In the new year, Delmarva's 1,800-member chicken industry trade association, Delmarva Poultry Industry Inc. (DPI), has a new director. Effective January 1, Holly Porter is DPI's executive director, succeeding Bill Satterfield, who retired on December 31 after a 32-year career with DPI.
Porter is DPI's first female executive director; notably, 2019 will be the first year in which DPI's president and executive director are both women. The president of DPI's board of directors for 2019 is Jennifer Timmons, a chicken grower and an assistant professor at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore who teaches poultry production and animal nutrition.
"Delmarva's chicken industry contributes $3.4 billion annually to our economy, and it is absolutely central to the prosperity of farmers, businesses, and families from Northampton County, Virginia to Cecil County, Maryland," Porter said. "At DPI, our vision is to be the most respected chicken organization in the country. We will work for our members by providing strong advocacy in state legislatures, offering practical educational opportunities for chicken growers and chicken company employees, and helping the chicken community be more profitable through our electric buying group and our assistance with installing vegetative environmental buffers."
Porter joined DPI in 2017 as the assistant executive director, coming from the Delaware Department of Agriculture, where she was a deputy principal assistant in the Office of the Secretary. Previously, she was a marketing specialist for the Delaware Department of Agriculture and worked in marketing for MidAtlantic Farm Credit. An alumna of LEAD Maryland Class VII, she has served as the co-director of the LEADelaware program, as a committee member of the MidAtlantic Women in Agriculture Conference and as an advisory council member to the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education program. Porter grew up on a grain farm on Maryland's Eastern Shore and earned a degree from Marymount University. She and her family live in Caroline County, Maryland.
