After completing both Unit I and Unit II of the TEPAP program, participants are encouraged to join The Association of Agricultural Production Executives (AAPEX) in continuing their mission of continuous improvement and life-long education in business management. AAPEX was created in 1995 with a fourfold mission:
- To provide a vehicle for networking top agricultural production executives;
- To provide an opportunity for continuing business and personal development together with the exchange of ideas;
- To provide members access to people and ideas they wouldn’t get anywhere else; and
- To provide a forum for addressing the issues and opportunities facing the commercial segment of production agriculture.
The impetus behind the creation of the organization came from the graduates of the The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers (TEPAP). The membership represents virtually every geographic region and agricultural commodity in the U.S. All of the members come from closely held family and owner-managed farms and ranches.
AAPEX was organized as a non-profit 501C-6 corporation. It has no political agenda and is not oriented toward any particular commodity group. What it does recognize, however, is the structural change taking place in the sector which will likely continue to accelerate. Currently, the largest 30,000 (out of nearly 2 million) farms and ranches in the U.S. generate over 50 percent of total agricultural sales. The same relationship is also true for Canada.
The objective is to link the membership both electronically and by offering opportunities for regular face-to-face interaction. The group meets for a 3-day annual meeting every February. For more information on AAPEX, please contact:
Aissa Good, Perdue University
aissa@purdue.edu
(765) 299-3486
Dr. Danny Klinefelter provides more information on the history of AAPEX:
“The Association of Agricultural Production Executives (AAPEX) was created by the graduates of The Executive Program for Agricultural Producers (TEPAP) approximately 20 years ago. About two months before the TEPAP program was to be conducted in 1995, I received a call from a group of graduates asking if I could stay around for an afternoon after the program was over so they could meet with me to discuss something they had been talking about among themselves.
About 20 showed up. What they were proposing was a TEPAP alumni organization where they could meet at least once a year for several days to discuss emerging issues facing agriculture as well as continue their education on topics related to strategic management, i.e. “Anticipating, adapting to, driving and capitalizing on change.”
They also wanted an opportunity to meet where the topics were non-commodity specific, cut across geographic boundaries often imposed by state extension services and continue to broaden their business network through adding new graduates of the TEPAP program. As a result of that meeting they created a steering committee and asked if I would explore the development of a private non-profit continuing education program. Once that was done, we held a meeting in Steamboat Springs, CO that summer to elect the original group of officers and formally organize the group. From there, I guess you could say the rest is history. We’ve had annual 3 day meetings, in-depth seminars on special topics throughout the year based on interest and several management studies field trips, e.g. Argentina, Australia and New Zealand.”
Danny Klinefelter was serving as professor and extension economist with Texas A&M AgriLife Extension and Texas A&M University at his retirement in 2014 having received his PhD from the University of Illinois in 1979, where he was a National Science Foundation Research Fellow. Dr. Klinfelter founded The Executive Program for Agriculture Producers (TEPAP) and served as director during his time at Texas A&M. He served as co-director of the Texas A&M Family and Owner-Managed Business Program for 25 years and served as executive secretary for the Association of Agricultural Production Executives (AAPEX) for 19 years. He also served as a member of the board of AgTexas Farm Credit Services, president of his family’s Illinois farm corporation, and as chairman of the Top Producers Executive Network (TPEN) advisory board.
In addition to his academic career, Danny spent 10 years in commercial banking and the Farm Credit System. He authored or co-authored 8 books and over 400 articles on management and finance. Dr. Klinefelter has received numerous awards for his teaching and extension over the years. The latest in 2013, Top Producer magazine named him one of 30 innovators who have had the biggest impact on agriculture over the past three decades and also listed him as one of 7 bankers and economists who have challenged the status quo.
