Alison Reich Bodor

National Confectioners Association (NCA)

Alison Bodor joined the National Confectioners Association in 2000. As Vice President of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs, Ms. Bodor manages food policy, research and regulatory issues including food safety and quality, labeling and compliance, health and nutrition, and international trade as they relate to confections.

Byron Brehm-Stecher

Iowa State University

 Byron Brehm-Stecher is the assistant professor of food science and heads the Brehm-Stecher Rapid Microbial Detection and Control Laboratory at Iowa State University. Dr. Brehm-Stecher has degrees in Bacteriology (B.S. 1995, M.S. 1996) and Food Science (Ph.D. 2002), all from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Brehm-Stecher continued his work in Madison as a postdoctoral research scholar in the laboratory of Professor Eric A. Johnson, followed by work in the biotechnology sector. He came to Iowa State University in September 2004 from a position as a senior scientist and molecular biologist with Applied Biosystems, Inc., Bedford, MA.

Dr. Brehm-Stecher’s research interests include: food safety and biosecurity, biodefense and emerging infectious diseases in relation to foods, rapid molecular detection of foodborne pathogens, flow cytometry and other single cell analytical methods, biomimetics, multicomponent antimicrobial systems for use in foods, and nanotechology-based approaches for microbial detection and control.

Phil Cartier

Confectionery Consultant

Phil Cartier is a consultant with over 30 years experience in the food industry from chicken to chocolate.  He retired from Hershey foods in 2002 after 22 years of confectionery product development.

Tracey Duffey

World Cocoa Foundation

Tracey Duffey is the Program Director for the Southeast Asia and West Africa programs of the World Cocoa Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation, she was the Africa Regional Director for Junior Achievement Worldwide establishing their Africa Regional Operating Center in Ghana. Tracey has worked in the field of entrepreneurial development, corporate social investment and institutional capacity building for over 15 years, nine of which she has spent working overseas in Sub-Saharan Africa, traveling within 24 countries in the sub-region. She has coordinated and implemented business development projects with corporate foundations, the European Union, USAID, and other development organizations. Tracey began her international development career as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mauritania under the Small Enterprise Development program.

Roja Ergun

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Roja Ergun received her bachelor’s degree in Food Engineering from Turkey (2003). She is currently a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Roja has been working with Dr. Hartel since 2005. Her research area encompasses crystalline structure of foods with particular emphasis on crystallization of fats.

Jeffrey Fine

AarhusKarlshamn USA

Jeffrey Fine received his doctoral degree in lipid biochemistry from Ohio State University. In the course of more than twenty years of R&D experience in the food, confectionery and vegetable oil industries he has held various senior technical positions.   His venture into food lipids began at General Mills, and then continued at Hershey Foods, and Kraft/Nabisco.   His research interests lie in the area of the chocolate bloom mechanism and the phase behavior of fats.  He is currently Director of New Products & Technology at AarhusKarlshamn USA Inc.,  a global supplier of specialty fats and oils.  He assumed the chairmanship of the PMCA Research Committee in the summer of 2005. 

Jürgen Fischer

Bühler Barth AG

Currently Jürgen works as a managing director at Bühler Barth AG where he is responsible for the technical and design department, the sales department, research and development. Prior to this he was a managing director, sales director, sales engineer and mechanical engineer for G.W. Barth.

Jürgen received his Dipl. Ing at the University FRIDERICIANA in Karlsruhe/Germany in 1982 as a mechanical and processing engineer.

Steve Genzoli

Ghirardelli Chocolate Company

Steve holds a Bachelors degree in Food Science from California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo.  He began his career with Nestle Chocolate & Confections where he held various positions within Operations Management and Technical Service.   After 9 years with Nestle, Steve joined Fuji Vegetable Oil where he was the Technical Marketing Manager.  In this capacity, he supported the technical needs of key customers in both North and South America.  In 1997 Steve joined the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company where he is the Vice President of Quality Assurance and Research & Development.

Amy E. Griel, PhD, RD

The Hershey Company

Dr. Amy Griel is a Senior Nutrition Scientist at The Hershey Company.  Dr. Griel received her B.S. in Kinesiology at The Pennsylvania State University; her M.Ed. in Exercise Physiology was awarded by The University of Virginia. During her time at The University of Virginia she held a clinical assistantship within the University of Virginia’s Cardiovascular Health and Rehabilitation Program.  Dr. Griel earned her Ph.D. in Nutritional Sciences at The Pennsylvania State University and subsequently completed her dietetic internship at The Pennsylvania State University.

