Our fearless leader

Serving as the Interim Maricopa County Extension Director provides an opportunity for me to move the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension in a positive and forward direction as we try to leave the COVID chaos behind. Historically and then enduring through the pandemic by working remotely out of this office, all of our personnel delivered necessary and indispensable education opportunities for clientele and continued to conduct meaningful and substantive applied research to solve practical problems that improve the lives of Maricopa County citizens. We effectively demonstrated the ability to be agile and versatile in a volatile and hostile environment by creatively developing and implementing new electronic means of disseminating educational opportunities in areas of agriculture, family and consumer sciences, and 4-H youth development. Since joining Cooperative Extension in 1994 when there were more than a dozen Extension Agents, we’ve dwindled down to only a handful of us still effectively delivering critical new information that impact how our clientele gain new knowledge and adopt new and improved ways of enriching their lives or enhancing their ways of doing business. We want to expand our forces again in re-imagined ways to help our citizens gain the enthusiasm and strength to advance and succeed in the future.