Bruce A. Scherr

Dr. Scherr has been with Informa Economics, Inc. (formerly Sparks Companies, Inc.) since 1987 in several executive capacities including President and CEO.  In addition, he is an Advisor for Metalmark Capital LLC, a private equity fund.  Formerly he was president of Sparks, Jacobs, Scherr, Inc. (SJS), a sister company to Sparks, and president of Agri-Commodities, Inc., an agriculture consulting firm based in Andover, Massachusetts, which was acquired by SJS.  Prior to forming Agri-Commodities, Dr. Scherr was a divisional vice president at Data Resources, Inc., where he developed and utilized for the public and private sectors the first commercially available econometric model for US agriculture.  Dr. Scherr received his bachelor's degree from Rutgers University and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Purdue University, all in agricultural economics.  Currently, he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) and serves as a member of the Global Strategy Institute Advisory Council of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.  He served as a member of the Board of Directors for Desert STAR Inc., an electrical transmission Independent System Operator for the Desert Southwest from January 2000 through February 2002.  In addition, Dr. Scherr has served as a member of The University of Tennessee’s (UT) Institute of Agriculture Agricultural Development Board and UT’s Committee for the Future.  He was recently named a 2007 Distinguished Agriculture Alumni from Purdue University and he is a member of several honorary research and agricultural societies, a member of the National FFA Foundation Sponsors’ Board 2000 through 2001 and a former advisor to the President's Council of Economic Advisers and National Aeronautics and Space Administration.