Throughout graduate school Dr. Griel’s research and training centered on cardiovascular nutrition and associated chronic diseases.  She has studied many different populations, including healthy participants, overweight/obese subjects as well as subjects at risk for CVD in a variety of study designs, including controlled feeding studies, a postprandial study and a free-living study.

Dr. Griel has received numerous awards and honors throughout her career. She received the 2006 Colonel Mary Lipscomb Hamrick Memorial Scholarship from The American Dietetic Association Foundation, The Pennsylvania State University Dietetic Internship Scholarship, The National Research Institute: Role of Fatty Acids in Reducing Inflammation Scholarship (2005-2006) and several travel grants from the Pennsylvania State University’s Nutrition and Dietetics Alumni Society to present her research at national scientific meetings. She is currently a member of the American Society for Nutrition and the American Dietetic Association.  Dr. Griel has published 8 scientific papers and contributed to 4 book chapters.

Gary Guittard

Guittard Chocolate Company

Gary is president and CEO of one of the oldest family owned and operated chocolate producers in the world. During its 140 years of making high quality chocolate by melding old world small-batch processing with modern techniques, the Guittard Chocolate Company has been in the vanguard of the industry in other areas as well. Notably, by developing products to meet specific customers’ needs. After graduating from the University of Denver with a major in psychology and a minor in religion Gary got some experience in the business before joining Guittard. He worked with a food broker for a couple of years to understand grocery distribution and then spent time in marketing and sales for the bakery supply industry. He joined the family firm in 1975, to work side-by-side with his brother Jay, who oversaw the wholesale business and his father Horace A. Guittard, the company chairman. Noting that home cooks were becoming increasingly sophisticated in their demands for quality baking chocolate, Gary created the company’s first line of chocolate chips for the home baker. In 1989, due to the untimely deaths of his father and brother, he began running the company with his family of employees, many of whom had been there for 20 years and remain at his side to this day. Gary is a member of the Chocolate Council, an active member of the association’s scientific group and a founding member of the World Cocoa Foundation. Gary is dedicated to working with native growers to promote the proliferation of cocoa.

Catherine Kwik-Uribe, Ph.D.

Mars Inc.

Catherine Kwik-Uribe, Ph.D. is a research manager for Mars Inc. Dr. Kwik-Uribe.  She received her doctoral degree in the field of Nutrition from the University of California, Davis and went on to spend several years as a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, Santa Cruz in the Department of Toxicology.  Since joining Mars Inc. in 2002, Dr. Kwik-Uribe has managed a research program within Mars Inc. which examines the potential role of specific cocoa-derived compounds (i.e., cocoa flavanols) in human health.  Specifically, much of the research focus in recent years has been the potential role of cocoa flavanols in maintaining and improving cardiovascular health.  Since joining Mars Inc., Dr. Kwik-Uribe has co-authored a number of papers focusing on the analysis of cocoa flavanols, as well as the putative benefits of foods containing these cocoa compounds to human health.

Aminah Lewis

Colorcon

Aminah Lewis is the Business Development Manager for Colorcon. She oversees product development, applications, marketing efforts and manages sales. Prior to her time at Colorcon, she worked at Vlasic Foods International in New Jersey as a Packaging Scientist and at Eastern Virginia Medical School as a Radiation Oncology Laboratory Associate.

Aminah holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences from Prairie View A&M University and is currently pursuing her Masters of Business Administration.

She is a member of NCA, AACT, PMCA, and IFT and had the honor of lecturing for the NCA Resident Course and the NCA/PMCA Panning Course in years past. She also serves on the NCA Supplier Advisory Board and the Kettle Commitee.

She enjoys golfing, salsa dancing and watching Eagles football.

John Long

Retired, The Hershey Company

Chair Emeritus, World Cocoa Foundation

Seasoned leader in the areas of corporate social responsibility, sustainability, stakeholder engagement, reputation management, corporate and public affairs, public relations, community relations and strategic philanthropy. Extensive experience with dynamic and highly visible domestic and international issues involving: economic, social and environmental sustainability; child and adult rural labor practices and remediation; outreach and relationship building with NGOs, elected officials and government representatives; coalition and community partnership building. Retired as the senior corporate social responsibility officer at The Hershey Company, providing strategic leadership to build and strengthen Hershey’s programs and efforts in this area, as well as its external partnerships and relationships. Currently consults with a variety of business, trade association and NGO clients.

Frederic Loraschi

Chocolat Frederic Loraschi

After attending the Souillac “Quercy-Perigord” culinary school, Frederic Loraschi began his career at the age of 16 as a cook for 1989 Bocuse d’Or winner Lea Linster in Luxembourg.  He later joined the team of acclaimed 3 Michelin Star Chef Bernard Loiseau in Saulieu, where he learned that passion; patience and hard work are the keys to success.

