Three New Yorkers have been named presidents of three national food safety and dairy organizations.
Casey McCue, director of the Division of Milk Control, is serving out the remainder of his term as president of the National Association of Dairy Regulatory Officials. Stephen Stich, director of the Division of Food Safety and Inspection is beginning his term as president of the Association of Food and Drug Officials and Dan Rice, director of the state Food Laboratory, is the incoming president of the Association of Public Health Laboratories.
Dan Rice:
Dan Rice is the director of the New York State Food Laboratory, which
supports the regulatory programs of the Divisions of Food Safety and
Inspection, Milk Control, and Plant
Industry by providing analytical testing of samples that are collected
as part of scheduled regulatory or surveillance programs and in response
to disease outbreak investigations, consumer complaints, and a variety
of other food related investigations. Specialized
analytical services are also provided at the lab on a contract basis to
universities and various state and federal agencies
.
Rice
earned a bachelor's degree in zoology and a master's in veterinary epidemiology from
Washington State University and is a doctor of public health candidate
in the School of Public
Health at SUNY Albany. He expects to complete
his doctorate this year.
Prior to his current
position, Rice was affiliated with the Washington State University
College of Veterinary Medicine where he supervised a research
program on the ecology and epidemiology of zoonotic pathogens in food
animal production facilities. Rice’s primary public health interests are
in food safety and he serves on several national workgroups and
committees.
Rice
joined the Department of Agriculture and Markets in 2004 as Director of
the State Food Laboratory, which provides laboratory support for a wide
array of food
safety and agricultural programs. Dan also helped oversee the
completion of the state’s new Food Laboratory, which opened in 2013 in
Albany. Rice is the incoming President of APHL, which is the
professional association representing state and local laboratories
engaged in testing and programs that support public health.
Steve Stich:
Steve
Stich is the director of the Division of Food Safety and Inspection,
which is the agency’s largest Division and has jurisdiction over 28,000
food handling
establishments across New York state. These include grocery stores,
supermarkets, manufacturing/processing plants, beverage plants, food
warehouses, and wholesale bakeries.
The Division also helped initiate a
nationwide recall of chicken jerky products for
pets in early 2013.Food inspectors who work for Stich routinely collect food samples and send them to the State Food Laboratory for analysis.
Stich
grew up in Oneida County, received a degree in environmental science
from Morrisville State College, and started his career with the
Department of Agriculture
and Markets in 1987 as a food inspector in Jefferson and St. Lawrence
counties. In 1992, he was promoted to a supervisory position in Albany
where he progressed through the ranks and was named director in 2010.
He also participates in several multi-state
and federal food safety workgroups.
Stich
is the incoming president of the Association of Food and Drug
Officials, which helps to advance uniform laws, regulations, and
guidelines that result in
more efficient regulation and less confusion among industry in the
marketplace.
Casey McCue:
Casey
McCue is the director of the Division of Milk Control and has worked
for the state Department of Agriculture and Markets since
2000. The division
regulates New York’s largest agricultural industry through various
sanitation and inspection programs and issues licenses to every dairy
processing facility in the state, and inspects each fluid, manufacturing
and wholesale frozen dessert plant every 90 days.
Division employees conduct more than 6,500 inspections and obtain more than
13,000 samples at New York’s 360 dairy processing facilities every
year. The division also provides oversight of New York’s Certified Milk
Inspector Program where industry inspectors maintain
the sanitation requirements on the state’s Grade A dairy farms.
McCue
has served in many positions since starting as a dairy products
specialist 1 in Jefferson and Lewis counties. McCue grew up deeply
involved in his grandparents’
dairy farm near Lowville and after graduating from SUNY Canton with a
degree in milk and food quality control, he began his career in industry
on both the producer and processor sides.
He is the current president
of NADRO, which works to address issues within
the dairy industry and make recommendations to relevant federal
agencies and national organizations. His involvement in national dairy
regulatory issues also landed him a seat on the executive board of the
National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments,
serving in many roles within the councils and committees of the
conference. He was the 2012 recipient of the National Association of
State Departments of Agriculture’s Administration Award for his work on
behalf of New York’s rapidly growing dairy industry.
All three of these employees are Capital Region residents.
For more information on the Association of Public Health Laboratories, please visit:
www.aphl.org.
For more information about the Association of Food and Drug Officials, please visit:
www.afdo.org.
For more information on the National Association of Dairy Regulatory Officials, please visit:
http://nadro.org/
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