NMSU’s Steve Loring receives excellence in leadership award

Communicating about the impact of agriculture has been Steve Loring’s passion during his 36 years with New Mexico State University.

“When I thought about the defining theme of my career, I realized the word that summed it up is communication, whether it is teaching a class or telling people about the mission of land-grant universities,” said Loring, associate director of the Agricultural Experiment Station system in NMSU’s College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.

One of Loring’s primary career goals has been to help people understand the land-grant university system. He has striven to find better ways of sharing how faculty, staff and students make a difference at the local, state, regional and national levels.

In June, Loring received the Western Region Excellence in Leadership Award from the Western Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors, recognizing his dedicated service.

“We appreciate all the work that Steve has been doing on behalf of the College of ACES in the Western Association of Agricultural Experiment Station Directors,” said Rolando A. Flores, dean and chief administrative officer of the college. “We are very proud of his receiving this award as a result of his dedication to this organization.”

The award recognizes an individual from each of the five regions who has served the national land-grant system with exemplary distinction. The recipients have personified the highest level of excellence by enhancing and enabling the regional association’s ability to achieve its mission and the land-grant ideal. Awardees will be recognized at the annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities this November.

“What the land-grant system’s research and Extension services do is a well-kept secret,” he said. “As I’ve worked on committees at the national and regional level, I’ve tried to make it not such a secret. People, whether they are community members, county commissioners, state legislators or representatives in Congress, should know about us and how we positively impact the lives of individuals.”

Loring has chaired APLU’s Board of Agriculture Assembly’s Communications and Marketing Committee, and has served on the National Information Management and Support System oversight committee, and the National Impacts Database steering committee.

He has been an active participant in the regional association, serving as an officer, an administrative advisor for several multistate research projects and on the board of directors for the Western Rural Development Center.

Loring has held many different positions for the College of ACES, from overseeing operations at all off-campus agricultural science centers to serving as interim department head of the college’s Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Ecology, and Agricultural and Extension Education departments, as well as interim administrator of the agricultural science centers in Mora, Farmington and Las Cruces.

“When the college needs someone to step in and help out, that’s what I try to do,” he said. “I have had a lot of opportunities to do different things within the university, not just in the College of ACES. It has been fun.”