Mike Taylor - 2017 Leader Lecturer

Mike Taylor - 2017 Leader Lecturer

By: Esther Haviland

Title: Food Safety Culture - Past and Future

 

At the Creating a Food Safety Culture Executive Education held May 24-26 on MSU campus, we were honored to have Mike Taylor as the 2017 Robert Leader Endowed Lecturer. His talk was entitled Food Safety Culture - Past and Future.

 

Mike Taylor is a Senior Fellow at the Meridian Institute in Washington, D.C. and an advisor to the Food and Society Program at the Aspen Institute. His primary interest is food safety and food security in Africa and other developing regions. Until June 1, 2016, Mr. Taylor was Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine at the Food and Drug Administration. He led the comprehensive overhaul of FDA's food safety program Congress mandated in the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 and oversaw all of FDA's food-related activities, including its nutrition, labeling, food additive, dietary supplement, and animal drug programs. Mr. Taylor served previously at FDA as a staff attorney and as Deputy Commissioner for Policy (1991-94) and at USDA as Administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service and Acting Under Secretary for Food Safety (1994-96). Prior to joining FDA in July 2009, he spent nearly a decade conducting food safety, food security and public health policy research, most recently at George Washington University's School of Public Health and he also served during this period as a Senior Fellow at the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, where he conducted research on U.S. policies affecting agricultural development and food security in Africa. In the private sector, Mr. Taylor founded the food and drug practice and was a partner in the law firm of King & Spalding, was Vice President for Public Policy at Monsanto Company, and served on the boards of the Alliance to End Hunger and RESOLVE, Inc. He is currently on the boards of Stop Foodborne Illness and Clear Labs, Inc.