Ron Witherspoon

Ron Witherspoon is one of the founders of Interactive Management Group Ltd., a leading consulting firm specializing in commercial, international and agricultural consulting. Ron is the CEO, responsible for strategic planning, market development and consulting services. Ron has been recognized by the industry as a motivational speaker who is able to outline the direction of multinational companies that are focused on the food chain.

Speaking topics include:

• Areas of future growth for agriculture.
• How changes in the banking industry affect your farm or business.
• Venture capital- the potential for local investment.
• Biogas - the future source of heat and electricity comes from farms.
• Derivatives - A risk management tool we need for Canadian wheat.
• Why a co-operative hybrid might be the best structure for your new business.
• Other presentations can be developed upon request.

The following is a listing of areas of experience:

Farm consulting:

• Provide advice to large, medium and small farms throughout the three Prairie Provinces.
• Specialize in farm finance, farm succession, and farm expansion.
• Qualified for federal subsidies for farm plan development, succession plans and value added business development.

New business startup:

• Participated in numerous venture capital investments with the Agri-Food Equity fund.
• Participated on the Board of several profit and non-profit businesses.
• Completed due diligence analysis on over 50 potential investments.
• Experienced in the process of changing management and market focus of non-performing businesses.

Food tracing:

• John Deere's Food Origins - assisted in the development of the Canadian market.
• Fresh Produce - assisted in the demonstration of traceability and recall of vegetables from California.
• Assisted in the development of farm software for tracing grain.

Identity preservation:

• Assisted in the assessment and market development for container utilization on farm and in terminals.
• Developed processes for utilizing identity preservation at the farm level, with the ability to move up the value chain.

Business feasibility:

• Participated in the management of meat processing plants, and completed the assessment on several others including multi-species.
• Invested in several grain processing facilities, and evaluated numerous others ranging from specialized food products through to the use of fibers.
• Invested in several food processing facilities including pulse, fruit and nutraceuticals.

Strategic human resources:

• Developed and implemented Balanced Scorecards, performance management systems
• Management recruitment
• Employment agreements
• Provided mediation services to resolve business owner/partner conflicts
• Conducted workplace racial, ethnic, gender and personal harassment investigations
• Assisted corporations in recruiting suitable Board members and helped them with governance and leadership development
• Developed partnership and unanimous shareholder's agreements

Finance projects:

• Assisting farmers with financing major projects, refinancing and evaluating alternatives such as leasing, partnerships, and non-farm investors.
• Source and place venture capital.
• Source and place lease capital.
• Established an alliance between Farm Credit Services in the United States and FCC in Canada.
• Assisted in the due diligence of several major projects such as the hopper cars, the purchase of provincial loan portfolios, and numerous others.
• Projects to establish scorecard lending systems, portfolio risk management models, customer relationship management database systems.
• Produced a training course for Export Development Corporation to assist foreign bankers in financing dairy and beef.

Risk management:

• Assessed the feasibility of utilizing derivatives to reduce a farms risk by adopting SWAP's developed by the National Australia Bank.
• Developing on farm management strategies to deal with capital and commodity risk.

Strategic planning:

• Developed the environmental scan for senior management for several large organizations.
• Assisted in the due diligence of the feasibility of agroforestry for the province of Saskatchewan.
• Completed the due diligence on the potential for biogas (anaerobic digesters) in Canada for John Deere.

Business Operation Services:

• Development of management processes, job descriptions and operational procedures
• Coaching service for CEOs and senior management.

Surveys:

• Managed key components of the Farm Credit survey of Canadian farms.
• Assessment of the availability of capital for Canadian agricultural co-operatives.

Economic impact assessments:

• Assessed the financial impact of agroforestry investment at the farm level.
• Assessed the economic benefit of developing an agroforestry industry for Saskatchewan.
• Assessed the potential for renewable fuel development in Saskatchewan.

Ag & Eco-Tourism

• Feasibility and business plan development for farmers and businesses.

Committees and Boards:

• Past membership on the Federal Provincial Investment Attraction committee
• Past membership on the Federal Provincial Access to Capital committee
• Past president of the Saskatchewan Institute of Agrologists (SIA) and the Saskatchewan Chapter of the Canadian Agri-Marketing association (CAMA).
• Past Board member of the Saskatchewan Agriculture Diversification Fund which is the major research granting agency for agriculture projects.
• Past Board member of the Saskatchewan Forest Center.
• Executive Director of the Canadian Biogas Association.
• Past membership on the SAFFR specialized livestock committee
• Past membership on the SAFRR Pulse committee