Highlights of this morning’s general session at NAMA 2009 included the presentation of the annual Agribusiness Leader and Marketer of the Year awards.
CHS Energy Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Leon Westbrock was named the 2009 NAMA Agribusiness Leader of the Year. Leon is responsible for refineries, pipelines, refined fuels sales, marketing and distribution, lubricants and propane. He joined the cooperative system in 1976 and managed three local cooperatives before joining the regional system. Westbrock was born and raised on his family’s 640-acre small grain and dairy farm near Browns Valley, Minn.
Jon Anderson, President of OPEN ROADS, received the 2009 NAMA Marketer of the Year award. Jon and two of his colleagues created the Milwaukee, Wisconsin, business growth and development services firm, in 2002. Last year, Anderson and his team at OPEN ROADS celebrated their six-year anniversary of the firm. Starting their business with no clients and no business, Anderson has helped grow OPEN ROADS into a highly successful business growth and development firm. Their business now includes 12 clients and a half dozen consulting associates.
Thanks again to Denny Eilers for the photos. We just haven’t been able to be everywhere today – but we are working on getting that cloning done!
AgWired coverage of the Agri-Marketing Conference is sponsored by:
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Ethanol Use on Food Prices and Greenhouse-Gas Emissions,”
Thanks to Denny Eilers for providing me with photos of our Best of NAMA award winners for each category.
The next ones are Best of Show, Public Relations
And then we have Best of Show, Specialty
During our Connection Point session tonight the finalists for the NAMA Student Marketing Competition were announced and here they are.
On of our Best of NAMA Award emcees this evening was Sally Behringer, 
The pre-conference workshop for NAMA 2009 on Wednesday was tailor-made for today’s challenging economic climate. 
Lately, I have been all about social networking. I started my Twitter account in December just to see what it’s all about, and so far, it has been an effective way to communicate with people and market my causes. While I have usually found that college kids are ahead of the curve on most social technology advances, I give the cake to my older colleagues for mastering the art of 140 character marketing. I’m still learning how to utilize my Twitter account to its best potential, and I found two articles by Ron Jones of Search Engine Watch. His Twitter 101 installments have proved incredibly useful in my Twitter learning curve.
I ran across a booklet titled, 
NAMA Chapter Leaders had a workshop then a lunch this morning. 
One of our student NAMA chapters had an unfortunate incident on the way here with a flight and did not make it in time to qualify and compete in the student marketing competition.