Linda Vickers Presented Crop Insurance Industry Lifetime Achievement Award

Linda Vickers, Rural Community Insurance Services (retired), was presented with a 2013 Crop Insurance Industry Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2013 Crop Insurance Industry Annual Convention.

Ms. Vickers was raised on a cattle and wheat farm in northwest Oklahoma. She attended college at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and graduated with Bachelor of Arts In 1969 and Master of Arts in 1975.

In 1977, she joined Ed Jaenke and Associates as a congressional lobbyist. Ed Jaenke was a former Governor of the Farm Credit Administration. In 1978, Ms. Vickers went to work at the Federal Crop Insurance Corporation (now the Risk Management Agency) as a Congressional Liaison. Later that year she joined Secretary of Agriculture Bob Bergland’s staff as a Congressional Liaison with responsibility for passing the Federal Crop Insurance Act, which expanded the crop insurance program. In 1980, the Act was passed by Congress which allowed the private sector to begin selling and servicing federal crop insurance policies.

Linda went to work for the National Association of Crop Insurance Agents in early 1981 as a lobbyist for the crop insurance program. She stayed in the private sector and eventually began working for Rural Community Insurance Services and all its predecessor organizations until December 31st, 2012, when she retired.

She was integral in shaping, drafting and eventual passage of all major pieces of farm legislation, in particular, crop insurance legislation, including the Federal Crop Insurance Act of 1980, 1994 and 1996, and the Agricultural Risk Protection Act (ARPA) of 2000.

Ms. Vickers spent many hours educating Congressional members, as well as their staff, on the benefits of a sound multi-peril crop insurance program. She was known in the halls of Congress as “Mrs. Crop Insurance.” She was also instrumental in bringing the commodity groups and trade associations together, which has resulted in regular meetings between these groups to address issues facing crop insurance.

Linda has been married to Gene Vickers, an international agriculture consultant, since 1975, and they currently live on the Oregon coast.

 

Photo Caption: (left to right) Greg Deal, Chairman of American Association of Crop Insurers, Linda Vickers, and Tom Zacharias, President, National Crop Insurance Services.