The Highland County Chamber of Commerce will hold the 12th annual Ag is Everyone’s Business event Friday, March 1 at Boeckmann Farms north of Hillsboro.

“The goal of the event has been to network Highland County’s business community with our county’s top industry — agriculture,” said Highland County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Jamie Wheeler. “This event annually draws together business leaders, farmers and youth looking to be involved in agriculture.”

This year’s keynote speaker is Shawn Hackett, an agriculture commodities expert and television and radio personality. Melanie Wilt, founder and CEO of Shift-ology Communication, will also be speaking at the event.

“We’re really excited about those speakers,” said Wheeler. “Shawn Hackett is an ag economist and we know that the grain and livestock markets are all kind of in an uproar right now going up and down, so we are hoping that will be a good thing for our producers to see. Melanie Wilt is going to be basically communicating we’re working together across generations, and we know many of our businesses and many of our farmers have multi-generations working together so we hope that is a good topic for everyone in attendance.”

Hackett has dedicated his life to educating agriculture industry leaders and farmers about financial risk management, hedging and the utility of indicator-based agriculture commodity price forecasting tools.

His extensive research on long-term cycles and statistics on climate, currencies, geopolitics and global capital flows have long been a key differentiating factor for Hackett’s price forecasting skills. Hackett takes complicated concepts and presents them in an easily digestible framework to a wide audience and discusses them regularly in his subscriber-based Hackett Agricultural Report and Hackett Dairy Report. Hackett will be presenting: How weather, geopolitics and other factors are influencing ag prices.

Wilt is an expert public relations consultant and communication coach who has led communications for state and international organizations in food and agriculture and aerospace.

As an accredited public relations professional, she is well-versed in all aspects of public relations, but is expert in the practices of community relations, media relations and crisis communication. Wilt is a passionate advocate for agriculture and has pioneered applying neuroscience and virtual experiences to industry communication.

In addition, she is a gifted science communicator whose teaching methods apply to health, education and manufacturing’s most difficult communication and business challenges. Wilt will be presenting: Multi-generational teams that work.

Doors will open at 9 a.m. and welcoming remarks will start at 9:45 a.m. The event will conclude at noon with lunch prepared by a local caterer and served by local FFA chapter members.

Tickets for the event are $25 and can be purchased by visiting the chamber office at 338 W. Main St. in Hillsboro, calling 937-393-1111, or online at www.thehighlandchamber.com. Seating for the event is limited.

Reach John Hackley at 937-402-2571.