Awards Program Honors Outstanding Volunteers

Conference Coverage

Awards Program Honors Outstanding Volunteers

By Paul Schrimpf, Marketing and Communications Director

One of the most gratifying elements of the AgGateway Annual Conference is the presentation of awards to volunteers for their exceptional service to the organization. The 2023 awards program was no exception and included a new award honoring the late Ron Farrell. This year’s awards and recipients include the following:

AgGateway In Action Awards

As projects emerge from industry input and meetings throughout the year, our members and member organizations step up to the challenge by dedication of resources and talent. The AgGateway in Action Award, given to an individual or organization from each of our three regions, is presented to those that go above and beyond in pursuit of progress on some of our top priority work.

Udo Kaempf from BASF and Guilherme Panas from Jacto were announced as the Europe and Latin America Region honors in absentia, respectively, at the Annual Conference. Dave Craft was on hand to collect the North America Region award on behalf of Software Solutions Integrated, with AgGateway Executive Vice President/COO and North American Director Jeremy Wilson presenting.

President’s Award

AgGateway President and CEO Brent Kemp presented the organization's President's Awards, which honors exemplary work in service to the organization and its mission. Three recipients from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) were honored, including Evan Wallace, Hakju Oh, and Boonserm Kulvatunyou.


Ron Storms Leadership Award

Named after an early champion and pioneer in the area of systems interoperability, the recipient of this award is chosen among our volunteers for superior and sustained effort on organizational initiatives, as well as overall engagement and enthusiasm for the mission, the members, and the organization at large.

Syngenta's Stuart Rhea, the 2023 recipient, is all this and more. A member nomination called Stuart "a friendly, engaged presence in AgGateway meetings. He is welcoming of newcomers, generous with his time and attention, and is always willing to help bring someone up to speed on what is going on. It’s common to see him huddled with someone at an AgGateway conference, discussing the value or implications of some aspect of AgGateway’s work. He is also relentless in looking to ensure that good solutions are arrived at that support all the stakeholders’ use cases."

Inaugural Ron Farrell Attitude Award

This year’s award presentation was extra special with the addition of a new award to honor Ron Farrell. Among many lifetime achievements in the industry, Ron was a founder of the organization and an inspirational catalyst for collaboration and connectivity until his passing in 2020.

Ron's wife Judi and daughter Kelly Farrell were on hand with AgGateway President and CEO Brent Kemp to present the inaugural Ron Farrell Attitude Award to Ann Vande Lune of Key Cooperative. “Ann embodies the positive, forward-thinking ‘Attitude’ that Ron exuded throughout his career, with a dedication to not only help to build out and implement connectivity solutions, but to urge her trading partners and fellow retailers to follow her lead,” says Kemp.