By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Former Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey is returning home after serving nearly three years in the Trump Administration.
Bill Northey resigned as Iowa Ag Secretary in March of 2018 to become Under Secretary for Farm Production and Conservation in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
"It'll be different waking up everyday not thinking about all the things we need to do at USDA, there's other folks that will work on that," Northey says "Now I can start thinking about what I might do next."
Northey oversaw a division of the USDA with 21,000 employees, operating out of about three-thousand locations and Northey traveled extensively.
He visited USDA offices in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as well as in 48 of the 50 states -- he didn't make it to Hawaii or Alaska.
As the former state ag secretary exits the USDA, a former Iowa governor is returning. Tom Vilsack served as President Obama's Secretary of Agriculture for eight years.
"It's really nice to have somebody who knows how the place works, and probably has had a little bit of time to think about what he might want to do the next time around if there was a next time around," Northey says about Vilsack, "He'll hit the ground running."
Northey says he has no idea if his service in the Trump Administration will impact his future prospects.
Radio Iowa contributed to this story.