{"id":341,"date":"2017-12-30T19:55:43","date_gmt":"2017-12-30T19:55:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/live-ngra.pantheonsite.io\/?p=341"},"modified":"2019-01-03T19:26:54","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T19:26:54","slug":"presidents-year-end-wrap-up-top-five-for-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/2017\/12\/30\/presidents-year-end-wrap-up-top-five-for-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"President’s Year-End Wrap-Up: Top Five for 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"If it’s New Year’s, it’s time for lists celebrating the highlights of the year. For NGWI, 2017 was big, so listing our top accomplishments is a bit daunting. Of course,\u00a0coming aboard as president<\/b>\u00a0in April was the highlight of the year for me. (Many thanks to Wine Business Monthly\u00a0for including me as one of the “Top People Moves of 2017” in the December issue!) But the year brought many major milestones. Here are my top five (in no particular order):<\/p>\n

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\u25cf\u00a0 \u00a0The USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Grape Research Workshop:<\/strong> Planned with support from NGWI, the ARS Workshop (shown at right)\u00a0in Portland, OR, November 29-30, was the first in seven years. It gathered nearly 100 attendees, including\u00a0ARS Administrator\u00a0Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young,\u00a0who is currently Acting Deputy Under Secretary, Research, Education and Economics, and the nation’s Chief Scientist. Her\u00a0welcome remarks kicked off the event, where ARS scientists shared their work, and\u00a0grape and wine industry representatives\u00a0gave their input on research needs going forward. The theme of “precision viticulture to improve productivity and quality” echoed across all four breakout groups held there, becoming the winning concept for the inaugural NGWI-ARS Cooperative Planning Grant Challenge, announced at the workshop. More on that in 2018.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u25cf\u00a0 \u00a0Community-building:<\/b>\u00a0An NGWI core value is fostering a strong community of\u00a0grape growers, processors, wineries,\u00a0and representatives of government and academic institutions and cooperative extension organizations committed to\u00a0improving the wine and grape industry through research.\u00a0Accordingly, a big part of the year was spent on the road, participating in 14 industry events across the nation, meeting and talking with scientists and industry folks about the research that unites us.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u25cf\u00a0 \u00a0Research priorities refresh:<\/b>\u00a0My last column<\/a>\u00a0focused on our new research priorities. Our top five big ideas plus specific priorities within our\u00a0four research themes<\/a>\u00a0will be ratified at our Board meeting in January then communicated in detail. Research was front and center this year and will be brought to life in the year to come.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

\u25cf\u00a0 \u00a0National Viticulture & Enology Leadership Conference 2017:<\/b>\u00a0NGWI believes strongly in the role of extension and outreach, so proudly supports this important\u00a0annual event. NVEELC 2017 was held April 2-5 in Napa at UC Davis’ Oakville Station, hosted by Dr. Kaan Kurtural and planned with help from NGWI Board member Keith Striegler (E&J Gallo) and Vicky Scharlau (Washington Winegrowers), who had stepped off the NGWI Board to serve as our interim president at the beginning 2017.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The event gathered nearly 50 extension and outreach specialists for professional development, information-sharing and networking. If you work in an extension role, don’t miss\u00a0NVEELC 2018,<\/a>\u00a0to be held in Prosser, WA, May 20-22, 2018!<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u25cf\u00a0 \u00a0Branding<\/b>\u00a0and communications:<\/b>\u00a0It may not seem that critical, but upping our branding-and-communications game was a big focus this year. 2017 brought a crisp new logo, a redesigned website and renewed commitment to a monthly newsletter. These changes help build community, extend research results and broadcast our message to the industry at large.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Many more momentous changes are in store for 2018.<\/b>\u00a0Want a hint of what’s to come? A\u00a0new Board Chair<\/b>\u00a0will be elected at our January meeting.\u00a0Our\u00a0Research Theme Committees will begin work,<\/b>\u00a0forming new projects to address research priorities and advising on others that align with our themes as they receive SCRI and other grant funding.\u00a0And what better way to celebrate our 15th anniversary than with a\u00a0new name?<\/b>\u00a0Approved by the NGWI Board of Directors this month, with adoption to come in the year ahead, the name is currently under wraps. Stay tuned for this and other developments in 2018!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
It’s been a privilege to lead the organization in this productive time, and I look forward to all that we’ll achieve together in the months ahead. Till then, best wishes to all for a happy, healthy new year!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
Donnell Brown<\/strong><\/div>\n
President<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If it’s New Year’s, it’s time for lists celebrating the highlights of the year. For NGWI, 2017 was big, so listing our top accomplishments is a bit daunting. Of course,\u00a0coming aboard as president\u00a0in April was the highlight of the year for me. (Many thanks to Wine Business Monthly\u00a0for including me as one of the “Top […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ngwi-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions\/819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graperesearch.org\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}