Advisory Council Members

An important part of the Northeast Center for Risk Management Education is our Advisory Council. This committee is composed of six members, each with different experience and expertise, and each from a different part of the region. The members assist in setting educational priorities for the region, and play a critical role in the evaluation of proposals and awarding of grant funds.

Joanna Lidback

Director, Knowledge Exchange
Farm Credit East, Enfield, CT

Joanna Lidback is the Director of Knowledge Exchange for Farm Credit East.  Knowledge Exchange is responsible for delivering timely market and economic information in a useable way to Farm Credit East’s members. Joanna also authors the Northeast Dairy Farm Summary, a study of the financial health and progress of dairy farms from New York, New Jersey and New England. 

Prior to her role at Farm Credit East, Joanna was a consultant for Stax, Inc., a consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass. She started her career with First Pioneer Farm Credit, a predecessor organization, as a loan officer in the Bedford, N.H. office.  Joanna obtained a B.S. in Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University and an M.B.A. from the F.W. Olin School of Business at Babson College.

Volunteer work for Joanna includes the New England 4-H Dairy program and Farm Bureau. She recently served on a taskforce for the American Farm Bureau, developing policy recommendations for the organization's consideration regarding the Federal Deficit. Joanna is a graduate of the Partners in Agricultural Leadership program and the Young Dairy Leaders Institute. She and her husband have a small herd of Jersey and Holstein dairy cattle in northern Vermont.

Carrie Novak

Farm Loan Chief
USDA-Farm Service Agency, Amherst, Massachusetts

Carrie Novak is a Farm Loan Chief for USDA-Farm Service Agency, serving Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. On June 4th, 2009 she celebrated her 30th year of working for the Department of Agriculture.  As a Farm Loan Chief, she oversees the agricultural lending for the Farm Service Agency with a portfolio of $47 million in outstanding direct loans and $52 million in guarantee loans. Part of the duties of a Farm Loan Chief includes providing training to FSA employees, oversight and internal controls, outreach and writing State Instruction.  At the present time, she is also serving as the Acting State Executive Director for Rhode Island Farm Service Agency.

Ms. Novak is a regional representative for the National Farm Loan Chiefs Association.  For the past 5 years, she has been a volunteer income tax counselor for the AARP.

Karen Powell

Ag Risk Management Specialist
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture

Karen Powell grew up on a northeast family farm and worked at several vineyards while putting herself through college. As a graduate from Cornell University with a degree in Agricultural Economics, she worked for the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation as a field underwriter for ten years. As a field underwriter she worked on setting up crop insurance programs throughout the northeast, helping to establish rates, price elections, training, as well as serving on taskforce details to write policy and procedure. Crop insurance was in the midst of expanding existing crops to new counties as well as expanding into new crops.

When the regional crop insurance office was relocated from Harrisburg, she worked for the Natural Resource Conservation Service as the State Economist on the Water Resources staff for five years. As the state economist it was essential to make “Sense” and “Cents” out of conservation practices while providing cost benefit analysis in order to implement the most cost effective conservation practices.

Having worked on the federal level to implement, tailor and expand crop insurance policies and procedures for northeast producers, it was a natural transition to join the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture in January 2006 as an Agricultural Risk Management Specialist. This position has enabled her to continue working with new crop insurance initiatives as well as coordinate the State Crop Insurance Education Program.

Karen is excited about what Pennsylvania has done and continues to do to tailor the risk management program to better meet the needs of the state (and northeast) and is passionate about educating producers to enable them to choose the right risk management tools to meet their needs.

Michael Sciabarrasi

Ag Business Management Extension Specialist
University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire

Mr. Sciabarrasi is an Extension Professor of Agricultural Business Management at the University of New Hampshire Cooperative Extension in Durham, New Hampshire. Michael has held the Agricultural Business Management Extension Specialist position at the University of New Hampshire since 1980. He works with farm families and other natural resource based businesses, as well as providing statewide leadership for educational programs, in the areas of production economics, agricultural finance, risk management, estate and succession planning, and general business operations. Michael regularly cooperates with colleagues from other states to plan, coordinate and present at New England and Northeast conferences and seminars. Over the past six years, he has served as the Project Director for the cooperative agreements with the FCIC Targeted States Programs in New Hampshire.

In addition to Cooperative Extension responsibilities, Michael currently teaches an undergraduate course, Business Management for Natural Resource Based Firms, in the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture (COLSA). In the past he has also taught Farm Business Management and Agribusiness Finance in COLSA.

Mr. Sciabarrasi holds a BS in Animal Science from the University of Massachusetts and an MS in Agricultural Economics from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). In 2006, he was presented with the University of New Hampshire Presidential Award of Excellence for outstanding dedication and service.

Mary Staak

Risk Management Specialist
USDA Risk Management Agency, Raleigh, North Carolina

Mary Staak is a 1978 graduate of the University of Georgia in the field Agricultural Science. She was inspired to study agriculture after her employment in horticulture therapy with developmentally delayed adults at Georgia’s Gracewood State School and Hospital.

Mary began her work with the Risk Management Agency (RMA/USDA) in August 1979 and focused on expanding the fruit tree crop insurance programs. In 1990 Mary left RMA to care for her infant daughter, Sarah. During this five year period, Mary became an avid “knowledge junkie” in the field of early childhood development.

Returning to a professional career in 1996, Mary spent ten years as a program evaluator for North Carolina’s Smart Start early childhood program. She worked as a self-employed independent evaluator and was contracted by non-profit early childhood partnerships throughout North Carolina to provide program monitoring, evaluation, reporting and training. She concluded her work in early childhood as program evaluator for the Director of the North Carolina’s Division of Child Development.

Mary returned to agriculture in October 2009 and currently works as a Risk Management Specialist for RMA in the Raleigh Regional Office providing substantial involvement and oversight for RMA’s cooperative educational agreements.  Mary has observed significant changes in the field of agriculture during her career and is encouraged by the re-emergence of small farms, the increases in organic food production and the trend towards “local foods.” She is currently completing her Master’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University. Her daughter is now in her second year of college.

Brennan Starkey

President
Starkey Farms Company, Galena, Maryland

Mr. Starkey is President of Starkey Farms Company, a fourth generation vegetable and grain operation located in the northern portion of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Specializing in spinach with one thousand acres grown, the farm also produces a variety of vegetable crops for the processing industry. Mr. Starkey graduated from Middlebury College in 1987, and then served two years in the Peace Corps (West Africa) before returning to the family farm. Mr. Starkey is particularly interested in supporting risk management tools that can reduce the volatility created by wide swings in input and sale prices, as well as the transition of the farming operation and assets from one generation to the next.

News

• 2012 Women in Agriculture Educators National Conference  More >>
• 2012 Request for Applications is closed.
• 2011 Competitive Grant Awards
• 2011 Extension Risk Management Education National Conference Proceedings, St. Louis, MO More>>
• Review the 2010 National Women in Agriculture Educators Conference Proceedings More »

Links