Bedford – The PA Beef Council (PBC) Board of Directors, led by Board President, David Kearns Jr., is proud to announce Nichole Hockenberry as the new Executive Director. Hockenberry, an 11 year veteran of the PBC staff has served in the Producer Education and BQA coordinator role and most recently served as the Director of Marketing and Communications. Hockenberry will replace Bridget Bingham, former Executive Director.
Kearns said, “Nichole brings experience and a trusted understanding of the Beef Checkoff to her new role as Executive Director. Her unique skill set combined with her knowledge of programming and staff made her an outstanding candidate to fill this position. We could not be more excited to have her lead the PBC team.”
With the announcement of the council’s new Executive Director, the PBC has taken this opportunity to strategically align industry relations more closely with consumer-facing program efforts. As part of this proactive shift in programming, the council named Courtney Gray to lead the effort in the newly created Director of Marketing and Industry Relations position. Gray formerly served as the Director of Producer Communications and BQA.
“On a National level, there’s an increased commitment to sharing the story of beef production with consumer audiences. Combining consumer and industry relations into one role will allow our staff to more closely align with the Beef Industry Long Range Plan” said Kearns.
Media Contact: Courtney Gray at cgray@pabeef.org or 1-888-4BEEFPA.
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The Beef Checkoff Program was established as part of the 1985 Farm Bill. The checkoff assesses $1 per head on the sale of live domestic and imported cattle, in addition to a comparable assessment on imported beef and beef products. States may retain up to 50 cents on the dollar and forward the other 50 cents per head to the Cattlemen’s Beef Promotion and Research Board, which administers the national checkoff program, subject to USDA approval. Internal links within this document are funded and maintained by the Beef Checkoff. All other outgoing links are to websites maintained by third parties.
