Cynthia Clark, administrator of the National Agricultural Statistics Service, with her successor, associate administrator Joseph Reilly, at a retirement party held today at the Agriculture Department. (Jerry Hagstrom/The Hagstrom Report)

Joseph Reilly, the associate administrator of the Agriculture Department’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, will succeed Cynthia Clark as administrator, Agriculture Undersecretary for Research, Education and Economics Cathie Woteki announced in an internal USDA memo today.

Clark, whose upcoming retirement was celebrated today on USDA’s patio, will retire on May 3, one day after the full Census of Agriculture is released. Reilly will become administrator on May 5.

Before his tenure at NASS, Reilly worked for the Bureau of the Census, a division of the Commerce Department, for more than 21 years. He moved to NASS following the transfer of the Census of Agriculture responsibilities from the Census Bureau to NASS in 1997.

Before becoming NASS associate administrator, Reilly was the deputy administrator for field operations and was responsible for the operation of the 46 NASS field offices, which cover all 50 states and Puerto Rico.

Reilly grew up on a small farm near Tamaqua, Pa. He is a 1975 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University with degrees in statistics and marketing.