June 17, 2008

Neufville Elected ACDI/VOCA Chairman

At the June 17 meeting of the ACDI/VOCA board of directors in Washington, D.C., Mort Neufville, executive vice president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC), was elected chairman of the organization.

Until then, Mr. Neufville had chaired the Projects Committee of the board, and in that capacity had invigorated the board’s oversight of ACDI/VOCA’s programming, instituting annual overseas visits to review projects. He has served on ACDI/VOCA’s board since 2002 (see photo on left of Neufville visiting ACDI/VOCA's Coffee Alliances for the Expansion of Specialty Coffees (CAFES) project in Colombia).

Mr. Neufville’s successor as chairman of the Projects Committee is Bruce Johnson, a director of Southern States Cooperative and general partner of Cohoke Farms in King William and King and Queen Counties, Virginia. He has participated in each of the board’s three overseas trips.

Until becoming NASULGC’s executive VP, Neufville led federal relations activities and coordinated the organization’s work related to agriculture, natural resources, environmental affairs, human sciences, forestry and international affairs. He is a former executive, in several positions, of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, where he was involved in various international development programs in Africa. He also served as chairman of the board of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, one of the Centers of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research.

As ACDI/VOCA’s chairman Mr. Neufville succeeds Vern McGinnis of Bloomington, Ill., the former vice president of strategic planning and corporate services for GROWMARK, Inc., who retired from that firm last year. Upon McGinnis’s retirement, GROWMARK named James K. Hoyt as its representative to the ACDI/VOCA board effective June 17.

Mr. Neufville’s first act was to preside over the unanimous passage of a resolution commending Mr. McGinnis for his stalwart service to the organization. McGinnis had served on the ACDI/VOCA board since 1999, though he also served from 1986 to 1993 on the predecessor ACDI board. He chaired the Audit Committee before being named ACDI/VOCA chairman in 2005.

During his tenure, ACDI/VOCA has grown steadily, focused its programming, diversified its funding base and increased corporate reserves. In his valedictory McGinnis said, “Frankly, I have never seen the organization better positioned than it is today.”