Chuck Conner has been serving as a national ag leader in Washington, D.C. for a long time. The Benton County native and Purdue University alumnus has served as President and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives (NCFC) for over 16 ½ years (just more than 6,000 days!).
Before that, Conner served as Deputy Secretary and Acting Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) during President George W. Bush’s administration.
From May 1997 to October 2001 Conner served as President of the Corn Refiners Association. He also served for 17 years as an advisor to U.S. Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana.
Conner is officially retiring on Monday, July 14th.
“I’ve had a remarkable career, and I’m so thankful to my wife for looking after our four children while I pursued a lot of that career. It’s been a good run, and I’m thankful for it,” he says.
He has certainly come a long way from his nearby hometown of Fowler, Indiana—which is about 664 miles from our nation’s capital!
Conner tells Hoosier Ag Today that one of the proudest moments as an ag leader came early in his career.
“When I first started working on farm policy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told every farmer in America how much to plant and how much to set aside,” says Conner. “Young people today can’t even imagine that there was a time when the government told you ‘What, When, and How’, and we’ve reformed all of that over the course of my career.”
“That’s something that began with Sen. Lugar. He felt that farmers really needed to get unshackled, if you will. That began that course of policy change. Today all those controls are gone because of the changes that we were able to bring about. It was highly controversial at the time, but we were successful in making our case,” he says.
What is Conner looking forward to most when he retires?
“My wife and I have four children and now we’re about to have our 11th grandchild, and so much of my retirement is just spending more time with my grandchildren,” he says.
Duane Simpson of Kansas will officially take over as President and CEO of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives when Conner retires. But, the Hoosier native says he still plans to serve in an advisory role with the organization until the end of this year.
CLICK BELOW to hear Hoosier Ag Today’s full conversation with Indiana ag leader Chuck Conner:
