Doug Gillespie leaving MDAR
News Date January 08, 2007
Massachusetts Agriculture Commissioner and NASDA Vice President Douglas Gillespie was replaced by incoming Governor Deval L. Patrick. Scott Soares will serve as acting commissioner until a permanent commissioner is named. Douglas P. Gillespie has served as commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources (MDAR) since April 3, 2002, under Governors Jane Swift and Mitt Romney. The department, organized in 1852, is one of the oldest state agencies in the United States, and has as its dual missions 1) the protection and preservation of a safe local food supply coupled with the promotion of Massachusetts farms and agricultural products and 2) the protection and preservation of Massachusetts farmlands and natural resources.
Prior to becoming commissioner, Doug Gillespie was employed as assistant executive director of the Massachusetts Farm Bureau Federation, the member advocacy organization for Bay State farmers. He had been on the Farm Bureau staff for twelve years, and prior to that had been active in livestock media and marketing careers in Massachusetts, Illinois and Missouri. He is a graduate of the University of Maine, with a B.S. degree in secondary education, and an A.S. degree in animal science. He grew up on the family farm in Weston, Massachusetts, and was active in 4-H club programs.
Gillespie's family maintains one of the oldest flocks of Horned Dorset Sheep in the United States, and the Woodleigh Farms flock has won several championships in national competition. On his mother's side of the family, Mayunsook Farm Guernsey cattle were kept for many years in northern Berkshire County, and the family has also been active in quality Morgan horses, Black Cochin bantams, Fantail and Muff Tumbler fancy pigeons, and registered Basset hounds. Beginning as a 4-H club project in the late sixties, Gillespie also developed highly regarded flocks of Hampshire and Montadale sheep, which grew to over 150 brood ewes in the early eighties. Gillespie Sheep Company hosted annual seed stock production sales, and participated in shows and sales from California and Oregon to New England and the East coast. The flocks were dispersed in the mid-eighties before Gillespie and his family returned to Massachusetts.
Gillespie is also active in his local community, and currently serves as a member of the Weston Board of Selectmen. He also serves as Vice-Chair of the 11-town MetroWest Growth Management Committee. He formerly chaired both the Public Works Committee and Solid Waste & Recycling Advisory Committee for the Town of Weston.
Gillespie is past president of the Northeast Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NEASDA), and served on the Board of Directors of NASDA. Gillespie is a trustee of the Eastern States Exposition, and corporator of the Massachusetts 4-H Foundation. He is a member of the Massachusetts Agricultural Club, Middlesex County Farm Bureau, Boston Poultry Exposition, and Essex Agricultural Society.
Gillespie has been married to his wife, Denise, since 1983, and they have one son, Seth. The Gillespies enjoy dividing their time between the family farm in Weston (where they keep heritage breeds of goats, sheep, llamas, donkeys and miniature horses) and Denise's family ranch in central Texas (where they maintain a commercial cow-calf herd). In his spare time, Gillespie enjoys bringing agriculture to Massachusetts citizens through an educational farmyard at several Massachusetts agricultural fairs.