In 1999, Frederic decided to pursue his career in the United States by joining The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel where he devoted one year as Assistant Pastry Chef before being promoted to Executive Pastry Chef for the reopening of the Original Ritz-Carlton, Boston. In 2003, Frederic received the offer to take the lead of the pastry operation at the Hotel Hershey in Pennsylvania. His expertise, technical skills and creativity earned him many awards and accolades by the local and national media. Frederic was featured on the Food Network in the show “Unwrapped” as the top 5 best Sunday brunch dessert buffets in the U.S.

Professional relationships with Meilleurs Ouvriers de France such as Philippe URRACA, Laurent LE DANIEL and Stephane GLACIER encouraged Frederic to only strive for the best. At the end of 2005, he left the Hotel Hershey to create Chocolat Frederic Loraschi.

Because Frederic is addicted to perfection and stands behind his product, Chocolat Frederic Loraschi became an instant success. For the last two years, Chocolat Frederic Loraschi has been supplying some of the most prestigious hotels across the country with his unique chocolate confections.

Frederic started offering his expertise in the world of consulting, transmitting without reserve his experience and knowledge in the United States and Mexico.Because of his simple and efficient approach to pastry, Chef Frederic was featured in many trades magazine such as “Pasticceria Internazionale “ (Italy), “Le Journal du Patissier”(France), “Chocolatier Magazine “United States, and “Cuisine & Wine Asia” (Singapore).

In 2007, Frederic was invited to participate as guest pastry chef at the “New World of Food and Wine 2007” at The Ritz –Carlton Millenia in Singapore, where he was the only chef representing the United States. Today, Chef Frederic Loraschi continues to share his passion and expertise creating world-class chocolate confections with his dedicated team in Central Pennsylvania where he fully savours happiness with his wife Diana and his son Julian.

Lee McConnell

Blommer Chocolate Company

Mr. McConnell is currently the VP, Commodities at Blommer Chocolate Company and has held this position since June of 1997. Prior to this he spent 3 1/2 years at Nabisco, Inc as Director of Purchasing, Cocoa and Sweeteners. In addition, he was at Mars for 13 years as Currency Center Manager, Sweetener Purchasing Manager, as well as positions in commodity accounting, financial planning / analysis, and management science.

Jim Mitchell

Jim Mitchell is Innovations and Development Manager of Organic Sweeteners and Fibers with CIRANDA Organic Ingredients. With an academic grounding in Physics at the University of Minnesota, Jim is intensely curious, and his passion is in figuring out how things work.  He travels worldwide, working with CIRANDA’s production partners in improving their production and quality processes and assisting customers in developing new organic products.

Jim has more than 18 years experience in a variety of positions in the food industry, including warehousing, logistics, production, R & D, procurement and management.  He has co-authored several patents, and has worked in developing nano technology ingredients.  He believes strongly in the Organic industry and cares deeply about the environmental and social issues of food production. 

Anisong Pathammavong (AP)

Printpack, Inc.

Mr. Pathammavong is currently the Market/Business Development Manager for Printpack, Inc.’s Snack division. He has 30 years of business experience in the areas of R&D, Manufacturing, Technical/Product Development and Marketing/Business Development.

Mr. Pathammavong has been employed in the Flexible Packaging Industry for 30 years. Prior to that, he had 3 years of R&D experience in the Space Physics Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying Soft X-Ray.

Mr. Pathammavong is a member of the National Confectioner’s Association, the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Confectioner’s Association and the Product Development Management Association. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has a BS in Chemistry. Mr. Pathammavong is a Fulbright Scholar.

Carmela Rivero

PepsiCo

Carmela is PepsiCo VP of Research and Development. She is responsible for Latin America Foods, based in Mexico, covering a geography from Rio Bravo to Tierra del Fuego. Recognizable brands under her responsibility are Sabritas, Elma Chips, Lay’s, Gamesa, Sonric’s and Quaker among others.

She is a more than 30 year veteran in the Food Industry; a majority dedicated to Confectionery and Snacks, but also with several years in Bakery, Beverages, and Starch extended applications. Carmela has played roles from R&D, through Marketing and General Manager. With experiences in Latin America, Canada and the US, she has worked for Quaker Oats Fabrica de Chocolates La Azteca – now Nestle, Hershey’s, Corn Products (CPC), and for PepsiCo in multiple areas.

With her strong background on Nutrition, Food Science, and an MBA, she is playing a meaningful role in shaping PepsiCo to meet the Sustainability challenges that the XXI Century is posing on all of us,  through their CEO Indra Nooyi’s call for “Performance with Purpose”, focused on Human, Environmental and Talent Sustainability.