Paul Aasen has over 25 years of experience in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.  Aasen has served in the public sector as the city coordinator for the City of Minneapolis, commissioner of the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, director of government relations and policy in Governor Jesse Ventura’s office, and assistant commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Paul has also worked for Global Volunteers, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and the Metropolitan Council. Aasen holds a master’s degree in environmental health from the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health.

Shaun Duvall was a Spanish teacher for 20 years, and served over 10 years as owner/director of Puentes/Bridges, Inc. (a project to connect farmers to workers’ families in Mexico) and SJD Language and Culture Services, LLC. Shaun currently provides interpreting and cultural consulting and helps facilitate better working relationships on over 40 dairies in MN and WI. She was the 2008 recipient of UW River Falls Distinguished Agriculturalist, and 2010 recipient of Ohtli award, Mexico’s highest award given to non- Mexicans.

Sasha Gibson, originally from Glossop, Derbyshire, England, has been passionate about swine reproduction since gaining her Master’s Degree in Pig Production from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland in 1998. She works with eight swine veterinarians at the Fairmont Veterinary Clinic in Fairmont MN, USA and her focus is training pig caretaker technicians in sow production with safety principles as an integral part of the process. Linking workers safety to sow farm production is important in the swine industry. Trained staff, fully engaged in safety allows the farm to perform at the best production levels.

She has a green belt in Six Sigma, uses Root Cause Analysis techniques to understand injuries and why they occur, and is a trained internal auditor for ISO 9000 Standards, and Minnesota Council of Quality and Baldridge Standards of Excellence. She has presented at several conferences internationally and in the USA including the American Association of Swine Veterinarians.

Karen Hoare is the Director of Producer Learning and Development at the National Pork Board where she provides support for the association’s information and education programs. She is responsible for pork production workplace performance measures and programs, and for working with pork producers to implement and evaluate programs.

Originally from England, Karen achieved a BSc degree in Agriculture and Environment from the University of Plymouth.  She has had various roles in the pig industry over the last 20 years including, sow and finishing farm management,  training and development and recruiting.

Jan Klodowski is the Vice President of Agri-Services Agency LLC (ASA), an agricultural focused insurance group located in Syracuse, New York. She holds a Bachelors degree in Marketing and Business Administration from Syracuse University and an MBA from Le Moyne College, Syracuse and the Associate in Captive Insurance designation.

Jan sits on the Board of Directors for the Agricultural Safety and Health Coalition of America. Her focus is working with farms to educate and reduce injuries, resulting in lower insurance costs for better net returns.

Jan has published articles in the DFA Leader magazine (2007) Safety is No Accident; and the Captive Review (2008) Farmers’ Union.

Shelly (Keller) Mayer grew up on a dairy farm in Southwestern WI. She graduated from UW-Madison with a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural journalism and dairy science.  She and her husband own a dairy near Slinger, WI. Presently, Shelly is the executive director of the Professional Dairy Producers of WI – the largest dairy producer-led, educational based organization in the country.Read full bio

David Preisler is serving his twenty-first year as Executive Director of the Minnesota Pork Producers Association (MPPA) and Minnesota Pork Board (MPB), where he oversees projects associated with the two organizations that are carried out by the seven member staff at the Mankato-based MPPA/MPB office.

As MPPA Executive Director, Preisler advocates for pork producers and educates public policy makers, as well as other audiences, on pork production and its value. His legislative work takes place at the local, state and national levels. The MPPA is a voluntary membership organization comprised of pork producers, contract growers, farm employees and allied industry.

As the MPB Executive Director, Preisler oversees the management of educational, promotional and research programs that are funded with mandatory Pork Checkoff dollars.

Prior to becoming MPPA and MPB executive director, Preisler worked for the University of Minnesota Extension Service and as an agricultural education teacher. He graduated from North Dakota State University in Fargo, and experienced farming firsthand while growing up on a diversified livestock and crop farm in northwestern Minnesota.

Brian Zaidman graduated from the University of California, San Diego, with a B.A. in Psychology and followed that with graduate studies at the University of Minnesota. Brian has been a research analyst at the Department of Labor and Industry for almost 30 years, focusing his efforts on vocational rehabilitation of injured workers, characteristics of injured workers and their injuries,  safe-patient handling programs, the undercount of workplace injuries and illnesses and improving OSHA log recordkeeping. Zaidman continues to be involved in many collaborations with academic researchers. He is the Minnesota contact person for statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses and the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries.