Beth Ford, president and chief executive officer of Land O'Lakes Inc., will be the featured speaker at the 27th annual Aldrich C. Bloomquist Lectureship, scheduled for Thursday, March 28, beginning at 11:30 a.m. in the NDSU Memorial Union’s Plains room. 

The lecture is free to attend for students and $25 for the general public, which includes lunch and a parking pass. Registration is due by March 26 and is available online.

The lectureship is sponsored by the NDSU Quentin N. Burdick Center for Cooperatives and Aldrich C. Bloomquist Endowment, which was established by American Crystal Sugar Co.

"This year's keynote promises to be a dynamic and interesting opportunity to hear from the leader of one the world's largest agricultural cooperatives," said Frayne Olson, director of the Quentin N. Burdick Center for Cooperatives and host of the event.

As one of only 25 women to head Fortune 500 companies, Ford has been recognized as one of Fortune's Most Powerful Women, Time Magazine's Firsts and one of Fast Company's Best Leaders of 2018. Her 30-year career includes leadership in seven companies in six industries including energy at Mobil, food and beverage at PepsiCo Inc. and publishing at Scholastic.

Ford is leading groundbreaking work at Land O'Lakes, Inc. to help farmers grow more with less and answer consumer questions about where their food comes from.

Land O’Lakes Inc. has nearly 4,000 member-farmers, $15 billion in net sales, touches one-half of the harvested acres in the U.S. and feeds nearly 100 million animals every day.

Students wanting to attend the lectureship should email Olson at frayne.olson@ndsu.edu.

 The lecture is named in honor of Aldrich C. Bloomquist, who was American Crystal Sugar Co. president and a longtime executive. The lecture series was established by the company in recognition of his contributions to the company and the sugar industry through the Quentin N. Burdick Center for Cooperatives at NDSU.

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