PA Ag Mentorship Program

Pennsylvania’s agriculture industry has a new resource available to help farmers. The PA Agriculture Mentor Program includes five mentors with extensive agricultural backgrounds to assist beginning farmers, agribusiness entrepreneurs and farmers in troubleshooting new strategies and ideas for their farm businesses.

Spearheaded by a group of Pennsylvania agricultural organizations with an interest in the future of agriculture, the program leverages SCORE, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and resource partner of the U.S. Small Business Development Center. The mentoring is free and confidential.

Mentors in the PA Agriculture Mentor Program:

Richard Crouse, Biglerville, PA

Rick was raised on a tree fruit-growing operation and spent summers in college working as an orchard specialist at the Penn State Fruit Research Laboratory in Biglerville. Rick dedicated 30 years with the Farm Service Agency (FSA) as a loan officer, manager and specialist throughout Pennsylvania. The last seven years of his career, he served as a business development specialist with AgChoice Farm Credit in Adams County.

Winifred McGee, Elizabethtown, PA

Winifred has a passion for helping farm and food businesses get started and currently works part-time for University of Scranton Small Business Development Center (SBDC). She is formerly with Penn State Extension and spent more than 30 years teaching topics such as business planning, financial analysis and business feasibility.

Hugh J. MacMaster, Lancaster - Lebanon, PA

Hugh J. MacMaster helps startups define, launch and scale their business. He can help existing organizations improve their business operations performance. He has helped businesses and non-profit organizations define their vision, mission, values, and strategy. His work experiences includes industrial includes Industrial Product Development, Project Management, Engineering, Product Cost Management, Project Leadership, Team Development Training and Organizational Development, Product Prototyping, Evaluation, Testing, Quality and Reliability Measurement, Non- Profit Board development and Leadership, Capital projects and community fund raising campaigns.

Alan Zepp, New Oxford, PA

Alan has a lifelong background in the dairy industry. He operated his own dairy farm for more than 30 years, and then helped other Pennsylvania dairy farmers as risk management coordinator at the Center for Dairy Excellence. Alan now operates a crop farm and raises heifers for a neighboring farm.