Matt Erickson is currently the Agriculture Economic and Policy Advisor for AgCountry Farm Credit Services, Farm Credit Services of America and Frontier Farm Credit where he provides perspective, insights, and commentary that help connect conditions in the agricultural economy to individual producer impact and resulting impacts to the organization.

Before his role at Farm Credit, Matt accumulated approximately fifteen years of policy and agricultural economic experience in Washington, D.C. Most recently, he served as Chief Economist at the United States Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry under the leadership of former Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS).

As Chief Economist, Matt was responsible for the management of the Committee’s work regarding budget, economic, and policy analysis. Matt advised the Chairman and other Committee members on the status of the agricultural economy, commodity markets, and economic impacts pertaining to the Committee’s legislative priorities. He also led the Chairman’s policy priorities pertaining to commodities, crop insurance, dairy, and grain standards. He helped craft numerous pieces of legislation that included the 2018 Farm Bill, the United States Grain Standards Reauthorization Act of 2020, and legislation relating to COVID-19 relief. Prior to the Senate Agriculture Committee, Matt worked as an Economist at the American Farm Bureau Federation and at the United States Department of Agriculture under President George W. Bush.

Matt holds a Bachelor of Science and a Master of Science in Agricultural Economics from Purdue University. He maintains an active role on the family farm in Brookston, Indiana.

Eric Psota is the Digital Innovation Manager at PIC North America. Since joining in 2021, he has been responsible for developing advanced technologies for digital phenotyping using computer vision and machine learning. Specifically, he specializes in multi-object tracking, pose estimation, animal identification, anomaly detection, real-time systems, and edge computing. Prior to joining PIC, he was a researcher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he remains on the faculty as an adjunct professor.

Steve Malakowsky is the Director of Swine Lending at Compeer Financial. He started as an analyst in 1997 working with swine clients and today leads the Swine Sales team for Compeer. Steve is rooted in the industry, serving as the Allied Industry representative as both a delegate and member of the nominating committee for the National Pork Producers Council.

He presents nationally and internationally on topics regarding the U.S swine industry and is a regular contributing writer for national agriculture publications.

Prior to joining our organization, Steve had 17 years’ experience as a farrow-to-finish owner operator and helped with his family’s dairy and crop farm.

Steve earned his bachelor’s degree in finance from Mankato State University.

Steve and his wife Julie live in Wells, MN and have two sons. Brian and his wife Heather and daughters, Kennedy and Maddie live in Shakopee, MN.  Jacob and his wife Alexis also live in Shakopee.

Matthew Rooda is the Founder and CEO of SwineTech, Inc., where he leads the development of innovative solutions for the pork industry. Through SwineTech’s flagship product, PigFlow®, pork producers are empowered to enhance operational efficiency, optimize resource management, and improve pig care through automation and workforce innovation.

With deep roots in the commercial swine industry and a background in human health and animal agriculture, Matthew is passionate about integrating technology into livestock care. Since founding SwineTech in 2015, he has raised over $12 million in venture capital, expanded operations globally, and earned a spot on the Lemelson MIT and Forbes’ 30 Under 30 lists. Matthew has also participated in the Iowa Pork Leadership Academy and served on the Swine Health and Wellbeing Committee. Additionally, as host of the Popular Pig Podcast, he engages weekly with industry experts to share insights on swine production and innovation.

Abraham Espinoza is an entrepreneur and leader dedicated to empowering farmers with innovative tools and technology to sustainably feed a growing global population. As a founder and Chief Operations Officer of SwineTech, Inc., he has played a pivotal role in developing groundbreaking solutions that improve animal welfare and operational efficiency in the swine industry. Espinoza has led the establishment of an international manufacturing network, successfully expanded SwineTech’s products to global markets, and spearheaded the company’s global customer success efforts.

Espinoza’s leadership and achievements have earned him numerous prestigious accolades. He was recognized as EO National Student Entrepreneur of the Year, Farm Bureau National Entrepreneur of the Year, and Ambassador of Entrepreneurship for the U.S. The following year, he was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list in the Manufacturing & Industry category and was honored by MIT Technology Review as one of the Innovators Under 35 Latin America.

Celebrating 200 Episodes: Join SwineTech co-founders Matthew Rooda and Abe Espinoza as they share the story behind SmartGuard, their innovative solution to piglet crushing, and the persistence it took to bring it to life.

