By Hillary Barile, Board President
2023 is well underway and our Guild Board is ready and eager to continue to build on the amazing momentum of the last few years. We opened the year with a reorganization of our Board of Directors, including the onboarding of new directors and the election of officers.
We would like to welcome new board member Craig Miller of Root Shoot Malting and returning board member Phil Neumann of Mainstem Malt to the Board of Directors. We would also like to thank departing board members, Brent Manning of Riverbend Malt House and Matt Enns of Maker’s Malt for their service to the Guild and years of steady leadership. The 2023 Board will be led by a new Executive team, but striving forward with the same dedication to the missions and ideals of our Guild. You can read more about the current board and officers here. We would also like to remind you that we currently have a Member Malthouse seat open on the Board of Directors. If you, or a member of your malthouse team, is interested in participating in the leadership of our Guild and working to ensure the success of our efforts, please get involved! There are many ways to participate.
As we look forward to March, we are incredibly excited to return to the in-person format and malt fellowship of the Craft Malt Conference and Advanced Class in Craft Malt Production. We hope that you will be able to join us in Portland, ME! And if you can’t make it to Maine, consider attending virtually. The Craft Malt Conference is our biggest event of the year and has been on my annual calendar since its origin. During our time together, we are also taking some time as a Board to meet, reflect on our work of the past year, and focus on longer-term planning for the Guild.
One of our priorities for the upcoming year is to deepen and expand our understanding of our own industry, building upon the mini-survey which we completed in 2022. This short survey revealed a 60% production increase across our Member Malthouses since 2019 with more growth on the horizon. Now it is time to update the industry benchmarking we established in our 2019 study so that we may grow as a Guild and enhance our ability to meet the needs of our growing industry. This benchmarking survey will be a significant investment of time and resources for our Guild but will provide us with information that will inform future policy and program initiatives delivered by the Craft Maltsters Guild. When the time comes, I hope that you will participate, as each business’ involvement is key to the development of useful data.
As always, we hope that you will reach out to board members directly or our ED Jesse Bussard if you have feedback or ideas for our Guild. It is our goal to continue to provide you with a valuable membership and a relevant sense of community for your business.