Gus
Douglass
Title: Commissioner
Organization: West Virginia Deptartment of Agriculture
Election Category: Elected November 1964
Office Phone: 304-558-2201
Office Fax: 304-558-2203
Mailing
1900 Kanawha Boulevard East
Charleston, WV 25305
Shipping
1900 Kanawha Boulevard East
Charleston, WV 25305
West Virginia Commissioner of Agriculture Gus R. Douglass is the nation’s senior Agriculture Commissioner. West Virginia voters elected him to his eleventh four-year term in November 2008. He began his career with the West Virginia Department of Agriculture as Assistant Commissioner in 1957.
Raised amid agriculture in Grimms Landing, W.Va., Commissioner Douglass was active in Future Farmers of America, serving as state and national president. He also was instrumental in the formation of the FFA Alumni Association and served as that group’s first president
He has served as president of both NASDA and SASDA, has served twice as president of SUSTA, and was chairman of the Southern Regional Committee for Food and Agriculture under President Jimmy Carter. He chaired the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture’s Advisory Committee on Foreign Animal and Poultry Diseases an unprecedented four times, representing all state departments of agriculture.
He and his wife, Anna Lee, have four children, six grandchildren, and a growing collection of great-grandchildren. He and his son, Tom, operate a 540-acre beef and grain farm in Mason County, West Virginia, along the Kanawha River.