Keynote Session         Farming Together as a Family Dr. Bernie Erven Farming together is both challenging and rewarding Guidelines for top managers and members in family businesses Success in farming together comes through dedication, hard work, and cooperation Practical take-home guidelines to help family members handle responsibility

Bernie Erven is professor of agricultural economics and Extension specialist at Ohio State University. His teaching, Extension, and research activities are in human resource management, farm management and business management. He teaches courses in Agribusiness Management and Human Resource Management in Small Businesses.

His Extension and outreach program focuses on labor management topics such as hiring, training, motivation, compensation, and performance evaluation. He also does workshops on communication techniques, handling the stress of management, time management, management, succession, and human relations in family businesses. His work on these increasingly important topics has taken him throughout Ohio and to more than 25 other states.

He has degrees from Ohio State University and the University of Wisconsin. He has been a visiting professor at Cornell University. Bernie's foreign assignments include seven months teaching at a school for refugee boys at Jericho, Jordan and three years university teaching in Brazil.

Bernie is a two-time recipient of the Ohio State University Award for Distinguished Teaching. He has also received the American Agricultural Economics Association Teaching Award, a U.S. Department of Agricultural National Excellence in Teaching Award, both the Ohio State University Gamma Sigma Delta Extension and Teaching Awards, and the American Agricultural Economics Association Group Extension Award.