Scott Dee earned a DVM, MS, and PhD from the University of Minnesota, is board-certified in veterinary microbiology, past President of the American Association of Swine Veterinarians, past Chair of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Council on Biologic and Therapeutic Agents and currently serves on the AVMA House of Delegates. After 12 years in swine practice and another 12 years in academia, Scott joined Pipestone Veterinary Services as Director of Applied Research, where he served as Director of Discovery and Innovation for Pipestone for 12.5 years.

Throughout his career, he has been awarded >12.5 M in research funding and published 186 peer reviewed papers, including the initial publications on the proof of concept of PEDV transmission in feed and the transboundary survival of ASFV in feed. He developed the initial knowledge and industry-wide protocols to understand and control Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome Virus (PRRSV) infection at the farm level. The comprehensive application of these protocols has reduced annual PRRS incidence below 10% across the 76 breeding herds in the Pipestone System, the 3rd largest pork production company in the US, over a 3-year period. This is the first report of long-term control of PRRSV in a large-scale commercial swine production system and is published in the Journal of the AVMA and Animals. He received the AASV Practitioner of the Year, the Howard Dunne Memorial, and Leman Science in Practice awards, a Warrior Chip from the FBI, and is a Master of the US Pork Industry.

He has guest-edited a Special Issue on Feed Risk in Transboundary and Emerging Diseases and is currently guest-editing another Special Issue on Biosecuring Animal Populations for the journal Animals. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service to the US Pork Industry Award from the National Pork Board and the Distinguished Service and Research award from the PRRS scientific community and recognized as the Distinguished Research Alumnus by the UMN College of Veterinary Medicine.

Scott is currently retired, and he and his wife Lisa live in Alexandria, MN. They have two children: Nicholas, a medical student at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Ellen, a CPA at Cargill, and Matilda, a 3-year-old Scottish Terrier.

Glenn Argenbright has 30 years’ experience operating and running a variety of private, pre-IPO, and public technology companies. He has founded over a dozen startup ventures, resulting in three public offerings, nine exits, and billions in shareholder returns. His background includes expertise and projects in software, firmware, middleware, hardware, enterprise, SaaS, consumer goods, and Web and mobile applications.

In 2017, Glenn launched Quake Capital, an early-stage venture fund with offices in New York, Austin, Los Angeles, and Cologne Germany (through a partnership with Deutsche Telekom). Quake is now on its eighth fund, with over 300 investments and nine exits across its portfolio. The firm was recently recognized as the second most active funder of female founders worldwide (Forbes); one of the ten most active early-stage funds (Crunchbase); and one of the twenty most active venture funds in NYC (Pitchbook). And, according to published CrunchBase data, Quake is the #1 early-stage fund in the world for diverse founders (2021 Beta Boom Study of over 3,400 global early-stage funds, incubators, and accelerators). All of Quake’s funds rank in the top 20% of venture performance with their latest fund producing Net IRR of roughly 40%.

Glenn has appeared as a guest lecturer at numerous universities and startup events throughout the U.S. In addition, he’s been interviewed for both print and television, with features in/on Barron’s, Bloomberg, Business Week, CNBC, CNN, Entrepreneur, Forbes, Fox Business, Fox News, Inc. Magazine, Wired, and many others.

A native son of South Dakota. Chad Greenway was born and raised on a hog, cattle, and crop farm in Mt. Vernon, SD. He learned the value of hard work, resiliency, and perseverance working daily on the family farm. Growing up in a small rural community Greenway was thrust into leadership positions at an early age on the farm and in the community.

Greenway attended the University of Iowa on a football scholarship. While at Iowa, Greenway was named 3-time All Big Ten and was a 2- time All American. Greenway was on the leadership council all four years of college which is the highest honor voted on by his peers. Greenway graduated with a degree in Communication Studies in December of 2005.

Since his retirement from the NFL in 2017 Greenway has stayed active in the Twin Cities as President of his family’s Lead the Foundation which launched in 2010 and is still active in supporting families and kids across the upper midwest. He has also became Partner with two different companies over the past 5 years. (Gray Duck Spirits, Bankshot Solutions) Greenway resides in Wayzata, Mn with his wife Jennifer and four daughters and is active in training, coaching and being a dad to his girls.

