Board & Staff

Agency Members & Board

The Canadian Beef Check-Off Agency is governed by a board of 16 Agency Members and one youth observer. The board is comprised of ten primary cattle producers nominated by the provincial cattle associations, four members named by the Canadian Meat Council, one representative of importers nominated by I.E. Canada, and another member from the retail and food service sector nominated by the delegates at the Annual General Meeting. The youth observer seat is a beef producer appointed by the Young Cattlemen’s Council (YCC).

The Board works both as a whole, and through focused advisory and operational committees to achieve their mandate. The Governance Committee and Finance Committee are advisory committees, and are made up of Agency Members only. The one operational committee, the Marketing Committee, is made up through an appointment of Agency Members, and an election of producers and members-at-large. The Marketing Committee is responsible for the oversight of Canada Beef, the organization tasked with investing check-off dollars into market development and promotion. The members of this committee are appointed and elected from the best of the best in beef and marketing, ensuring that the Canadian beef industry receives strong value from their marketing investment through check-off.

Agency Staff

Melinda German, General Manager Melinda’s role is to oversee the Agency and the administration of check-off, to ensure transparency and prudency. She is the key lead staff for both the Agency’s board and staff, and manages the operations of the Agency as a whole. Melinda’s strong background in the beef industry is beyond valuable when it comes to ensuring that the Canadian beef industry is seeing a return on check-off investment, and she is a positive and passionate leader for the Agency. Outside of work, Melinda likes to spend her time on course swinging golf clubs, and spend time with her family at the farm near Kindersley, Saskatchewan.

Tayla Fraser Lindsey, Manager, Partner Engagement Tayla’s role focuses on communication and the relationships between the Agency and its stakeholders like the provincial cattle associations, national beef organizations and grassroots producers. She also works a lot with Agency Members, keeping everyone up to speed on what’s coming next. When she’s not at her desk, Tayla can be found traveling to far off lands in search of the best barbecue, or back home on the family ranch near Bassano, Alberta.

Emily Taylor, Office Manager & Bookkeeper Emily’s role is to look after the day to day running of the agency, keeping things ticking along smoothly. With many years experience as a bookkeeper she looks after the accounting and co-ordinates with the financial auditors at each year end. She also provides administrative support to the other Agency staff so that they can focus their time efficiently. After work Emily can be found dancing at one of Calgary’s dance studios, hitting the cycle path, or snapping shots with her camera.

Brad McCallum, Manager, Compliance and Education Brad’s role is to work with stakeholders to ensure check-off collection, reporting, and remitting are done correctly. He also conducts inspections of producers, dealers, auction markets, processors, and provincial cattle associations to review and improve processes and reporting of check-off. On evenings and weekends, Brad be found managing his stable of Standardbreds, golfing or umpiring softball tournaments.