Agribusiness Development Corporation

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 17, 2023

State Agribusiness Development Corporation Hires Wendy Gady as its New Executive Director

HONOLULU — The Agribusiness Development Corporation (ADC), a state leader and innovator in agriculture, announced Wendy Gady as its new executive director today.

Selected after an extensive candidate search by ADC’s board of directors, Gady’s tenure as ADC executive director begins August 21.

An accomplished and visionary leader, Gady brings a wealth of experience to ADC.  With a proven track record of engaging with all food sustainability stakeholders, she has contributed growth and innovation in communities across the state, said ADC Board of Directors chairperson Warren Watanabe.

“We are delighted to welcome Wendy as our new executive director,” Watanabe said. “Her exceptional leadership skills, strategic insights, and focus on broad engagement across the agriculture sector make her the ideal choice to lead ADC. We have great confidence in her ability to bring a wide variety of stakeholders together to discuss concepts and ideas for building our local, sustainable food supply.”

Gady’s ability to listen closely, lead teams in passing audits, encouraging creativity, and building processes will support current and future producers on ADC lands, Watanabe added. Her commitment to honoring Hawai‘i’s diversity in microclimates, cultures, production, and sustainability aligns perfectly with ADC’s core values, making her an excellent fit for the organization.

“Director Gady will be responsible for fulfilling the ADC’s charter through aggressive, measurable goals for the entire State of Hawai‘i,” he said. “We are confident that Wendy will reach across the entire state to create new and lasting levels of agriculture growth and sustainability with and for all food sustainability stakeholders.”

“I’m humbled and honored at the opportunity to lead the statewide organization,” Gady said. “Our food supply from the continental United States was severely disrupted during the recent pandemic and showed our state why we need to push harder for food independence and sustainability here. ADC will be a pivotal part of our state’s effort.”

Gady is a graduate of Iowa Wesleyan University with a B.A. in Business and Communications, with additional Executive MBA course work in Strategic Market Planning at the University of Michigan. She has managed a wide variety of farming operations, from conventional to Certified Organic, successfully written grants, passed national audits, leased ag land to new operators across O‘ahu, developed farm business plans for individual operators, performed water testing and compliance across microclimates and water systems, raised financing for a 30-million-gallon-per-year biodiesel plant (providing a community with high-paying local jobs, and shareholder wealth), run farmers markets, coordinated water management, food safety, marketing, and new product training for operators.

During her career, Gady has worked with staff, boards, communities, producers, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders in keeping ag land in diverse production across O‘ahu.  Her hands-on experience includes working with producers to gain land and water access, expanding row and orchard crop market access, and working with groups in completing feasibility studies for expanding value added products.

Gady welcomes operators, entrepreneurs, and active stakeholders, or those exploring ag opportunities to contact her directly. She is interested and open to exploring new research, technology, and uses for ADC lands, and value-added production.

Gady’s vision for the ADC is built upon her roots of having been raised in an innovative Iowa ag-based family and a community focused on the idea, “If you want to go fast, go alone; If you want to go far, go together.”

Her Iowa family continues to farm both corn and beans in her hometown. Gady married into a fourth-generation O‘ahu family whose roots started in rice production in Kahalu‘u and grew to include running the Tom Grocery Store in Wahiawā while working in the pineapple plantations. Her entire O‘ahu family believes deeply in investing in the community evidenced through their involvement in establishing the Wahiawā Wah Mun Chinese School, Pālolo Chinese Home, and the one of the first Chinese banks in Hawai‘i. Combining Ms. Gady’s core values of community and innovation with ADC’s mission and asset portfolio, the organization is poised to sustainably grow our local food supply across the state.

About Agribusiness Development Corporation

The Agribusiness Development Corporation (“ADC”) is a state agency created in 1994 by the Hawai‘i State Legislature and administratively attached to the Hawai‘i Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. Its mission is to conserve and convert arable lands and their associated infrastructure that were formerly large mono-crop plantation lands into new, productive uses. The agency’s ultimate goal is to ensure that agricultural production and agribusiness ventures will be responsive to the current food and other agricultural needs of the State of Hawai‘i.

Headshot_ADC Executive Director Wendy Gady

For media inquiries or more information, please contact:
Scott Ishikawa
(808) 227-2350
[email protected]

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