Leadership & Advocacy

Joel Harris is an active member in Iowa’s biotechnology industry through both of his roles; CEO of Genvax Technologies and Executive Director of the Ag Startup Engine. As co-founder and CEO of Genvax Technologies, Joel is leading his team to develop mRNA + nanoparticle vaccines for livestock. The Genvax team is targeting multiple diseases, most notably swine influenza and the foreign animal disease African Swine Fever. This work requires unique and extensive collaborations that Joel has initiated with state and national leaders in the human and animal biotechnology space, government groups such as the USDA Center for Veterinary Biologics and IEDA and supporting stakeholders like United Animal Health, Iowa Corn Growers Association and Johnsonville Ventures. During 2023 Joel will be networking with government leaders to advocate for support for emerging technologies and bringing those technologies to Iowa.

As Executive Director of the Ag Startup Engine, Joel is instrumental in supporting Iowa-based biotechnology companies. Biotechnology companies that Joel has led investments in are Leah Laboratories, Mazen Animal Health, GW Nutrition, Gross-Wen Technologies, Skroot Laboratories and Pyrone Systems. Joel has served on the boards of IowaBio and Mazen Animal Health. He and his father founded Harrisvaccines (a livestock vaccine company later acquired by Merck Animal Health) that still operates in the ISU Research Park today. During his tenure, Ag Startup Engine was presented with the LWBJ Impact Award for the 2021 Prometheus Awards. Joel is deeply involved in the biotechnology industry in Iowa and continues to bring talent, jobs, and new technologies to the state.

Innovation

At Harrisvaccines, Joel applied unique sales and marketing strategies to bring the first mRNA vaccines to market in the animal health industry. At that time, mRNA was referred to as repliconRNA and was delivered via a viral particle (nanoparticles are the delivery vehicle for Covid mRNA vaccines). Harrisvaccines was initially denied a pathway to regulatory approval by USDA and Joel (as the case with many startups hampered by regulations) created badly needed cash flow for the company by providing swine producers with farm specific vaccines without the requirement for regulatory approval. Eventually, Harrisvaccines assisted the USDA in developing the regulatory requirements for prescription-based farm specific vaccines that is currently followed by Merck Animal Health. At Genvax, Joel is again applying innovation to the development of mRNA/nanoparticle vaccines for animals.

After experiencing first-hand the frustration of finding and valuing farm equipment for his corn and soybean farm in Iowa, Kyle McMahon founded Tractor Zoom to better connect good data and investment decisions for dealerships, Farm Credit Associations, Farm Service Agencies, banks, auctioneers, and farmers. In addition to his work at Tractor Zoom, Kyle remains involved in row crop production and swine operations, and has a background in private equity and other entrepreneurial ventures.

Jenna was raised on a diversified grain and pig farm outside of Lebanon, Indiana. Growing up, she was heavily involved in 4H and FFA. Jenna attended Kansas State University where she earned her bachelor’s degree in animal science in December of 2019 and master’s degree in applied swine nutrition in the summer of 2021. Jenna then started with Elanco as a swine account manager in Kansas and Nebraska.

She transitioned into a swine nutritional health consultant role at Elanco in November of 2023 to help support Elanco’s growing portfolio in the nutritional health space. Jenna currently resides near Pleasanton, Nebraska with her husband, Garrett, and two dogs, Dixie and Callie. In her spare time, Jenna enjoys spending time with family, volunteering at her church, baking sweet treats, and lifestyle photography.

Angela was raised on a row crop farm in northeast Iowa, spending her time picking up rocks and working ground in the spring, and driving the grain cart in the fall during harvest. Angela attended Iowa State University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Business with a double major in Economics. Angela started with Elanco after graduation, working on the beef sales team as a territory manager in the Dakotas. She then transitioned into a key account manager in swine, working in northern Iowa and southern Minnesota. Angela went to work for NutriQuest after 10 years with Elanco, spending 8 years supporting the growth of their swine business. With the recent acquisition, Angela is now back working with Elanco as a marketing brand manager supporting the Nutritional Health and Feed Additive brands. Angela currently resides in Clear Lake, Iowa with her husband, Adam, and three children. In her free time, Angela enjoys watching her kids in activities and sports, reading and enjoying the outdoors.