Mary McPhail Gray is the deputy administrator for families, 4-H, and nutrition in the Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service.

Before joining USDA, from October 1997 until her selection to this position Gray served as the associate director for cooperative extension at Colorado State University. She served from 1994-97 at Kansas State University as the assistant extension director for family and consumer sciences, and, at the same time, as associate dean of the College of Human Ecology. She was the state leader for 4-H and family and consumer sciences at West Virginia University from 1990-94, after having worked as a state specialist in human development and family science at the University of Missouri-Columbia from 1982-90.

Gray began her Extension career in 1963 as a home economics county agent in Oswego, N.Y., until she joined the Peace Corps, where from 1965-66 she was a volunteer in Jimma, Ethiopia. There she taught home economics at the local high school, and taught business and English at Haile Selassie University Extension.

Jane Coulter, the previous deputy administrator for families, 4-H, and nutrition in CSREES, retired from that position following 23 years of service with USDA. •