Melissa Haen joins DBA, Edge to lead dairy groups’ marketing and events

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The Dairy Business Association and Edge Dairy Farmer Cooperative today announced the hiring of Melissa Haen as marketing and events manager.

Haen has experience in director and manager roles in events and marketing within various industries, including agriculture. She most recently served as senior director of events and marketing for the Fox Cities Chamber of Commerce in eastern Wisconsin.

At DBA and Edge, Melissa will develop and execute strategies that drive promotion of the policy-focused sister organizations as well as plan and coordinate events to maximize member growth and engagement.

“I’m delighted to have Melissa join our team,” Tim Trotter, CEO of the organizations, said. “Her professional experience and personal drive and focus are exactly what we need. She is clearly passionate about her work and about agriculture.”

Haen, a Wisconsin native, received a Bachelor of Business Administration in marketing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and an MBA in marketing from Concordia University in Wisconsin. She is a trained advertising specialist through the Promotional Products Association International.

“From spending most of my weekends growing up helping on my grandparents’ dairy farm in western Wisconsin to more recently doing marketing and events for the third-largest seed corn company in the United States, the agriculture industry has always been one I have been passionate about,” Haen said. “I am looking forward to creating events that bring people together and help move the dairy community forward.”

Among the organizations’ events are DBA’s Dairy Strong conference, the DBA Dairy Golf Classic, Edge’s Dairy Speaks in D.C. advocacy trips and various tradeshows. The organizations also team up for events, such as a Packers Tailgate Party, a series of Farmer to Farmer Policy Picnics and other educational and networking meetings.

DBA’s members are a mix of farms and agriculture-related companies in Wisconsin. Edge represents farmers throughout the Midwest as the third largest dairy cooperative in the country according to milk volume.