Brad has been active in NCIFT since he was a student at UC Davis. While in school he served as a Food Tech Club Student Representative to NCIFT and since graduation has served as a Member-at-Large (twice), Nominations Committee Member, and Nominating Committee Chair.  Now at the end of his second term as Member-at-Large, he was just elected to be Executive Secretary for the coming year.

But those on not the only reasons Brad was selected for this honor. Brad cares about NCIFT and food science students, and is strongly committed to participating in every event. He makes it a priority to attend every Executive Committee meeting, including the events in Sacramento and Davis! He has participated in the New Professionals  Career Development Panel for food science students every year since it was started and sponsored students at the annual UC Davis Student Recognition Banquet. He has also served on the Scholarship and Travel Grants Awards Committee for many years.  

 

Over the past year Brad has also volunteered to spend his evenings and weekends working on our By-Laws, which due to recent changes with IFT have required extensive revision. His work experience in regulatory affairs and training in business law has really sharpened his ability to see the fine details that other people would miss. This is a tremendous example of finding someone's natural talents and using them in our volunteer organization. Brad's involvement has provided him with a good overall understanding of how IFT and NCIFT operate, and what the purpose/goals of the organization are. This understanding helps him be very clear about how NCIFT is going to fulfill it's mission statement in his new volunteer project focused on re-writing the NCIFT Operations Manual.

 

To give you just a little more background:

 

Brad has been a home chef and foodie for a long time - at one point the ringtone on his phone was the theme song from Good Eats! His passion for cooking and baking drew him to the Food Science major at UC Davis, after beginning college as a physics major. 

 

During his senior year at Davis, he worked as peer advisor in the Food Science department. Shortly after he started this job, his supervisor left for a few weeks to visit her new grandchild leaving Brad with very little training. His ability to handle matters and quickly learn the job, and parts of his supervisor’s job, was impressive. What was harder for Brad to figure out on-the-fly was what option in the Food Science major he wanted to be. After switching options more times than he can remember, and taking every undergraduate food science course that was offered, it became a running joke that if he took any more classes he would be kicked out of school because he had too many units.    

 

After completing his BS degree in 2005, Brad decided to stay at UC Davis for his MS degree in Food Science. In his Master’s program he worked under Dr. Christine Bruhn, developing an educational packet for persons with life threatening food allergies. He later returned to school and received a Master of Business Administration from St. Mary’s College of California focused on Management, Operations, and Strategy.

 

In his time in the food industry, Brad has worked for Amy’s Kitchen, Clif Bar & Company, and Annie’s, and currently works for Safeway as a Manager in QA Supply. Brad still enjoys cooking and baking and loves trying out new/revised recipes at home to enjoy with his wife Kelsey and daughter Emma.

 

Brad is truly deserving of this honor.