College of Agriculture & Natural Resources Department of Community Sustainability

Program: STPAM

Academic Focus Area: Agriculture Tourism and Management

Hometown: Grand Ronde, Oregon

Advisor: Dan McCole

Becky McRoberts is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree from the Department of Sustainable Tourism and Protected Area Management, specifically focusing on recreation and agriculture based tourism systems in communities. She graduated in 2007 from Oregon State University in Animal Sciences and interned with the Oregon Farm Bureau Governmental Affairs Division, lobbying at the capitol. She briefly worked for the Oregon Dairy Products Commission promoting dairy farmers and dairy products, and educating the public. After moving to Los Angeles in 2008, Becky worked for the Antelope Valley Fair and Alfalfa Festival, located an hour north of L.A., as the Livestock Superintendent, Exhibits and Assistant Events Coordinator.

Becky plans to concentrate her graduate study on community systems and how they work within local and state government. She is most interested in how to create programs through event management that are sustained economically and environmentally, while still enhancing the public’s quality of life. With the decline in municipal funding and the restructuring of multiple state departments, community programs need to be ready to adapt, be creative, and be justifiable to their sponsoring governmental departments or non-profit boards. When she works on systems within the agriculture industry specifically, she will need to understand these barriers and opportunities even more intimately. Becky is motivated by the influx of grassroots, “back to basics” movements that are continuously growing within the agricultural industry, and is excited to pursue new opportunities within that realm.

After graduating she would like to return to the Northern West Coast and integrate into a community, focusing on sustainable agriculture tourism in some type of management role, either local government or extension education . She would love to share the knowledge she learns at Michigan State University with these communities to grow a stronger, more adaptive, sustainable atmosphere.