2013 Conference Re-cap – Spokane Washington

The organizing committee from the Washington State Dept of Agriculture would like to thank everyone who attended the 2013 ILIA conference, hosted in Spokane in July. The event was well attended with ILIA members from across the USA and Western Canada. Kris Budde, the ILIA President welcomed everyone to the State of Washington on behalf of the Dept of Agriculture, and this was their first time hosting in the 67 year history of the conference. The conference venue, the Davenport Hotel in downtown Spokane, is an amazing conference venue and rich in history. Their hospitality and service was second to none and the conference guests were treated to a wonderful stay.

Kris Budde and his organizing committee would like to thank all of the guest speakers who attended and participated throughout the conference. The panel sessions were very informative and brought up interesting discussion throughout. The “Sustainability Panel” mediated by Washington Cattlemen’s Association Executive Vice-President JackField, got the delegates involved and the panels opinions were certainly brought out.

The conference delegates and spouses were hosted by Nate Hair at his "Rock Creek Cattle Company" ranch at Edwall Washington for the Tuesday night traditional BBQ and charity Endowment Fund auction. The BBQ was tremendous and the auction was lively with in excess of $7500 being raised for the Tom Spencer Endowment Trust Fund. The ILIA membership would like to especially thank Ernie McCaffree of Montana for his continued support of this auction with the donation of his custom made “Brand Benches”. They are continually the high seller of the sale, and this year was no exception with Marc & Pam Jacobs of the Double Dewclaw Ranch of Rosalia Washington having the winning bid. Thank you to all of those who donated to the auction and purchased in the auction. A total of 5 Scholarships were given out this year to post-secondary students in South Dakota, British Columbia, Wyoming, California, and Alberta.

The meetings were informative and the topics were current to today’s livestock industry. The closing banquet was held at the Davenport Hotel and was a fine culinary display with the prime rib donated by Agri Beef Co. The key note speaker for the banquet was Bud Hover, WSDA Director, touching on the conference theme of “The emerging future of livestock identification”.

This conference cannot be successful without the participation of the sponsors and the ILIA would like to thank all of the 2013 ILIA conference sponsors.