East Windsor, NJ-based Sabinsa’s Muhammed Majeed was honored by Long Island University’s Arnold and Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences with its Daniel Stateman Distinguished Alumni Award.

Steven Dickstein, is now the chief executive officer of Hugo Naturals, based in Chatsworth, CA. Founders Hugo and Debra Saavedra will be the chairman/chief innovation officer and president/chief creative officer, respectively.

I’m Organic, LLC, of Madison, WI was acquired and restarted by Kevin Scharnek, Steve Royko and Justin Hajny. According to a press statement, “Their mission is to simply spread the organic message through fun, fair, safe and eco-minded products.”

The Global Organization for EPA and DHA (GOED) of Salt Lake City, UT expanded its board of directors from eight to 14. The board now includes David Shannon, Croda (chair); Baldur Hjaltason, EPAX (vice-chair); Robert Orr, Ocean Nutrition Canada (treasurer); Amanda Ruess, DSM Nutritional Products (secretary); Phillip Fass, Martek Biosciences (past chair); Carol Locke, Omega Natural Science; Kent Cipollo, Solae; Cynthia Crouch, DuPont; Hans de Wit, Marvesa; Josipa Paska, FINA; Bjorn Rene, Cognis; Harald Ronneberg, Denomega; Olav Sandnes, Marine Nutriceuticals; and Federico Tripodi, Monsanto.

Earthbound Farm of San Juan Bautista, CA created a new product innovation team of Tracy Miedema (director of product innovation), Alec McErlich (director of farm supply) and Peter LeCompte (director of global sourcing).
Derek Hall is now the chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Natural Products Foundation’s board of directors. He is the founder and CEO of Qivana.

Sun Chlorella USA of Torrance, CA has a new member of its Health and Science Advisory Board: dermatology expert Andrew Racette, D.O.

Julia Sabin of Smucker Natural Foods, Inc., was re-elected as president of the Organic Trade Association’s (OTA’s) board of directors.

Chase Hagerman has joined Chemi Nutra of White Bear Lake, MN as business development and marketing manager.

Michael McGuffin was named the U.S. Head of Delegation for the International Organization for Standardization technical committee on traditional Chinese medicine. McGuffin is the president of the American Herbal Products Association of Silver Spring, MD.

In Memoriam
After a fighting cancer, Rod Ausich, former president of Kemin Health of Des Moines, IA passed away on June 25. Ausich made his mark on the natural health industry by inventing FloraGLO lutein and realizing lutein’s benefits for eye health in fighting age-related macular degeneration. According to Kemin, he pioneered a “new methodology for the development of purified lutein still used at Kemin today.” Ausich had been at Kemin since 1994. Stated Chris Nelson, Ph.D., Kemin Industries president and CEO, “Millions of people have benefited from his work and his legacy will be remembered by many.”

Published in WholeFoods Magazine, Aug. 2010 (epub July 21, 2010)