Chris Adamo
Chris Adamo, the Senate Agriculture Committee staff director when Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., chaired the committee during the 2014 farm bill and currently the minority staff director of the committee, is leaving to become the chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and other staffers are being promoted to lead the minority staff, Stabenow announced today.

Adamo began his career as a legislative counsel in Stabenow’s personal office in 2007, where he worked on the 2007 energy bill, the 2008 farm bill and the the 2009-2010 climate bill efforts, Great Lakes restoration and various other issues involving energy and natural resources.

He was born and raised outside Detroit and graduated with a degree in economics and business from Kalamazoo College and a law degree from from Vermont Law School.

Replacing Adamo as staff director will be Joe Shultz who has served with the committee since 2011 as chief economist.

Shultz has served as chief economist for Stabenow on the Agriculture Committee since 2011. Before joining the committee, he worked for Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio.

He grew up on a fourth-generation family farm in western Ohio where he continues to play an active management role. Shultz served as vice-president of the National FFA (Future Farmers of America) and earned a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics from Ohio State University and a master’s degree in applied economics from Cornell University.

Cordone has served as general counsel and chief counsel of the committee since 2001 with a focus on derivatives, financial markets, and international trade.

Before joining Stabenow, Cordone served in the Obama administration as the senior vice president and general counsel of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Previously, he served as general counsel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee under then-Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich. He also practiced law in New York and Connecticut and is a native of Trumbull, Conn.

Schneider has served as senior professional staff on the committee since 2011. In that capacity she leads the committee’s work on nutrition policy, specialty crops and organic, and development of local food systems.

Before joining the committee, Schneider served as legislative director for Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif. where she oversaw his work on the House Agriculture Committee and 2008 farm bill and worked on health care/health reform, food safety, education, immigration and trade.

Before joining Costa’s staff, she worked for the Biotechnology Industry Organization in federal government relations.

Schneider is a Michigan native and a graduate of James Madison University.