USMEF Leadership

Chairman
Jon Caspers
Pork Producer, Swaledale, Iowa
Jon Caspers operates a nursery-to-finish operation that markets 13,000 hogs annually. He is a past president of the National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) and serves on the USDA/USTR Agricultural Policy Advisory Committee for Trade (APAC). 

Since 1993, Caspers has represented the pork industry on the U.S. Meat Export Federation Board of Directors, and serves as vice chairman of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture and the National Pork Board Swine Health Committee. Caspers is a member of the NPPC Animal Health and Food Security Policy Committee, the Swine Identification Implementation Task Force and Co-Chairs its Farm Bill Task Force. An active member of the Iowa Pork Producers Association, Caspers served as state president in 1990.

Caspers earned an associate degree in farm operation and management from Ellsworth Community College in Iowa Falls and has a certificate in agri-management from the University of Tulsa.

Chair-Elect
Jim Peterson
Beef Producer, Buffalo, Montana
Jim Peterson is a rancher-farmer, state senator, educator and business owner who has been actively involved in the cattle industry for his entire life. Raised on a family operation in Montana, he has been involved in feedlot, farming, ranching, agricultural banking and beef industry associations for more than three decades.

Since 2002, Peterson has represented the beef industry on the U.S. Meat Export Federation Executive Committee. In addition, he is Associate Dean of Agriculture for the College of Agriculture at Montana State University and was formerly the executive vice president of Montana Stockgrowers Association and executive secretary of the Montana Public Land Council. He has served on a USDA Agricultural Trade Advisory Committee, is past chairman of the Beef Industry Joint International Markets Committee, served on the National Cattlemen's Beef Association Executive Committee and the Board of Directors of the Montana State University Foundation.

He holds a bachelor degree in animal science from Montana State University, and a master’s degrees from Texas A&M, West Texas State University and Southwestern Graduate School Of Banking.

Vice-Chair
Keith Miller
Great Bend, Kansas
Keith Miller is a Barton County farmer-stockman with a 370-head commercial cow operation. He farms more than 7,500 acres of wheat, alfalfa, milo, corn and soybeans. He is an active Farm Bureau member and has served on the county board, where he was president, and is on the state board of directors. He has served on the Natural and Environmental Resources and State Resolutions committees, and has been deeply involved in policy development, testifying before numerous legislative committees.

Keith Miller serves on a number of boards and commissions in the Barton County area, and was president of the U.S.D. 355 School Board and the Barton County Soil Conservation District. Miller also serves on the board of Midwest Energy Inc. providing power to the Western half of Kansas.

Miller lives with his wife Connie. They have three daughters.

Secretary-Treasurer
Danita Rodibaugh
Rensselaer, Indiana
Danita Rodibaugh's family farm operation produces corn, soybeans, wheat and purebred seedstock swine. She became active with USMEF as a member of the board of directors of the National Pork Producers Council and as a past president of the National Pork Board.

Rodibaugh has held leadership positions in local, state and national pork organizations and is recognized as one of the industry’s experts on environmental issues. She is a member of the Pork Checkoff’s Environmental Committee and the Nutrition Committee, and a former chairman of the Pork Board’s Budget Committee.

President and CEO
Philip M. Seng
Denver
Philip M. Seng oversees USMEF operations worldwide, providing direction for USMEF strategies and priorities in international programs, research, technical services, industry relations and global communications. He also serves as the primary spokesman for USMEF and other exporting interests to government and private entities regarding international trade policy and foreign market development issues related to U.S. red meat products.

Raised on an Iowa farm, Seng joined the USMEF staff in the Tokyo office in 1982, was USMEF Asian director for six years and was named president and chief operating officer in January 1990. He is fluent in Japanese, played a central role in opening the Japanese beef market, is an authority on Japan’s complex distribution system and has worked closely with both industry and government officials in Japan. His marketing strategies and approach to the Japanese market have received critical acclaim in the international business community and served as a case study in the Harvard University Business School, where he has been a guest lecturer on several occasions.

Seng has also been active in a number of other organizations. As the only American ever to serve as president of the International Meat Secretariat – where meat experts from more than 40 nations regularly meet to discuss and resolve issues – Seng served four terms. He also was president of the Japan-American Society in Colorado, and has served on the President’s Agricultural Policy Advisory Council in Washington.

Senior Vice President Asia-Pacific
Joel Haggard
Hong Kong
Joel Haggard oversees USMEF market development strategies and programs for a region that includes South Korea, China, Taiwan, Southeast Asia and Oceania.

Before joining USMEF, he worked for the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service as an analyst in Washington, D.C. and then as the Agricultural Trade Officer for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. In 1988, he joined USMEF as a regional marketing specialist, became director of the Hong Kong office when that office opened in 1989 and was later vice president, international programs. Today, he supervises USMEF personnel and programs through offices in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and China.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in the political economy of natural resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and a master’s degree in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin. He speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese.

Regional Director, Mexico and Dominican Republic
Chad Russell
Mexico City
Chad Russell oversees USMEF market development strategies and programs for a region that includes Mexico and the Dominican Republic.

Before joining USMEF, he spent 20 years with the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service in a variety of posts in Washington, D.C., as Assistant Agricultural Attaché in Guatemala City, as Director of the Agricultural Trade Office in Mexico City and as Counselor for Agricultural Affairs in New Delhi. Fluent in Spanish, he now supervises USMEF personnel and programs in Mexico City.

Russell earned his bachelor’s degree in economics at Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, a master’s degree in agricultural economics from the  University of Minnesota, St. Paul, and trained at the Foreign Service Institute in Arlington, Virginia. 

Regional Director, Europe, Russia & Middle East
John Brook
Brussels
Before joining USMEF to oversee regional operations in Europe, Russia and the Middle East from offices in Brussels, John Brook was managing director of a meat trading company in France, where he worked for 22 years. Early in his career, he was exporting beef and pork from the European Union to the Middle East, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), as well as Africa and Asia. As European Union surplus supplies diminished, his activity turned to international trade, sourcing beef and pork from South America, lamb from Australia and New Zealand, as well as chicken from Brazil. Throughout this time, John regularly attended European Commission discussions during the evolution of the common agricultural policy specifically relating to beef exports and the disposal of Commission surplus stocks.

Before moving to France to join the meat trading company, John lived in London where he worked for seven years as a trader in a sugar trading company. In this position, he traded with and traveled extensively throughout Europe, Russia and the Middle East.

Born and raised in England, John has a degree in engineering and economics from Oxford University. He is fluent in French.