Renewable Fuels Action Summit Biographies

Bart Ruth

Bart Ruth is a member of the 25 x '25 National Steering Committee and serves as chairman of the Legislative Committee. Bart served as President of the American Soybean Association (ASA) in 2001-2002 and spent two months in Europe in the fall of 2005 representing American Agriculture as an Eisenhower Fellow. Bart's policy travels on behalf of American farmers have led him to Australia, Brazil, Korea, Japan, China, Costa Rica, Mexico and Central and Western Europe.

He has hosted over two-dozen international visitors in the past two years and has worked closely with the Nuffield Scholarship program in the UK and Australia in coordinating study visits in the U.S. Most recently he participated as a Next Generation Fellow examining U.S. Foreign Policy and International Institutions at the West Coast Assembly in 2007 and will participate in the National Assembly to be held in June 2008.

Bart farms near Rising City, NE and raises 1800 acres of no-till crops. He has a rotation of corn and soybeans, of which nearly two thirds are irrigated. Bart served 12 years on the Nebraska Soybean Association Board prior to his nine years of ASA Board service. Bart received the 2005 Achievement Award from the University of Nebraska Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources and was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Agricultural Achievement in 2007.

Bart and his wife Lynne, an educator in Shelby, Nebraska, have two sons, Geoff, an '06 University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate now farming, and Brent, a 2007 graduate of Nebraska Wesleyan, now working in Washington, DC.