A veteran agricultural education teacher and experienced executive with the National FFA Organization has been named new executive director of the National FFA Alumni Association. Tony Small joined the National FFA Organization in 1998 and has held titles of partner development specialist, Local Program Success specialist and team leader, senior director of the Education division and managing director of the National Council for Agricultural Education. Currently, he serves as director of Partner Services and will continue leading the division in addition to leading activities of the National FFA Alumni Association. Previously, he was an agriculture teacher and FFA advisor for 15 years in Arkansas City, Kansas.
“We are committed to growing our alumni membership and increasing the number of advocates to support and grow agricultural education across the country,” Small said. “We will continue to identify supporting tools and resources to ensure alumni members and agricultural education teachers understand how they can work together to ensure local successes.”
The National FFA Organization estimates that there are up to 9 million former FFA members throughout the country. Former members – and anyone who wants to support today’s FFA members and chapters – can be FFA Alumni members. The mission of the National FFA Alumni Association is to support and advocate for agricultural education and FFA through gifts of time, talent and financial resources at the local, state and national levels. Agriculture teachers rely on FFA Alumni members to help them get more support from the community for their programs and give them more time and freedom to teach.
The National FFA Organization relies on alumni members for help with recruiting students and raising funds for chapter activities and scholarships. FFA Alumni members also assist at FFA camps and conferences, the annual National FFA Convention and other leadership- and personal-development initiatives.
The National FFA Organization provides leadership, personal growth and career success training through agricultural education to 579,678 student members in grades seven through 12 who belong to one of 7,570 local FFA chapters throughout the U.S., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.