2014, responsible for leading and coordinating FDA’s scientific and public health efforts. He joined FDA in 2013 as chief medical officer in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and senior public health advisor to Taylor.Before coming to FDA, Ostroff served as deputy director of the National Center for Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and as Director of the Bureau of Epidemiology and Acting Physician General at the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

PROCESSORS/RETAILERS/DISTRIBUTORS:
Claxton Poultry Farms, Claxton, Ga.
Mikell Fries was promoted to president, taking over for Jerry Lane, who has been with the firm since 1985, and has served as president for the past 19 years.

The J.M. Smucker Co., Orrville, Ohio
Mark Smucker, president, consumer and natural foods, member of the company's board of directors and fifth generation of the company's founding family, was appointed president and CEO, effective May 1, succeeding Richard Smucker, who has served as chief executive officer since 2011 and co-chief executive officer since 2001. Richard will become executive chairman of the board, succeeding current chairman Timothy Smucker, who will transition to the role of chairman emeritus and will remain on the company's board of directors as a non-employee director. Mark Belgya and Steven Oakland were also promoted to vice chair, also effective May 1. Belgya, currently senior vice president and chief financial officer, will be vice chair and chief financial officer, responsible for strategy, mergers and acquisitions, government and industry affairs and information services. Oakland, currently president, coffee and foodservice, will be vice chair and president, U.S. food and beverage, responsible for the company's U.S. food and beverage businesses, including U.S. retail coffee, U.S. retail consumer foods, foodservice, natural foods, U.S. retail sales and marketing services. Meanwhile, Jeannette Knudsen will assume the role of senior vice president, general counsel and secretary. Knudsen has been with the company for 13 years. David Lemmon will assume the role of president, Canada and international. Lemmon has been with the company for 21 years. Jill Penrose will become senior vice president, human resources and corporate communications. Penrose has been with the company for 11 years. And, Geoff Tanner was named senior vice president, growth and innovation. Tanner has been with the company since the 2015        acquisition of Big Heart Pet Brands, where he held leadership roles for 11 years.

General Mills, Minneapolis
Maria Henry was elected to the board of directors, effective June 1. Henry currently serves as senior vice president and CFO for the Kimberly-Clark Corp., and previously, she was executive vice president and CFO of Hillshire Brands, formerly known as Sara Lee Corp. Earlier in her career, Henry served in various senior leadership positions in finance and strategy at three portfolio companies of Clayton, Dubilier and Rice, and was executive vice president and CFO for Culligan International.

Organic Valley, La Farge, Wis.
Logan Peterman was named agricultural research and analytics manager, responsible for leading organic research initiatives and on-farm data collection and analysis for farm advisory staff, while serving as the liaison to the organic agricultural research community. Peterman has served as farmer resource manager for Organic Valley for the past four years, functioning as liaison to the farmer-owned cooperative's in-house team of professionals in veterinary care, ruminant nutrition, agronomy and animal care. Peterman also serves on the board of trustees for The Organic Center and chairs the board's scientific sub-committee.

AdvancePierre Foods, Cincinnati
Gary Perlin was elected to the board of directors. Perlin’s 40-year career in finance, which included C-Suite roles across the public and private sectors in global and domestic markets, provides a powerful perspective regarding effective collaboration with business leaders and policy-makers. Previously, he was the chief financial officer for Capital One, and prior to that, was chief financial officer of the World Bank, where he oversaw a $300 billion balance sheet owned by 187 member-countries. Perlin sits on boards for Abt Associates, Inc. and State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co., and was an independent director and chair of the audit and risk committees for Avolon Holdings, Ltd.

Clearwater Seafoods, Canada
Dr. Sarah Pilgrim-Morrison joined the global sustainability and public affairs team. Pilgrim-Morrison has been the head of the fishing effort management and acting head of statistics and analysis for the Marine Management Organization, where she established a team responsible for sustainably managing UK fishing efforts, including key shellfish and whitefish fisheries. Prior to this, she was an academic researcher, researching and lecturing on subjects such as stakeholder-led natural resource management. Pilgrim-Morrison will take up her new role on April 18.

Target Corp., Minneapolis
Monica Lozano was elected a new director, effective immediately. Lozano is the former CEO of ImpreMedia, where spent four years leading the transformation of the business into a fully integrated multi-media content company. Previously, Lozano was publisher and CEO of La Opinión, where she expanded Latina newspaper into new markets and pursued product extensions. Lozano maintains more than 15 years of public board experience and has committed much of her time to non-profit organizations, including serving in leadership roles with the National Council of La Raza and as a member of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness and the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board.

Land O’Frost, Munster, Ind.
Chef Timothy Baran was nabbed as innovation chef, working with product development teams to explore the latest culinary trends, test new products and develop new recipes. Over the course of his career, he has created inspired menus for organizations like the American Red Cross and Big Brothers Big Sisters, and served as a sous chef at the Dancing Marlin restaurant, where he managed day-to-day food preparation and assisted with menu, flavor and recipe development and analysis. Baran also has experience as a culinary arts educator, having spent nearly three years supporting culinary instructors and overseeing students at Joliet Junior College’s in-house restaurant.

SUPPLIERS:
Engage Technologies Corp., Brooklyn Park, Minn.
The parent company of Squid Ink Manufacturing, Eastey Enterprises, American Film & Machinery and Cogent Technologies named Jim Mueller as the new director of sales and marketing for small character technologies. Mueller brings 26 years in the industrial continuous ink jet industry. The first 14 years of his career were spent as sales engineer and service manager for a large distributor of coding and marking systems, packaging equipment and labels. Most recently, he served as a sales manager and vice president for a major international manufacturer of continuous ink jet printers. In addition, John Mylrea and David Hanneken join as district sales managers. Mylrea was originally with Squid Ink Manufacturing around its inception, becoming one of the company’s first direct sales people. In the early 1990s, Mylrea was fundamental in selling secondary ink jet fluids and the original SQ/2 print system. After leaving Squid Ink, he worked in the aviation field as a pilot and then as an account manager for an audio/visual design company. Mylrea will be supporting a distribution channel in the upper Midwest, specifically Minnesota, North and South Dakota, a portion of Iowa and Wisconsin and Manitoba, Canada. Hanneken maintains over 15 years in the packaging industry with previous experience managing direct sales staff, manufacturers reps and distributors. In his new role, Hanneken will support distribution in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and part of Kentucky. 

Spiroflow, Monroe, N.C.
Industry veteran Kevin Bowen was appointed member of the strategic advisory board. Bowen maintains a long career in various roles at K-Tron, culminating as president of Coperion K-Tron.

Clearpath Robotics, Canada
Marc Tarpenning, co-founder of Tesla Motors, joined as a member of the advisory board to provide entrepreneurial and technical insight. Tarpenning also co-founded NuvoMedia in 1998.

Omnitracs, LLC, Dallas, Texas
Sathish Gaddipati was appointed vice president of data product engineering, tasked with helping spearhead efforts to build a consolidated Data Lake and Hub for Omnitracs' evolving data products portfolio. Gaddipati most recently served as the vice president of the data services platform for The Weather Channel, where he built what is said to be one of the world's largest data services and analytics platforms on a public cloud, capable of serving more than 20 billion requests per day. With more than 15 years of engineering leadership experience, Gaddipati brings a widely varied skill set, including an understanding and knowledge of enterprise data management, business intelligence, database administration, data integration, cloud computing, big data technologies, Internet of Things, API development and advanced analytics. He has managed a number of global teams, building highly scalable data and analytics platforms at The Walt Disney Co., NCR Corp., InterContinental Hotels Group and Sun Microsystems.