Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives: Veteran Lawmaker Leaves Assembly, Joins Co-ops

MADISON--David Ward, a seven-term member of the Wisconsin State Assembly and vice-chairman of the budget-writing Joint Finance Committee, has retired from the Legislature to accept the newly-created position of Dairy Division Director with the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives (WFC) and Minnesota Association of Cooperatives (MAC).

Ward announced at the end of May that he would not seek re-election this fall to the legislative post he held for almost 14 years. WFC/MAC President and CEO Bill Oemichen called Ward “an excellent addition” to the statewide trade association representing cooperative businesses in both Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Ward, 53, resigned his Assembly seat August 4 and began his new duties Monday, August 7. Those duties will not include lobbying the Legislature, Oemichen said.

An active dairy producer until 2000, Ward forged strong relations with the cooperative community as a former treasurer of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board and former director of a local farm supply cooperative in Jefferson County. The Wisconsin Credit Union League, another statewide cooperative organization, named him its Legislator of the Year in 1998.

In the Legislature, Ward was a leading advocate of the Dairy Investment Tax Credit law and authored Wisconsin’s landmark Livestock Facilities Siting Law. On the latter issue, Oemichen described Ward as “the key legislator and a really indispensable leader not only in getting the legislation passed but in the all-important follow-through on writing the administrative rules needed to make the law work.”

Oemichen also credited Ward for serving as “the primary agricultural and consumer protection advocate on the Joint Finance Committee” during his legislative tenure.

First elected to the Assembly in 1992 from a district including parts of Dane and Jefferson Counties, Ward became a member of the powerful Finance committee in 1999. He is also a former chair of the Assembly Committee on Financial Institutions and served as vice-chair of the Committees on State Affairs and Agriculture, among other committee assignments.

He and his wife Jean reside in rural Fort Atkinson on a farm owned by the Ward family since 1844.

Headquartered in Madison, the Wisconsin Federation of Cooperatives is the statewide association providing lobbying, education, public relations and technical services for a wide variety of cooperatives in Wisconsin and Minnesota, including farm supply, health, dairy marketing, consumer, credit, livestock marketing, telephone, electric, housing, insurance, cable communications, worker-owned cooperatives and more. The MAC office is headquartered in St. Paul, Minn.

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