I am truly honored to serve as the president of ARPAS for the coming year and look forward to working with the other officers, directors, and committee members.  Thanks to John Bernard for his service as ARPAS president for the past year.

Congratulations to our newly elected officers (Al Kertz -- President-Elect; Mo Bakke – Secretary; Dana Tomlinson – Treasurer; Patrick French – ACAS President) and Directors (Dwight Roseler – Midwest; Tom Hickley – Northeast; Heidi Rossow – West; and Daniel Rivera – Southern).  I look forward to working with them and other members of the Governing Council over the next year.  Thanks to the outgoing officers and to those that were willing to run for office for their service to ARPAS.

I am happy to report that David Beede was selected to serve as the new editor-in-chief of The Professional Animal Scientist (PAS). Dave is retiring from Michigan State University at the end of the year and will begin his new role as editor-in-chief in January. We are looking forward to working with Dave to grow PAS. During the interview process, the executive committee was presented with many new ideas for the journal by the candidates, and we are looking forward to addressing these as they will help us make PAS a better journal for our members as well as potentially help recruit additional members.

This time of year brings about the USDA Prospective Plantings report. This report describes how many acres of each crop will be planted and, pending no major weather events, harvested. This report is among the likes of our organization as members work together not only to develop ways to support existing members but to strategically devise plans to plant seeds of organizational growth of ARPAS. We are all set to gather at our ARPAS annual meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, at the ASAS–CSAS annual meeting, where we will review activities of the past year and discuss avenues of change that will allow us to further enhance our professions through ARPAS membership.