|
|||||
 |
|||||
|
|||||
|
Association will leave Virginia for KC Kansas City Business Journal Benjamin Richey has taken a position as the first executive director of the U.S. Animal Health Association -- on one condition: The 109-year-old association will move to Kansas City next year from Richmond, Va. The move will dovetail with a new campaign to promote a corridor stretching from Manhattan to Columbia as a center for the animal health and nutrition industries. The campaign, led by the Kansas City Area Development Council, Kansas City Area Life Sciences Institute Inc. and the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, seeks to raise awareness of what a recent study called the world's largest single concentration of animal health interests. Larry Mark, a spokesman for the U.S. Animal Health Association, said Thursday that the organization will move to Kansas City by next fall. The association currently has only two staff members. But it has 1,400 members, including state and federal animal health officials, veterinarians, livestock producers, professional association leaders, research scientists, representatives of industry and academia, and others associated with animal health. Richey will take the helm of the organization on Nov. 1. As executive director, he will be responsible for expanding membership, coordinating the work of 33 committees and planning the group's 2007 annual meeting in Reno, Nev., with an expanded trade show. Formed in 1897 as the Interstate Association of Livestock Sanitary Boards, the organization originally was concerned with one disease -- Texas cattle fever. Today the U.S. Animal Health Association serves as a national forum dedicated to a broad array of issues, including international trade, animal welfare, public health, food safety, and controlling the livestock diseases that cost ranchers, farmers and consumers about $1 billion a year. Richey, a recent graduate of Purdue University's College of Agriculture, previously was director of communications for the National Institute for Animal Agriculture and an account executive for a Kansas City-based advertising agency. |
Home | Benefits of the Corridor | Outstanding Business Climate | Concentration of Companies | Ground-Breaking Research | For more information, contact: © Kansas City Area Development Council. All rights reserved. |
