Current Leadership

ARPAS Midwest Director: Randy Walker
Midwest Chapter President: Aaron Park 
Midwest Chapter President-Elect: Rick Bonander
Midwest Chapter Past President: Bruce Arentson
Midwest Chapter Secretary-Treasurer: Wendy Flatt 
Midwest Chapter Directors: Phil Krueger, Chad Risley, Joe Wolf, Jim Edwards, Bob Coleman, Elizabeth Marvel, and Stephanie Wisdom 

The Midwest ARPAS chapter has been abuzz with chapter activities and growing chapter membership (272 members) in 2017. We have interacted with members and potential members alike at six conferences/symposia this year. Our year starts in March with sponsorship at the Midwest Animal Science meetings in Omaha, Nebraska, followed by Tri-State Dairy Nutrition Conference in April at Fort Wayne, Indiana. Next, we have the Equine Science Symposium in May-June, and then we are at the Four-State Dairy Nutrition Conference in Dubuque, Iowa, in June, and we round out the year at the Minnesota Nutrition Conference in September. This past year, we added our capstone conference of the Professional Development Conference for Entrepreneurs ahead of the Minnesota Nutrition Conference. Attendance was superb for our first conference, with nearly 30 people participating in our half-day session (see photo). At the Minnesota Nutrition Conference, the ARPAS Midwest Chapter sponsored the second annual Graduate Student Poster contest with 15 participants from three states represented. We are excited about the upcoming year with our second Professional Development Conference for Entrepreneurs and a new strategy of pairing board members both seasoned and new in each conference committee to help ensure our group’s continual commitment to the activities.