North Dakota State University

Jacqui Banaszynski worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for more than 30 years, most recently as associate managing editor of The Seattle Times. While at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, her series “AIDS in the Heartland” won the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing. She was a finalist for the 1986 Pulitzer in international reporting for coverage of the Ethiopian famine and won the nation’s top deadline reporting award for coverage of the 1988 Olympics. She has edited several award-winning projects, including projects that won ASNE Best Writing, Ernie Pyle Human Interest Writing and national business, health, social issues and investigative prizes. In 2008, she was named to the AASFE Features Hall of Fame.

Barry Batcheller is president and CEO of Appareo Systems in the NDSU Research and Technology Park. He earned a B.S. degree in electrical and electronics engineering from NDSU in 1977 and received an honorary doctorate from NDSU in 2010. With more than 35 years of business experience and he has been involved in the startup of six companies: IDA Corp., Integrated Technical Systems Corp., Phoenix International Corp., Intelligent Agricultural Solutions LLC, AFS LLC and Appareo Systems LLC..

Batcheller holds more than 20 U.S. and foreign patents on control systems, instrumentation systems and embedded mobile electronic devices, and has written technical papers relating to the use of electronics in agriculture. He has served on the boards of Xata Corporation, MeritCare (now Sanford Health) and the Fargo-Cass County Economic Development Corp. He is a past president of the NDSU Alumni Association Board of Directors, and serves on the boards of the NDSU Research and Technology Park, Amity Technology LLC and Hemisphere GPS Corp.

Rebecca Blue is deputy under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs for the United States Department of Agriculture. She previously was a legislative assistant for then-U.S. Rep. Earl Pomeroy from North Dakota. During her two-and-a-half years with the office, she worked on trade, appropriations and agriculture issues including the 2008 Farm Bill.

Blue earned her B.S. in agronomy and M.S. in soil science from South Dakota State University.

Dean L. Bresciani, NDSU president, brings the knowledge and experience of a nearly 30-year career in higher education. A native of Napa Valley, Calif., Bresciani previously was vice president for student affairs at Texas A&M University in College Station and interim vice chancellor for student affairs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. From 1992 to 1998, he worked at the University of Nebraska at Kearney in positions including director of Residential and Greek Life and interim associate vice chancellor for student affairs.

Bresciani earned his bachelor’s degree in sociology from Humboldt State University, Arcata, Calif.; master’s degree in college student personnel from Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio; and doctorate in higher education finance, with a doctoral minor in economics, from the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Waded Cruzado, president of Montana State University, has reshaped the Treasure State’s first land-grant institution since taking office in 2010. Since 2006, MSU has been included in Carnegie’s “very high research activity” classification, an achievement going to less than 3 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities.

An articulate speaker on the role of the public university, Cruzado is well known for her understanding of the Morrill Act, which created the land-grant university system 150 years ago.

She earned a B.A. in comparative literature from the University of Puerto Rico in 1982, M.A. in Spanish in 1984 and a doctorate in 1990 from the University of Texas at Arlington.

David M. Gipp is president of the United Tribes Technical College, Bismarck, N.D. An enrolled citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, Gipp is Hunkpapa Lakota. Educated at the University of North Dakota, Gipp received an Honorary Doctorate from NDSU in 1990 for his contributions in developing tribal higher education.

Among other posts, Gipp is a past National Indian Education Association board member; executive director, past president and board member of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium; past chair and board member of the American Indian College Fund; and chair of the Indians into Medicine Advisory Council through UND. He is past chair of the North Dakota Association of Tribal Colleges. Gipp also serves on the Native Nations Institute policy advisory board, University of Arizona, and the Harvard Honoring Nations Board of Governors.

Ken Grafton is vice president, dean and director for Agricultural Affairs at North Dakota State University. As dean, Grafton provides leadership for educational programs; manages a budget of $4.2 million annually for educational purposes; and identifies opportunities for partnerships with other colleges, agencies and industry. As director, he is responsible for the management of all research activities of the North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Station, including activities on the Main Station in Fargo, seven Research-Extension Centers across the state and the Agronomy Seed Farm.

