Verle Lanier is the associate administrator for operations and management in the Farm Service Agency.

Before rejoining USDA, from January 2001 until his appointment to this position Lanier worked as a personnel assistant in the White House Office of Personnel. Previously, he had retired from the federal government in 1994 following a 32-year federal career. From 1992 until he retired in 1994 he had served as the agricultural counselor for the Foreign Agricultural Service in The Hague, the Netherlands. He spent a total of 15 years overseas as an agricultural counselor with FAS in embassies in five different countries.

Lanier served as the assistant deputy administrator of export credits for FAS from 1978-80. From 1964-66 he worked as an assistant to the administrator for USDA’s [then] International Agricultural Development Service. Then from 1966-68 he served in that agency as USDA’s Vietnam Officer, tasked to send 86 USDA technicians from five USDA agencies to [then] South Vietnam, where their mission was to assist in the transfer of agricultural technology to the South Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture. He began his federal career in 1962 as an agricultural program assistant for the U.S. Agency for International Development in [then] Saigon, South Vietnam.

George Arredondo, the previous associate administrator for operations and management in FSA, is now the county executive director for FSA in Maricopa County, Ariz. •