Barry Carpenter is the Senior Advisor for Regulatory Affairs & Client Relations for Food Safety Net Services (FSNS), a nationwide leader in safeguarding our nation’s food supply. Prior to joining FSNS, Carpenter served for over ten years as the CEO of the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) where he worked closely with government regulators on significant issues facing the meat industry, including new food safety regulations and marketing.

Prior to joining NAMI, he served for nearly 15 years as the Deputy Administrator for the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) where he oversaw commodity checkoff programs. In that role, he also represented the United States on the United Nation’s Committee on Agriculture from 1990 until 2006. He’s received Presidential Rank awards from both Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush which honors career government employees service and was inducted into the Meat Industry Hall of Fame. He is a graduate of the University of Florida.

Bob White currently serves as the Director of National Government Relations for Indiana Farm Bureau where he is responsible for keeping the Indiana Congressional Delegation abreast of INFB policy. In 2017 White was chosen to be on the AFBF farm bill working group whose task it was to help shape the possible outcomes of the current farm bill. This is the sixth farm bill that White has worked on.Bob grew up on his family farm in northwest Indiana and attended Purdue University where he earned both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in Agricultural Mechanization.

Starting out, Bob served a variety of roles in his seven years with the Farm Credit System, achieving professional status as a farm manager and rural appraiser with the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers.

Early in his career, Bob participated in the Indiana Agricultural Leadership Program where he spent two years discussing agriculture and rural policy in the U.S. and abroad at the University of Krakow following the end of communist rule. He joined Indiana Farm Bureau for the first time in 1996 as Director of Natural Resources where he gained experience in grassroots development at the local, state and national levels.

In 1998 Bob moved to Washington D.C. where he served as a senior policy staff member of the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee. Then three years later, Senator Richard Lugar nominated, and President Bush appointed him to serve as the Indiana State Director of USDA Rural Development. In that role Bob oversaw an $8 million annual budget and was responsible for a variety of loan and grant programs which invested nearly $4 billion in rural Indiana during his tenure. During this time, Bob also spent time working in the EU on agricultural issues on detail from USDA.

Later in his career, Bob was founder and CEO of WRW & Associates, a consulting company who assisted rural communities and agriculture producers in changing their paradigm of rural economic business development.

Bob rejoined Farm Bureau in 2012 and became Director of National Government Relations in 2016.

For his efforts in assisting agriculture and rural Hoosiers, Bob was honored with the Sagamore of the Wabash award, the highest honor given to an individual in the state of Indiana.

Bob still owns and manages his family farm. He and his wife, Melina reside in Greensburg, Indiana with their three rescued dogs.

Patricia R. Sheikh is an international trade and development expert. Prior to joining Roots of Peace in May 2018 as Senior Vice President, Programs, she served as the Director of Agribusiness, Trade and Health for the Corporate Council on Africa. In this role, she was responsible for promoting trade and investment in these sectors between the United States and the nations of Africa for member CCA companies. Ms. Sheikh also served as Deputy Administrator, Office of Capacity Building and Development, Foreign Agricultural Service, USDA.

As Deputy Administrator, Ms. Sheikh was in charge of the overall leadership of USDA’s global trade and development objectives and programs and oversaw all programming regarding the implementation of food assistance, trade capacity building, and agricultural development programs. Through her leadership, Ms. Sheikh helped developing countries around the world improve their agricultural systems thereby improving their standard of living and their capacity to engage in two-way trade. Prior to her work as Deputy Administrator of the Office of Capacity Building and Development, Ms. Sheikh was the Deputy Administrator of International Trade Policy, the World Cotton Coordinator, and a Trade Analyst at the Office of Foreign Economic Policy.

Ms. Sheikh holds a B.A. in History and Political Science with a minor in Economics from Notre Dame of Maryland University and an M.A. in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. She is a former member of the General Administration Board at the USDA Graduate School, served as an Advisory Board Member for the Department of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences at Tuskegee University, The German Marshall Fund and Leadership Africa. Ms. Sheikh joined the Roots of Peace Board of Directors in October 2014. She currently serves on the Advisory Council of the Millennium Challenge Corporation.

Ms. Sheikh has numerous awards acknowledging her accomplishments, including the Presidential Meritorious Executive Award and the Presidential Rank Award.

Hawks is an American politician, former civil servant, agricultural businessman, and founder and CEO of AgWorks Solutions, LLC. He graduated from Mississippi State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural economics. He procured a Master of Science in the same field from the same university. Hawks started farming after finishing graduate school by owning and operating a dairy in DeSoto County in far northwestern Mississippi. He then began to lease land from neighbors to get started in a row crop operation, often doing custom work for others. Over the years, this evolved into a multi-faceted operation.

Hawks was the managing partner of Hawks Farming, which farmed approximately 12,000 acres of land in three counties in northern Mississippi. This operation consisted of soybeans, double-cropped winter wheat, corn, cotton, and cattle. In the late 1980s, Hawks was a part owner in a professional farm management company, Sunbelt Land and Timber Company, Incorporated.

In December 1994, Hawks was elected to the Mississippi State Senate, representing DeSoto County. During his five years as a state senator, he was a leader on the committees with jurisdiction over agriculture and the environment. In 1999, he was the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi.

On May 24, 2001, during the George W. Bush administration, Hawks was sworn in as the Undersecretary for Marketing and Regulatory Programs by United States Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman. Hawks served until 2005.

Throughout his career, he has been active in many agricultural boards and committees such as American Farm Bureau Federation, American Soybean Association, the National Corn Growers Association, and many state and local organizations.