By TIM ALEXANDER

Illinois Correspondent

PEORIA, Ill. — The leader of J.B. Pritzker’s agriculture and rural development transition team sees nothing but positives for the people of the state of Illinois as a result of her meetings with the new governor.

Colleen Callahan, a farmer and communications coach and consultant from rural Peoria County, explained several examples of the diversity and openness to new ideas that Pritzker and his staff exhibited in several gatherings held early in the Democratic governor’s transition period.

“It was a very diverse group. It was a group that came together in a bipartisan manner; the discussions were open, they were honest and frank, and the recommendations were direct and came with realistic timelines,” said Callahan, who served as USDA Rural Director for Illinois for eight years under former President Obama.

“I am not making any predictions, but I am optimistic about this administration in its infancy, and its approach from a bipartisan manner from the very beginning of the announcements of the overall transition committee.”

She pointed to Pritzker’s appointments of Republican Jim Edgar, a former Illinois governor, and other GOP leaders to key strategic posts in his transition team as evidence of good-faith bipartisanship.

“I think that’s a terrific start to how we’re going to begin to try to accomplish things and change things in our state. The agriculture and rural development committee certainly was no exception to that,” she noted.

Pritzker has marketed himself as a governor who would represent the entire state of Illinois. Callahan said she saw plenty of evidence the Chicago billionaire would fulfill that campaign promise. The veteran of many a consulting committee said she came away from meetings refreshed by his approach to communicating with and learning from advisors.

“One of the many positive things that was (evident) at our first committee meeting was when a transition team representative said, ‘Not only do we need to know what J.B. needs to know, but we also want to know what he doesn’t need to mess with,’” she recalled.

“I thought that was a positive. I’ve sat in on a lot of strategic planning sessions for a variety of groups, but I don’t recall in those groups anyone ever asking what ‘we don’t need to mess with.’ That kind of recognition from the very top is a big positive.

“Another positive I observed was that by the time we had our third and final ag committee meeting (on Jan. 3 at the ADM plant in Decatur) it had been announced that my co-chair, former Illinois Senator John Sullivan, would become the new Illinois director of agriculture. John asked that the group would continue to consent to meet, not as a transition committee going forward, but to get together again either right before or after a legislative session and talk about what we’ve begun to accomplish and what we still need to do. The group was very receptive to that.”

In addition to Callahan, Pritzker’s ag and rural development transition committee consisted of Illinois Farm Bureau President Richard Guebert Jr.; former Sens. John Sullivan and Scott Bennett; Kim Kidwell, dean of the University of Illinois ag college; Chris Merrett, professor and director of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs; Jennifer Tirey, executive director of the Illinois Pork Producers Assoc.; Joni Bucher, president of the Illinois Beef Assoc.; Rodney Weinzierl, executive director of the Illinois Corn Growers Assoc.; Sid Gorham, CEO of Granular; and others.

Prior to their Jan. 3 meeting, the 24-member ag advisory team had met in Chicago and Peoria during December. “So, I am encouraged and optimistic,” said Callahan. “You could sense as we met that people were really coming together not only in that diverse, bipartisan spirit, but in a public service spirit, if you will.

“These are people who represent industry, commodity organizations, innovations. No one was reimbursed for mileage; we just drove to where we were meeting and devoted our time because, to a person, we care.”

The specific recommendations of Pritzker’s ag and rural development transition team were submitted to him, along with recommendations from his 10 other working groups, before his Jan. 8 deadline. The transition committee recommendations will be made public in the coming weeks, according to Callahan.

“The recommendations of the transition teams focus on what can be realistically done during the first 100 days of the administration, what can be done during the medium term of one to two years and what can be done in the longer term or three to four years, and what can be done through executive decisions and legislative decisions. We were trying to be strategic with the topics we were discussing and the options or approaches we were discussing,” she explained.