A faculty member since 1981, Grafton earned his B.S. in agriculture and his M.S. in plant breeding and genetics from The Ohio State University. He earned his doctorate in plant breeding and genetics at the University of Missouri.

Tom Isern is professor of history and University Distinguished Professor at NDSU. He earned his Ph.D. from Oklahoma State University. He is the author or co-author of six books about life on the Great Plains of North America, including Dakota Circle: Excursions on the True Plains. He is best known across North Dakota for his weekly feature, Plains Folk, on Prairie Public radio. Recipient of five major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Isern also has won the Peltier Award for Innovative Teaching and the Fargo Chamber of Commerce Distinguished Professorship. He is president of the Western Social Science Association and is founding director of the NDSU Center for Heritage Renewal.

Arlen Leholm, executive director of the North Central Regional Association of Agricultural Experiment Stations in Madison, Wis., has conducted research on high-performing teams in the private and public sectors. In 2006, Michigan State University Press published his book, co-written with Raymond Vlasin, “Increasing the Odds for High Performance Teams – Lessons Learned.” His work has influenced improvement of Extension, research and client-linked services of other land-grant university Extension systems in the U.S. and India.

Leholm earned a B.S. in 1970 and M.S. in 1972 from NDSU and a doctorate in 1981 from the University of Nebraska.

J. Bruce Rafert, NDSU provost, is a nationally recognized astrophysicist and the former vice provost at Clemson University, Clemson, S.C.

Rafert’s research portfolio totals more than $9 million in multidisciplinary research activities, spanning industry, state and federal agencies such as the National Science Foundation, National Park Service and U.S. Air Force. Rafert also was chief scientist at the U.S. Air Force Malabar Test Facility and was the founding director of the Southeastern Association for Research in Astronomy Observatory, located at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona.

Rafert earned his B.S. at Case Institute of Technology, Cleveland, and doctorate in astronomy at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Sonny Ramaswamy is director of the USDA’s National Institute
of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). He oversees NIFA awards funds for a wide range of extramural research, education and Extension projects that address the needs of farmers, ranchers and agricultural producers. He has received research grants from many federal agencies, and has published nearly 150 journal articles, book chapters and a book. He was named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the Entomological Society of America and Distinguished Graduate Alumnus of Cook College, Rutgers University.

He earned a B.S. in agriculture and an M.S. in entomology from the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, India, and doctorate in entomology from Rutgers University.

Ed Schafer is a former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture who oversaw a $95 billion operating budget and more than 107,000 employees. As secretary, he restructured 29 agencies to modernize the focus of $285 billion in program delivery and built a new process for implementing the 2008 Farm Bill. He was elected governor of North Dakota twice and also led Gold Seal, an international cleaning and personal care products company, and several entrepreneurial start-up companies.

Schafer graduated from the University of North Dakota with a bachelor’s degree in business, earned a Master of Business Administration at the University of Denver and has been awarded two honorary doctorates. Two statewide organizations have named him “North Dakotan of the Year.”

Steve Stark is a state and national award-winning editorial cartoonist whose work appears in The Forum of Fargo Moorhead. He has illustrated four books and has published thousands of cartoons in magazines, newspapers and other publications. He lives in Fargo and likes to uncover forgotten tales while using his skills as a cartoonist in Illustrated history-telling historical stories while fast drawing those stories in charcoal.

Stark also has performed as Theodore Roosevelt since 1985 across North Dakota and 18 other states including Washington, D.C., and on The History Channel and History Channel International.

He is head writer and performer on the Dakota Air Radio Show that travels across North Dakota in live musical, historical and comedic presentations. The show is broadcast four times monthly on North Dakota Prairie Public Radio.

Douglas L. Steele is vice president for external relations and director of Extension for Montana State University. MSU Extension is located in all 56 Montana counties and five Native American Reservations. He has received the Visionary Leadership Award, Epsilon Sigma Phi, Montana State University Extension, F.A. Anderson Distinguished Service Award, Colorado State University and Superior Service Award, United States Department of Agriculture. He also is chair of the national Extension Committee on Organization and Policy that works to address vital issues of federal funding and strategic priorities.

Steele earned his doctorate in educational human resource development from Texas A&M University.