AFIA member of the year award
Angela Mills, left, receives Member of the Year Award from AFIA Chairman Paul Phillips.
Photo courtesy of AFIA.
 
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA, U.S. — The American Feed Industry Association (AFIA) named Angela Mills of Southern States Cooperative and Mike Van Koevering of Elanco Animal Health as its Members of the Year during a ceremony at its board of directors dinner May 9 in Arlington, Virginia. 

The Member of the Year Award is presented to an AFIA member who exhibits outstanding support in achieving the organization's goals and objectives throughout the year. With the exception of the 83 members of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) working group who received the award in 2014, only 36 individuals have been honored prior to this year.

Mills is the chair of AFIA's Feed Regulatory Committee. An active advocate for FSMA and the Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD), she provided a VFD update to attendees at AFIA's Purchasing & Ingredient Suppliers Conference. She contributed to AFIA's qualified individual training video. She chaired the Small and Very Small FSMA Working Groups and was one of the 83 members recognized as a group as Member of the Year in 2014.

"Angela has been integral in AFIA's work with FSMA and VFD," said Joel G. Newman, president and chief executive officer of the AFIA. "Her addition to AFIA's qualified training video and her education on VFD and FSMA to our members is invaluable."

Mills is a quality control and regulatory compliance manager at Southern States Cooperative.

AFIA member of the year award
Mike Van Koevering, left, receives Member of the Year Award from AFIA Chairman Paul Phillips. Photo courtesy of AFIA.
 
Van Koevering is a member of AFIA's board of directors and the VFD task force. He worked with Newman and AFIA's controller to develop a financial model to assist the association in forecasting the impact and probability of various scenarios. Additionally, he assisted with his Elanco colleagues, the Sustainability Oversight Committee by providing resources to track consumer issues and identify key influencers. He also helped with the 2016 Executive Leadership Summit's consumer communications session and follow-up webinar.

"The financial model will be useful to AFIA for many years to come, and it wouldn't have been possible without Mike's vision and the overall support of Elanco," Newman said.

Van Koevering is the director of beef and operations for Elanco Knowledge Solutions.