Kansas secretary of agriculture to speak at PSU
Wednesday, October 12, 2016 2:00 AM
News
Pittsburg, KS
Pittsburg State University’s Profiles of Women in Government Lecture Series continues on Tuesday, Oct. 18, with an address by Jackie McClaskey, secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture. McClaskey will speak at 1 p.m. in the Linda & Lee Scott Performance Hall of the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts.
McClaskey was appointed secretary of the Kansas Department of Agriculture by Gov. Sam Brownback in December 2013. She joined the Kansas Department of Agriculture as assistant secretary in January 2011 and served in that role until being named deputy secretary in July 2013.
McClaskey grew up on a diversified family farm near Girard, where her family was involved with livestock as well as crop production. She earned a bachelor’s degree in agriculture economics from Kansas State University in 1993. She graduated from
Texas A&M University in 1995 with a master’s of science degree in agricultural economics and graduated with her Ph.D. in animal science from Kansas State University in January 2014. Her Ph.D. dissertation analyzed foreign animal disease response policy.
During the 1990s, McClaskey worked in Washington, D.C., as the press secretary of agriculture and higher education policy coordinator in the office of then-Congressman Sam Brownback.
Prior to coming to the Department of Agriculture, McClaskey served as an assistant dean for the College of Agriculture at Kansas State University for 13 years. Because of her passion for young people and seeing them reach their full potential, she is the co-founder of Roots and Legacies, Inc., an agricultural leadership consulting firm.
McClaskey, her husband, Mike Matson, and their two Australian Shepherds, Lady and Scout, live in Manhattan.
PSU’s Profiles in Women in Government Lecture Series was established in 2001 through a gift from the Helen S. Boylan Foundation to the PSU Foundation, Inc. Past speakers in the series include former First Lady Laura Bush, Former Kansas Governor and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Human Rights Activist Kerry Kennedy; legendary White House Correspondent Helen Thomas; Kansas Supreme Court Justice Kay McFarland and Native American Indian Activist Winona LaDuke.
