Local Entrepreneur and Restaurateur, Rob Plant, owner of the Blue Wind Gourmet in California, was awarded a fellowship in the LEAD Maryland Foundation Class VI for 2009-2010.

The LEAD Maryland Foundation, Inc. is a partnership 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to identifying and developing leadership for Maryland agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Fellows are selected through an application and interview process from a pool of identified emerging leaders from all regions of the state, and representative of a diversity of backgrounds, work, education, and other experiences.

Plant is one of 22 Fellows named to the new Class VI group which met for their first three-day training seminar on Feb. 11 through 13.  Over the next two years, Fellows will complete 10 multi-day seminars within various locations of Maryland and Washington DC.  The group's next seminar will be held in Frederick County in April, and will teach conflict resolution skills and related leadership topics, and will focus on understanding land use, preservation, planning and zoning issues.

Additionally, the LEAD Maryland Foundation provides Fellows with an international study tour as part of their educational and personal growth training.  The Class VI travel plans have not been announced, but previous class groups traveled to the Netherlands, Belgium, China, Cuba, Brazil, Finland, Estonia, and Russia.

"Collectively, this group of early to mid-career professionals offer a wealth of experience and a wide diversity of perspectives in working with agriculture, locally produced food, and natural resources. We have great expectations of these men and women as they go on to solve problems, take leadership responsibilities, and shape public policy important to us all," said Susan Harrison, the executive director of LEAD Maryland Foundation.

LEAD provided the first training program of this type in Maryland in 1999 and is modeled after other successful agricultural, rural, and forestry programs operating in most other states plus some international locations.  These leadership courses are based on early training curriculum developed in the mid 1960s by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation.

The LEAD Maryland Foundation operates with a volunteer board of directors and receives grant and other support from the Maryland Department of Agriculture, the University of Maryland Extension, the Maryland Farm Bureau, the Maryland Grain Producers Utilization Board, the Maryland Agricultural Education Foundation, the Farm Credit System, the Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment, and many others.

For more information, please contact Susan Harrison at (410) 827-8056 or by visiting http://www.leadmaryland.umd.edu.