Things were very relaxed here in Reno last night so I sat down with Beef Board CEO, Tom Ramey (l), Cheri Delgado, Senior Executive Assistant and Executive Dir. of Communications, Lynn Heinze to get a preview of what will be going on.

Tom says that this is the beginning of the annual planning cycle for the Beef Board. He says they examine what the priorities are for the coming FY ’09 or as they call them, “planning factors,” which are those items they think will impact the ability to increase demand for beef. He says that one of the things that the producer communications committee will be doing is reviewing agency proposals since the Board brought this important element of the Checkoff in-house.

Lynn has been on board for about 2 months and he says that his first priority was to make the taking of producers communications in-house a smooth transition, something that I have personally found to be the case. He says they’ve added new staff to assist with this effort and that their first paid advertising will start this month in national publications, with some regional inserts starting shortly after that and some radio and tv advertising later in the spring. He says they hope to have the process of selecting an agency to work with complete by mid-March.

You can listen to my conversation with Tom and Lynn here:cic-08-tom-lynn.mp3