John Collins is a native of Seattle, Washington and a graduate of Seattle University. He grew up on a hog and cattle farm in Snohomish, Washington and has been involved in agriculture for over 20 years. After college, he went to work for Boeing while continuing to raise hogs on the family farm. After being laid off from Boeing, he went to work for several Labor Unions such as Service Employee’s International Union and American Federation of State and Government Employees over the next 20 years.

More recently, Mr. Collins spent the past 10 years of his career involved with Prisoner Re-entry programs and its initiatives as Program and Project Director with organizations such as Arbor Education & Training, Las Vegas Urban League and Workforce Connections

Recently, Mr. Collins returned to Alaska to help out his father and happened to come across our position for Project Director. When he read the ad, he knew that this was what he wanted to do and where he wanted to work. He felt that this would bring him back to his roots in the agricultural community. 

His work will focus on business planning workshops. The upcoming business planning conference aims to help farmers understand that a business plan the four steps of Farm Business Succession Planning may help them run their operation.

Farm Business Succession Planning entails:
1. Strategic business planning
2. Retiring
3. Transfer
4. Estate planning

This conference will be open to all farmers in Alaska that are interested in turning financial risk into profit for small to mid-sized farms and ranches in Alaska. The conference will be held February 18 in conjunction with the Potato & Vegetable conference in Palmer, Alaska. This will be the first step in developing on-going communication and consultation for the special circumstances and conditions that farmers and ranchers face in Alaska.

Participants in this conference will receive ongoing support from Alaska Farmland Trust in the form of one-on-one consultations, online business planning tools and information to address their specific operational needs.

Register for the February 23-26 conference by calling (907) 745-3336.