He looks very presidential in this photo doesn’t he? He’s Tom Steever, Brownfield and the new President of the National Association of Farm Broadcasting. Tom actually takes over officially on January 1, 2012. However, he has been serving as interim President following the tragic death of Lindsay Hill earlier this year. So that kind of makes Tom the “old” and “new” member leader of NAFB.

This morning I sat down with Tom to have a conversation about the state of NAFB, the convention just held in Kansas City and what he sees for the future of farm broadcasting. When it comes to the membership of NAFB Tom says things are in great shape. In fact, membership is up from a low point a couple years ago. He wants to “see the NAFB continue to be and increase in value to its members. I want people to look at their membership in the NAFB as essential to what they do.” One of the ways Tom says NAFB can accomplish this is to continue to develop professional improvement opportunities in addition to promotional ones since they both will add value to the member’s company bottom line. At this year’s convention I chaired the professional improvement committee and we held five sessions on professional improvement that included smartphone technology, streaming audio/video and video production/editing.

I also asked Tom if NAFB has considered becoming part of the Ag Media Summit since we are seeing so much convergence in all of media today. I know it has been discussed and according to Tom “We keep courting. We keep watching one another.” He says things are working well for the organizations involved both at the Ag Media Summit and for NAFB and its convention. That probably is making it difficult to decide that there should be some formal joining of forces. I like to think of NAFB joining the Ag Media Summit like when the Commodity Classic expanded with the addition of sorghum and wheat grower organizations. Maybe the time just isn’t right yet. What do you think?

Listen to my conversation with Tom in this week’s ZimmCast and learn more about what’s going on with NAFB: Tom Steever New NAFB President

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