WTO Listening Session
Des Moines, Iowa
July 12, 1999
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| SECRETARY JUDGE: I think it's my turn. Good
morning. Welcome to Iowa. To our out-of-state visitors, we're pleased that you're here to
join us today as we undertake what we all know is some very, very important work. I would
like to this morning first of all introduce to you the Governor of the State of Iowa,
Thomas J. Vilsack. Governor Vilsack. I think he's going to speak this afternoon. Why don't
you stand up, and everybody give him a hand. We're very pleased that the governor took
time out of his busy schedule to join us this morning. Again, it shows the understanding
that we have here in Iowa about the importance of agriculture and international trade of
products. We have a lot of distinguished visitors, and I'm going to try to go through the list very quickly. I'm not going to introduce the people that will be speaking, and we'll give them an opportunity later, but there are other people in the audience that do need to be introduced, and so if you'll hold your applause, we're probably going to get quite a few of you up. So why don't you just stand and remain standing, and then we can give everybody a round of applause at one time. From Washington, D.C., Tom Grau who is really from Iowa but he says he's from Washington, D.C., the Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture. Tim Galvin, Administrative USDA. Barb Leash (phonetic), Deputy Administrator for Policy, USDA. Paul Theil (phonetic), Administrative Division Chief, U.S. State Department. Steve Nupp (phonetic), Senior Economist for Ag Service, STR. Anita Regimee (phonetic), FAS. And Larry Morandi, National Conference of State Legislators. All of those folks have come from Washington to visit with us. Let's give them a round, please. And now from the states we have Ollie Ridley (phonetic) who is from Colorado who is FSA State Provision Chairman. From here in Iowa Richard Johnson, our state auditor. Brent Halling, somebody that you all need to know and you'll get to know before the day's over. Brent is the Deputy Secretary of Agriculture here in Iowa. Bob Soukup, Iowa's FSA director. Ellen Huntoon, USDA State Director. Allen Patch, U.S. Department of Commerce. John Mooreland, who is the administrative assistant to Senator Tom Harkin who is unable to be with us today. Gary Grant, administrative assistant to Congressman Jim Leach. Joe Hueber, administrative assistant to Congressman Jim Nussel. And we have a number of state legislators here with us. Those -- and I may get some of you in the wrong state, so please bear with me here, but I'll try to get all of you. Someone that is known well to me, and I think very highly of the gentleman, State Senator John Judge. Senator Jack Kibbie, Senator Betty Soukup, Senator Lyle Zieman, State Representative Tom Badler (phonetic), Representative Ethel Lee Boggess, Representative James Drees, Representative Sandra Greiner, Representative Norm Mundie, Representative Delores Mertz, Representative Marci Frevert. I think that's all of the Iowa representatives. Do you want to give them a hand for me, please. Now, we have got some from out of state too, and we're really pleased that you're here with us. We have from Kansas Representative Joann Flower, Senator Janice Lee, Representative Wayland (phonetic), and Representative Sharon Schwartz from Kansas. Would you give those folks a hand, please. We have a Nebraska visitor, Senator -- or excuse me, Representative Ted Winter. From Missouri we have several folks. I'm going to introduce all of the Missouri visitors together. You see when you get over 50 what you have to do with these papers? They get farther and farther out even if you're wearing your glasses. Brad Epperson who is Director of FSA in Missouri. Boy, I'm going to murder this one. Takayoshi Kondo, Consulate General with Japan in Kansas City; Jeff Wolster (phonetic) of DIC in Kansas City; Morris Westfall, State Senator; State Representative Esterl Robirds; and State Representative Merrill Townley; and representing Governor Bill Graves is Janey Adams. Would you all give those folks a hand. We're very pleased that we did have a couple of visitors come over from South Dakota to join us today. State Senator Frank Kloucek and State Representative Roland Chicoine. Good to see both of you this morning too. If I missed any elected officials or representatives of elected officials, do you want to stand up and tell us? If not, we'll say my staff did a great job of assembling all those names. AUDIENCE MEMBER: I'd like to introduce two of my good friends. LeRoy Brown from the U.S. Conservation Office. I'd like to introduce my other good friend from Kansas, a good friend of Secretary Glickman, FSA's Adrienne Palansky (phonetic). |
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