The winter leadership council meeting covered a wide range of topics related to chapter business and events. In attendance were John Martin (chapter president), Marit Arana, Andy Riordan, Stacy Tsang, Gabriella Acetoze, Jim Oltjen, Dave Ellis, Matt Kelly, Kevin Leahy, Peter Williams, and Renee Smith.

The California chapter uses our scholarship program for student outreach and to create awareness. Arana has been the lead on this program and continues to reach out to faculty at the western US agricultural colleges and universities. We have consistently awarded over $5,000 in scholarships at the fall CEC.

Our spring membership meeting will be a breakfast meeting from 7:30 to 9:00 am on May 10, 2017. This meeting is held the morning of the first day of the California Animal Nutrition Conference. All chapter members are encouraged to attend.

On August 24 we will be having our Bang 4 Your Buck fundraiser at the Kingsburg Gun Club. This has grown into an event that the California industry looks forward to every year. We need to keep mentioning that Andy Riordan has contributed countless hours to this event. It is a chapter event, very much spearheaded by Riordan. Be sure to plan on being in sunny California for this event.

Our fall CEC is set for October 25 to 26 at Harris Ranch in Coalinga, California. This year’s topic will be in relation to Discover Conference 33—Integrated Solutions to Fiber Challenges, being held in September. Our chapter is taking some of the topics from the Discover Conference and having some of the speakers expand the talks to fit the title “Chew on This: Another Look at Fiber Digestion.”