New SHIC Board of Directors Provides Leadership and Diverse Perspectives

The Swine Health Information Center suggests the diverse perspectives of its newly installed Board of Directors will help strengthen its initiatives in disease preparedness, disease monitoring and targeted research. This summer the Swine Health Information Center introduced two new members to its Board of Directors, Alayne Johnson of Shady Grove Farms in Indiana and Sarah Pillen of Pillen Family Farms and DNA Genetics in Nebraska.

The nine member board consists of two members appointed by the National Pork Board, including Dr. Seth Krantz and Alayne Johnson, two members appointed by the National Pork Producers Council including Dr. Jeremy Pittman and Joseph Dykhuis, two members appointed by the American Association of Swine Veterinarians including Dr. Jay Miller and Dr. Paul Ruen and three elected members including Sarah Pillen, Kent Bang and Dr. Pete Thomas with Dr. Ruen serving as President, Joe Dykhuis as Vice President and Kent Bang as Secretary Treasurer.Swine Health Information Center Executive Director Dr. Megan Niederwerder says the organization is grateful to have their perspectives and leadership.

Quote-Dr. Megan Niederwerder-Swine Health Information Center:

This nine-member board of directors provides the governance for the organization including determining the direction and the purpose, ensuring adequate resources as well as providing oversight to the mission and execution of the Swine Health Information Center.When we think about those nine members, they really provide a lot of information from their perspectives about the needs of the pork industry and how SHIC can best fulfil that mission.

One of the aspects of both the board and the staff of the Swine Health Information Center is that we're always looking for input from pork producers, swine veterinarians, other stakeholders. Because emerging diseases is in our mission, we know that that can change over time.We know that tomorrow we could have a disease that we need to be paying attention to, that we need to allocate resources towards, that we may not know today.

I would encourage anyone who has a vested interest in the swine industry as well as SHIC to feel free to reach out to us any time.We absolutely want to hear input and allocate those resources and time where they provide the most value to pork producers.For full details on the work of the Swine Health Information Center visit swinehealth.org.