Meet Our Board Members
President: Ron Dvergsten
Ron is in his 33rd year serving Northwest Minnesota farms as a Farm Business Management instructor and as the Program Supervisor for 12 years at Northland Community and Technical College. For the past nine years Ron has been a member of the Minnesota State FBM Database Team, through AgCentric. He is also Director for American State Bank of Grygla.
Ron attended UMC and then transferred to NDSU, where he graduated with a degree in Agriculture Education. He served as the Vo-ag Instructor at Crookston Central High School for five years and as an Ag Loan Officer for the Farm Credit Services of Grand Forks (currently Ag Country FCS) for four years before beginning a career in farm business management.
Ron grew up on a dairy/diversified farm outside of Greenbush, MN; he currently lives in Thief River Falls. He considers all Northwest Minnesota as his home area having also lived in Crookston, Fosston and East Grand Forks.
Ron has previously served on the NFRBMEA Board as Secretary (1997-98) and President Elect, President, Past President (2003-2006).
Past President: Tina LeBrun
Tina has been a Farm Business Management Instructor for South Central College since January 2009. She offices near New Ulm, Minnesota, covering parts of Sibley, Nicollet, Brown, Blue Earth, Waseca, and Le Sueur counties. Recently, Tina has expanded her service area to a few out of state projects and completed some financial benchmarking education for small fruit and vegetable growers on the east coast.
Raised on a dairy/crop farm in south central Minnesota, Tina went on to the University of Wisconsin-River Falls and graduated with a B.S. in Agriculture Economics and Animal Science. After graduation Tina went back home to the family farm where she continues to be involved in operations and has been actively working on farm transitioning for the past 2 years. Early in her farm management career she completed an M.Ed from the University of Minnesota. Working with her own farm and other farm producers for the past 14 years, Tina has an extensive foundation of farm management topics.
Currently, she and her husband Kyle live on a farm near Lafayette, MN where they raise Charolais beef cattle for their cow/calf operation along with attempting to raise their 4 children. They are both actively involved in Tina’s family's cattle farm, cropping enterprise, and direct farm, beef sales business - Backstreet Market, which means most free time is generally spent farming, managing meat sales, or record keeping.
She was also a member of the MN Beef Producers - Top of the Class program in 2018-19, where her training has evolved into being an advocate for agriculture and the beef industry. She enjoys blogging about farm management and beef producer issues while educating the general public on the beef industry through social media, farm tours, or classroom/meeting setting.
Secretary: Brad Sirianni
Brad Sirianni is Farm Business & Production Management (FBPM) Instructor at Western Technical College in La Crosse, WI. He has been an FBPM instructor since 2008 and was a high school Ag teacher for 12 years prior. Brad received his teaching degree from UW-River Falls.
Brad’s passion lies in helping farmers accomplish their goals and dreams. With experiences in finance, nutrition and soils he strives to bring value to the farmers he works with. Brad believes in constant improvement and accomplishes this goal by attending workshops, seminars, conferences and participating in leadership roles. He currently plays an active role in the local farmer led watershed group, is a leader of WI Farm Business instructors, has served as president of the National Farm & Ranch Business Management Education Association, vice president for the Wisconsin Association of Agriculture Educators, served on the National Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship board, is a Farm Bureau member and served on Western Technical Colleges Culture of Accountability training team and participates in many local and area events and activities. Brad helps his peers collect farm financial/production data which is submitted to the national database. He uses this data to benchmark farms to help make informed decisions.
Brad and his wife and three children reside in Whitehall, WI. The family owns and operates Fede Farms where they produce grains and forages for farmers. In his spare time, Brad enjoys riding bike, volunteering, and doing activities with his wife and children.
Treasurer: Jeff Schultz
I have been a Farm Business Management instructor since 2015. I am part of a 13-instructor team at South Central, Faribault campus, along with Mark Wehe and Eric Kinsley. Previously I was a commodity broker for 15 years helping farmers sell and hedge their commodities. Prior to that I was an Agronomist for 10 years in Iowa and Minnesota. I have a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Minnesota in Agronomy and Ag Economics.
I live and grew up in Faribault with my wife and three children. We raise red angus and clubby cattle and show them locally and nationally. I enjoy pheasant hunting behind pointers, BBQ, gardening, and too many volunteer positions to mention.
National Council Rep: Deron Erickson (Outgoing)
Deron is a Farm Business Management instructor at Minnesota West Technical College with an office in Barrett, MN. He has been a Farm Business Management instructor since November of 2000. Prior to this he taught High School Ag Education in Morris and Hancock. The Westland FBM program has been honored in 2022 as the Outstand Post-Secondary and Adult program by the Minnesota Association of Agricultural Educators. This program has around 65 students that range in age from 22 to 75, and has students in Grant, Traverse, Big Stone, Stevens, Swift, and Douglas Counties of Minnesota.
Deron was born and raised in Stevens County and currently operates the 430-acre home farm growing both corn and soybeans. Growing up it was a diverse farm raising finish beef, finish hogs, chickens, and sheep. That background has helped as a Farm Business Management instructor. Deron graduated from North Dakota State University and is a proud Bison alum! Deron’s free time is taken up with farming, but he also enjoys being on the water as much as possible.
Deron has been married to his lovely wife Cam for 4 years. He has a daughter Rebecca who is an Ag Education graduate from the University of MN, Jacob who is an infrastructure engineer on the Microsoft campus in Seattle, and Noah who is the 2022-23 FFA State Sentinel and will be attending the University of MN in the Fall. Deron also has two step children, Kelli and Kate, and two grandchildren.
National Council Rep: Jeremy Daberkow (Incoming)
Jeremy Daberkow teaches farm management in Martin County where he works with over 50 farm families. His passion and enthusiasm for agriculture developed while going up on a dairy, hog, and crop farm near Lakefield, MN, where he continues to raise hogs and crops with his family. Twin five year-old boys Axel and Everett keep Jeremy and his wife Jessica, a HS School ag teacher, on the move.
Conference Sponsorship Coordinator: Denise Reeser
Denise has been an agricultural educator for the past 26 years. She graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Education and received her MBA from Southwest Minnesota State University.
Currently, she teaches Adult Farm Business Management for South Central College to area farmers near Montgomery, MN. Denise is a co-leader of the Minnesota Professional Excellence Program, a mentoring program for early career farm business management instructors.
In addition, Denise is a part owner in their family business, BamaSota BBQ, a food trailer and catering business serving Southern Minnesota. She resides in rural New Prague with her husband and three daughters.
Communications Director: Debra Pike
Deb has been co-editor of NUTS & BOLTS since 1993, and became the NFRBMEA webmaster in April 1999. Beginning June of 2010, her official title changed to "Communications Director".
Deb received an AS in Web Design & Development from Rochester Community & Technical College in 2007. Her interest in web page design came about after "sitting in" for Wayne at a workshop offered at the Minnesota Vocational Ag Instructor's Association (now MAAE) conference in July 1998. Deb also designs websites on an independent contract basis.
Deb is married to Wayne; they have three sons, & daughters-in-law: Bob & Gretchen, Matt & Emily (parents to Grace and Noah) and Ted & Taylor (parents to Killian).
Deb also enjoys machine knitting, machine embroidery and sewing, and playing agility with her "Spotted Rocket", Zuzu.