Gus, our Founding Board Chair and mentor, passed away on Sept. 24, 2017, just months prior to the launch of Equity Advocates. Gus was a legend in the food justice and farming world. From 1997 to 2001, Gus served as President Bill Clinton’s Under Secretary of Agriculture for Farm and Foreign Agricultural Services at USDA. Prior, he served as Administrator of USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service, worked as a senior Agri-lender for the World Bank, and served as Commissioner of Food and Agriculture for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. After Harvard College, Gus studied at the London School of Economics and was a research associate in agribusiness at the Harvard Business School.

He was a member of the 21st National Academy of Sciences. He jointly oversaw the preparation of the Task Force Report of the Chicago Council of Global Affairs, titled “Modernizing America’s Food and Farm Policy: Vision for a New Direction”. He has received leadership awards from the James Beard Foundation and the EOS Foundation. Gus was a co-founder of Wholesome Wave, a nonprofit that tries to improve affordable access to fresh, locally grown food. He developed the first federal Nutrition Incentive program for SNAP participants to help millions of low-income families access healthy, fresh food. After his passing, the USDA renamed the program the Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP) in his honor. Gus provided federal policy expertise and strategic support at a crucial time for Equity Advocates, and his life and 50-year career on food access issues remains an inspiration for our work.