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Talking Strategy old friends are the best friends By OCA’s Former Executive Director Jerome Rosa
Six years ago, I had the opportunity to become your
Executive Director at the Oregon Cattlemen’s Association. Ray Sessler was the OCA President at the time and after I was hired, I spent countless hours with Ray discussing our goals for OCA and strategizing about how we could strategize to accomplish these goals. Ray and his beautiful wife, Bonnie, have both become great friends of mine and I will forever be grateful of their hospitality and support over these past few years. The historical accomplishments of this association are many for Oregon ranchers and Oregon’s cattle industry, but when I came on board there was of course more work to be done, just as there is today and into the future.
july/august 2020
One of my first assignments as director was to hit the road running and introduce myself to the membership and industry leaders across the state. During my first year in the position, I drove over 35,000 miles while crisscrossing from the Oregon’s high desert, coastal region, many areas of the valley and the great north eastern and south eastern cattle country in this state. One of the first questions I received from members, was why I would want a job where nearly two thousand members would feel like they were my boss? The second most common question was, how was I planning to deal with the liberal state legislature and many agency heads which leaned blue and did not see eye to eye with our ideology? The answer to both was, and still is, because I have passion for protecting and preserving Oregon’s agriculture and cattle industry and to do that, I had to be willing to work on the battle ground.
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2016 - Rosa with Senator Hansell (L) and Rep. Greg Barreto (R) after HB 4040 passed in the senate with a 17-11 vote. HB 4040 gave support to ODFW’s decision to delist wolves and aided in the ability to use the Oregon Wolf Plan as it was intended. Rep. Barreto sponsored this very important bill to support ranchers.
Some of the reasons I applied for this position after 25 years of being self-employed are as follows: Passion: After serving as the President of the Oregon Beef Council, President of the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association and after being chosen by Governor Kulongoski to serve on the State Board of Agriculture, I realized that
2018 - On Capitol Hill with several past OCA presidents such as Nathan Jackson, John O’Keeffe and current National PLC President Bob Skinner. Photo taken during the Public Lands Council annual conference in Washington D.C.
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