AMS Announces New SCP Deputy Administrator

Last week Secretary Perdue announced organizational changes in USDA, several of which impacted AMS. Yesterday, AMS announced that Sonia Jimenez will be the new Deputy Administrator for the Specialty Crops Program beginning on September 17.  Sonia began her USDA career over 25 years ago as a Marketing Specialist with AMS, supporting the Agency’s Marketing Order and Research and Promotion Divisions.   She then moved to the Foreign Agricultural Service, where she worked for eight years.  She returned to AMS in 2006 as the Director of the Promotion and Economics Division, and in 2013 she served as the Agency’s acting Deputy Associate Administrator. Sonia spent the last three years as Deputy Administrator for the AMS Management and Analysis Program.  Dr. Melissa Bailey and Christopher Purdy will continue as Associate Deputy Administrators.

Sonia holds a Master of Business Administration from the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Puerto Rico.   She is looking forward to joining SCP or as she put it, coming "back home” to SCP.