By Brent Manning – CMG Board President / Riverbend Malt House
Happy to report that the board has had a productive first quarter! Our first online conference was a success, bringing more than 250 attendees together in a variety of ways to learn from industry leaders. The energy and excitement that our membership holds for craft malt was palpable and translated well through screens, something we were concerned about going in!
Following the conference, we jumped into training our newly elected board members. Five new faces joined our group and we are excited to have them….please join me in welcoming the class of 2021!
- Curtis Davenport, Admiral Maltings
- Matt Enns, Maker’s Malt
- Branch Rothschild, Allagash Brewing Co.
- Ryan Hamilton, Michigan State University Extension
- Jason Parker, Copperworks Distilling Co.
In addition to basic training, we’ve folded each new member into one of our working groups to help them integrate into our ongoing projects. We plan to share progress reports from these groups as part of our upcoming website refresh. The hope is that this transparency will support greater levels of interaction between our membership and the board.
On the pandemic front, we are continuing to watch vaccine availability rise across the nation. This is translating into rebounding sales at breweries and distilleries! We sincerely hope that these trends continue and that each of you is seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.