Suzanne Palmieri
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has named Suzanne Palmieri, who was chief of staff to former Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan, as associate administrator and coordinator for global food security in the Foreign Agricultural Service.

Palmieri will coordinate USDA’s efforts under President Barack Obama’s “Feed the Future” initiative and other matters related to FAS’s work overseas in developing countries.

Palmieri worked closely with FAS in her work for Merrigan, but she also served at the Peace Corps, the U.S. Agency for International Development and as special assistant to the Agriculture undersecretary for rural development in the Clinton administration.

She has also worked at the State Department, and began her career in Washington working for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in both his personal office and on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

She grew up in Arkansas and also worked for Bill Clinton when he was governor of that state.


Norah Deluhery
Vilsack also named Norah Deluhery as director of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Deluhery has held that position in an acting capacity and previously was policy adviser for Let's Move!, First Lady Michelle Obama’s initiative to fight childhood obesity.

Deluhery joined the White House staff while serving as special assistant to Agriculture Undersecretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services Kevin Concannon.

Formerly from Iowa, she received a bachelor’s degree from the Catholic University of America in Washington.

Deluhery succeeds Max Finberg, who is now a senior adviser in the office of Agriculture Assistant Secretary for Administration Gregory Parham. Finberg is also director of USDA’s StrikeForce Initiative for Rural Growth and Opportunity, which targets rural areas of persistent poverty to increase awareness among state, local and community officials of programs available to promote economic development.


Courtney Rowe
Vilsack has also promoted Courtney Rowe, the USDA press secretary, to deputy communications director, succeeding Justin DeJong, who left earlier this year.

Before serving as Vilsack’s primary spokesperson, Rowe spent five years on Capitol Hill, serving as communications director of the Senate Agriculture Committee when Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., chaired that committee, and as associate director of the Senate Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee.

Rowe is from from Stamps, Ark., and earned a degree in journalism from Arkansas State University.


William McGowan
Vilsack also announced that William McGowan will join the Agriculture Department in late November as state director for rural development in Delaware and Maryland.

McGowan has spent 12 years of management in the agriculture supply and horticulture industry and has been a cooperative extension agent at the University of Delaware.

At the university, he served as co-director of the Sustainable Coastal Communities Program, a partnership that included the Sea-Grant Marine Advisory Service, the Institute for Public Administration and Delaware Cooperative Extension, which focused on public issues in Delaware.

Other appointments

• Sanah Baig as confidential assistant in Marketing and Regulatory Programs.

Baig joined USDA’s White House Liaison Office in June 2011 as a staff associate and assistant to the liaison. She was primarily responsible for vetting nominees to more than 200 federal advisory committees and boards, as well as managing logistics for special events.

Before joining USDA, she was the chief administrative intern at the National Labor Relations Board for two years. In the summer of 2008, she worked on extramural grants and agreements for USDA’s Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville.

She grew up in northern Virginia and earned a bachelor’s degree in foreign affairs and psychology from the University of Virginia.

• Tara Rice as special assistant in Rural Development.

Rice served as a Heyman Federal Public Service Fellow at the USDA.

She is a graduate of Yale Law School and a fifth-generation Montanan from a ranch near Choteau, Mont. Rice was a Fulbright scholar in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and worked in northern China on an English language textbook.

• Hillary Caron as legislative analyst in the Office of Congressional Relations.

Caron was a nutrition policy staffer for the Senate Agriculture Committee where she helped develop the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. During law school, she interned at the White House, in the USDA’s Office of General Counsel, and at Partnership for a Healthier America, a nonprofit that works with First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative to address childhood obesity.

Before joining the Agriculture Committee, she served as a legislative correspondent for Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., and interned in the office of President Barack Obama when he was a senator from Illinois.

She holds a law degree from New York University and undergraduate degrees in public policy and African & African American studies from Duke University.

• Grant Hauschil as confidential assistant in the Rural Business-Cooperative Service.

Hasuchil grew up in Fargo, N.D., got involved with the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party at 14 and became an office manager for the re-election campaign of Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., in 2008, the first year he could vote.

He studied political science and public administration at the University of North Dakota, and after graduation, started as a Truman Fellow at the USDA in Washington. He served on Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign as a regional get-out-the-vote director.

He is working on earning a master’s degree in public policy at George Washington University.

• Jamal Habibi as confidential assistant in Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services

Before joining USDA, Habibi worked at the U.S. Green Building Council, where he helped increase university and chapter participation. He also worked with Business Forward to help organize the 2013 White House Business Leaders Summit.

In 2012, Habibi was a field organizer at Obama for America-Florida in Miami.

A native of Oakland, Calif., he received a bachelor of arts degree in political science and languages/cultures of Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He also studied international relations at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.