Keith Cole

B. Keith Cole’s more than 25 years career in international development has focused on food security and agriculture, refugee services, and education programs in the U.S. and abroad. Currently he is Associate Director for Program Development at the Norman Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture of the Texas A&M University System. He also serves as Texas A&M AgriLife’s Liaison to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Previously he was the Borlaug Institute’s Assistant Director for Administration and Finance. During his career at the Borlaug Institute, he has successfully written or supervised cost proposals exceeding $80 million to date. Primary donors include the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agriculture Service (USDA FAS), among others. From December 2011 through April 2012, he was posted to Jalalabad, Afghanistan as the Borlaug Institute’s Acting Country Director. The Borlaug Institute’s work has positively impacted over 50 countries to date improving food security, increasing incomes, and strengthening resilience.

In refugee services, following field experience working with the American Refugee Committee (ARC) in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1997, he served for four years as a board advisor to the finance and fundraising committee of the Rocky Mountain Survivors Center (RMSC) in Denver, CO, an organization that provided mental health and legal services to refugees and asylees who survived torture in their home countries.

Here at home in Texas, he served six years on the board of the Brazos Valley Food Bank (https://www.bvfb.org/), is currently on the board of Empower Dreams (https://www.empowerdreams.org/), and volunteers with OnRampTX (https://www.onramptx.org/about). He is pursuing his PhD in International Agricultural Development from Texas A&M University and has traveled and worked in 57 countries.