Shari Bane of COUNTRY Financial had a challenging but fabulous year as chair of the Crop Insurance and Reinsurance Bureau.

“CIRB had a lot of challenges and it was instrumental that we had a trade association with a coalition of partners across the ag industry dedicated to crop insurance and rural America to get through a tough year,” said Bane.

2016 started off with the industry breathing a deep sigh of relief after pulling off a legislative miracle in Congress by getting a reversal of $3 billion in cuts included in the transportation bill at the end of 2015. That miraculous feat was the result of some great hustling by the industry orchestrated by CIRB VP of Federal Affairs Tara Smith, who Bane presented with her Chairman’s Award.

“She really went above and beyond,” she said of Smith. “A lot of the legwork that she had done leading up to that really paid off.”

Bane talks more about her year as CIRB chair in this interview: Interview with past CIRB chair Shari Bane

2017 CIRB Annual Meeting photo album