The Southeast Produce Council has just announced its lineup of speakers for the upcoming Southern Exposure: Produce – The Final Frontier. Taking place March 3-5, 2023 at the Swan & Dolphin Resort in Orlando, Florida, this year’s conference will encompass SEPC chairman Tim Graas’ platform: Inspiring Innovation Today for a Sustainable Tomorrow. The following guest speakers have joined the lineup:
Celebrity keynote speaker: Kimberly Williams-Paisley is an actress, New York Times best-selling author, Alzheimer’s advocate and co-founder of non-profit, The Store, an organization in Nashville that aims to address food insecurity. Her memoir Where The Light Gets In: Losing My Mother Only to Find Her Again, chronicles her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease. She is also a global ambassador for CARE International, traveling to Haiti and Guatemala to follow U.S. funding for programs that support women and children, and then sharing her story back home. In 2020, she and her husband Brad Paisley opened their non-profit, free, referral-based grocery called The Store which aims to empower and dignify individuals and families seeking self-sufficiency by providing choices for their food needs.
Left to right: Kimberly Williams-Paisley, Sonia Lo and Heather "Lucky" Penney.
Industry keynote speaker: Sonia Lo is an experienced ag tech industry executive who brings a wealth of experience scaling indoor agriculture operations. She has served as CEO of Sensei AG, Crop One Holdings, Inc. and various leadership roles including Google and eZoka (which she co-founded). Lo currently also serves on the board of directors of Griffith Foods International, Urban-Gro and Hart Dairy.
Southern Roots Luncheon speaker: Heather “Lucky” Penney is most widely recognized for her service on September 11. Penney was part of the first wave of women who went directly into fighters from pilot training. The first and only woman in the 121st Fighter Squadron, she deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom for initial combat operations as a night-time SCUD Hunter in the western deserts of Iraq, also supporting Special Operations Forces. She flew the F-16 for 10 years and then flew the special airlift mission and retired from the Pentagon. For more than 10 years, she was a director of various Air Force programs for Lockheed Martin and is now a senior resident fellow for the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.
“We are extremely excited to have such an outstanding lineup of speakers,” said Tim Graas, SEPC chairman of the board and executive director of produce field procurement of Associated Wholesale Grocers. “Attendees will enjoy a double dose of keynote speakers, another first for our industry. These three amazing women are sure to motivate, inspire and challenge attendees to think outside the box.”
Visit SEPC’s Southern Exposure webpage to discover mission assignments within the agenda, registration criteria, hotel information, guest speakers, exhibitors and more.
For more information:
Anna Burch
Southeast Produce Council Inc.
Tel: +1 (877) 720-SPEC
anna@seproducecouncil.com
https://seproducecouncil.com/