Doug O'Brien, Senior Policy Advisor for Rural Affairs, for the White House Domestic Policy Council.

Vernon interviews Doug O'Brien, Senior Policy Advisor for Rural Affairs, for the White House Domestic Policy Council. Vernon and Doug discuss marketing cooperatives, the impact cooperatives have had in Rural America, and other initiatives of the Policy Council. Doug O'Brien has served as the Senior Policy Advisor for Rural Affairs since January 2015. Before that time and since March of 2009, O'Brien served in a number of leadership capacities at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, including as the Acting Under Secretary for the Rural Development Mission Area. At the White House, he helps lead the work of the White House Rural Council, which President Obama created in 2011 to encourage interagency cooperation and improve the effectiveness of federal programs in rural areas. Recently, the Council announced Rural Impact, an effort focused on rural child poverty. This work builds on O'Brien's leadership in rural community economic development that has focused on both emerging opportunities and in impoverished areas. Prior to serving in the Obama Administration, he worked for two State governors, the Senate Agricultural Committee, the U.S. House of Representatives, and in legal academia as a professor and author. O'Brien has degrees from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa, the University of Iowa Law School, and a Masters in Law from the University of Arkansas. He was raised on a diversified farm in Iowa and has dedicated his career to food and rural policy.