After 34 years at the National Chicken Council, most recently as senior director of meetings and member services, Maggie Ernst has announced her retirement from NCC.

Maggie on-boarded with the council in 1986, under the leadership of then-NCC President George Watts. During her decades of service to the industry, she managed NCC’s meetings and special events planning, program development and operations, as well as overseeing member relations and services, and served as the long-time editor of NCC’s weekly newsletter, The Washington Report.

“Maggie loved her colleagues, some of whom she worked alongside for decades and considered family,” said NCC President Mike Brown. “But above all, she was loved by our members who always reveled at her smile and grace at hundreds of NCC meetings and events that she planned over her long and distinguished career. Her passion for and dedication to NCC’s Washington Report was unparalleled.”

Maggie Ernst

Prior to joining the council, Maggie worked for the governmental affairs office of American Cyanamid, one of the nation’s top 100 manufacturing companies in the 1970s and 1980s, where she was assistant director for environmental and EPA issues and corporate liaison.  Prior to that, she was communications manager and publications editor for the American Society for Microbiology. Maggie graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in biology.

“I deeply appreciate her more than three decades of service to the broiler industry and wish her a wonderful and well-deserved retirement,” Brown added. “I look forward to the day, hopefully in the near future, when we can fit as many people in a room as possible to help celebrate as she transitions into this next chapter.”