Workforce Development

Dan Gudahl is a Senior Program Officer at Winrock International. Based in Little Rock, Arkansas, he currently manages a pipeline of project funding of over $32 million. This includes a USDA Food for Progress program in Pakistan that assists farmers in Balochistan province with improving field-to-market capacity; a USAID-funded rehabilitation program in six Districts of Northern Uganda that assists local governments to manage construction based projects funded by the U.S. Government; and several rural development projects in Bangladesh including a 2011 funded USDA Food for Progress follow-on project for the Rural Enterprise to Alleviate Poverty (REAP) project. Gudahl previously served as Director of Contracts for Winrock International. From 1992-2000, he was the Africa director for Heifer International. Gudahl holds a master’s degree in International Agriculture from California Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo, California and was a Peace Corps Volunteer who taught animal science at an agricultural college in the Philippines. He is married and has one daughter who is currently a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic.

Wesley Weidemann has over 40 years of agricultural development and education experience. He has been President of Weidemann Associates, Inc., a leading international firm specializing in agricultural development, for the past 25 years. In the 1970’s, he was a Rockefeller Foundation Representative and Visiting Lecturer in Agricultural Economics at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. He was also an Advisor for the International Cooperation Training Center at the University of Wisconsin Madison, as well as the Program Director for Cooperation in Education and Training at UW. He has a Ph.D. in agricultural economics from the University of Wisconsin Madison.

William M. Rivera specializes in agricultural knowledge support services, particularly extension and post-secondary education, focusing on program development, capacity building, and institutional reform. He retired in September 2009 from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at the University of Maryland, College Park. He has served as chief of party, team member, and individual consultant for project supervision, evaluation and formulation missions aimed at achieving policy and institutional goals for agricultural and human resources development. This policy and institutional focus continues to guide his academic writing as well as his practical activities. He has contributed over 100 refereed publications and several edited books to the literature, stressing the importance of aligning agricultural policy and institutional and program development expectations. He has a Masters in Economics (The American University) and a Ph.D. in Adult Education (Syracuse University).

Charles J. Maguire has over 40 years experience in the field of agricultural education and training and holds a B.S. in Agriculture and a Masters and Ph.D. in Vocational Technical Education (Ag Ed).Work experience includes nine years in Africa (Zambia, 3 years, and Nigeria, 6 years). He has taught at the secondary and university levels and managed extension training programs in developing countries. He worked for the World Bank for 25 years in capacity building for agricultural development projects and as an Agricultural Education specialist. Presently, he has served as a consultant for the World Bank and other organizations, including FAO in Rome. He undertakes pro bono work with the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF), an international anti-corruption organization, and the Asia Pacific Educators for Agriculture and the Environment (APEAEN) organization based in Tokyo and Manila. He is a frequent keynote speaker at agricultural education conferences in Europe and Asia and has been an advocate for a renewal of investment in agricultural education and training for many years.

Andrew Keck is Chief of Party of the Senegal Economic Growth Project (PCE in French).   He has 20 years of experience in project and analytical work in forestry, agriculture, natural resource management, and conservation finance.  Most recently, as the Senior Manager for Policy Reform and Communications under the PCE, Mr. Keck led on-going policy reform initiatives to improve the business and investment climate and to develop more rational and private-sector driven fertilizer and seed supply systems.  As the COP for the USAID-funded Sustainable Environmental and Forest Ecosystems Management (SEFEM) Project in Madagascar, he oversaw a comprehensive program of support for reform in Madagascar’s forestry sector and of the Ministry of Forests and Environment.  In the realm of climate change, Keck led the effort to register and commercialize the carbon credits from a bundle of Clean Development Mechanism-registered projects in Sri Lanka as well as the design and start-up of a prominent conservation carbon offset program in Madagascar. Keck previously served as a natural resource management consultant to the World Bank for over seven years including authoring a Bank/GEF biodiversity portfolio review. Keck has lived in Madagascar and Senegal with short-term work in Egypt, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, Colombia, and Mali. Keck holds a Masters degree in environmental management from Duke University and speaks fluent French.

Moses Nyabila has been the Regional Director for Heifer International’s East Africa Dairy Development (EADD) since 2008. He has over 15 years experience in development and commercial sectors throughout eastern and southern Africa. Before joining Heifer, Mr. Nyabila served briefly as Marketing Manager and Investment Consultant for East Africa with Parmalat SA. He has also served as Regional Dairy Trade Specialist for Land O’Lakes International, founder and technical advisor to the Eastern and Southern Africa Dairy Association (ESADA), Marketing Specialist for Land O’Lakes in Uganda, Business Development manager for Brookside Dairy (Kenya) and Area Sales Manager for Coca-Cola SABCO.  Mr. Nyabila has carried out several dairy industry studies, facilitated formulation sector strategies, helped with bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations and organized industry conferences and events. He holds an Executive MBA from U.S. International University in Nairobi in collaboration with Columbia Business School, a certificate in export development from CBI Netherlands, and a Bachelor in Commerce degree in business administration and marketing from the University of Nairobi.