NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Karen M. McCary
Director of Communications
For Release: July 27, 2016
INFORMA ECONOMICS IEG ADDS TO STAFF
Informa Economics IEG recently added several employees to its staff in Memphis, Tennessee.
Isaac Olvera joined the company in May as a commodity market analyst in the Livestock, Meat,
Poultry and Dairy team within Informa Economics’ IEG Research group. His primary emphasis is on the
cattle and beef markets, including production, trade, and price forecasts, along with the development and
implementation of tailored sales and procurement strategies for clients. Prior to joining Informa, Olvera
worked as a teaching and research assistant within the Animal Science Department at Texas A&M
University where he taught sections of introductory animal science, livestock nutrition, and beef cattle
production. Additionally, he managed cattle and horse operations in the Bryan/College Station area. While at
Texas A&M, Olvera developed econometric models estimating the production-based effects of
pharmaceutical technologies in beef cattle production. He earned his bachelor’s degree in animal science, a
master’s degree in animal science, a master’s degree in agribusiness, and a doctorate in animal science, all
from Texas A&M University.
Chaz Jones came into Informa Economics IEG in June as a transportation analyst within Informa
Economics’ IEG Research group, where he is responsible for research and analysis for the barge, rail, truck
and ocean modes, and highway, bridge network and navigation developments across multiple commodities.
In this capacity, he works with major US providers of transportation services and shippers, especially in the
areas of volume prediction and rate strategy issues. Prior to joining the company, Jones was a sell-side equity
research analyst covering transportation at several investment banks for 15 years. He has developed a deep
knowledge across the transportation industry having covered and researched publicly traded companies in
the truckload, less-than-truckload, intermodal, freight brokers, freight integrators, transportation equipment,
and maritime shipping industries. He has been recognized six times as a top earnings estimator on Wall
Street in the Road & Rail category. He received both his bachelor’s degree in finance and master’s degree in
international business from Oklahoma State University.
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© 2016 Informa Economics IEG, All Rights Reserved
INFORMA ADDS STAFF—P. 2
Peter Rohde joined the company as a vice president and senior member of the Informa Economics
IEG Client Advisory and Development group with extensive experience in client service, commodity
marketing and advisory. Prior to joining the company in late June, Rohde was a grain division manager and
grain merchandising manager of CHS, Inc., in Holdrege, Nebraska, where he managed 10 grain facilities
totaling 25 million bushels of storage capacity and that handled over 40 million bushels of grain with annual
sales of $160 million. Prior to that work, he was the director of feed products for DASCO, Inc. in
Monument, Colorado, where he was responsible for sales, customer relationship management, transportation
management and freight contracting. He also was a commodities manager for POET Biorefining in
Chancellor, South Dakota, where he was responsible for procurement and the management of the corn
futures and options positions for 34 million bushels of corn annually, the load out of 24,000 tonnes of
distillers’ dried grains and over 100 million gallons of ethanol; in this capacity, he also managed personnel
responsible for corn origination, territory planning and market share growth, co-product and ethanol
inventory and logistics, and commodities plant operation. Before his work at POET, he worked for 19 years
for Cargill, Inc., in marketing, sales, farm marketer and facility management positions. While at Cargill, he
managed clients’ market risks using futures and options, managed a team of agricultural sales professionals
in grain procurement/marketing and agronomy/agricultural inputs, sold agricultural chemicals, seed and
other agricultural inputs to customers in southwest Minnesota and eastern South Dakota, managed three
grain handling facilities in the Midwest and South, was a plant superintendent for two country grain elevators
in southern Indiana and also was an export plant operations supervisor in Portland, Oregon, and Norfolk,
Virginia. He has held a commodity trading advisor series three broker license. He received his bachelor's
degree in agricultural economics from North Dakota State University.
Fritz Baird came to Informa Economics IEG in early July as a commodity analyst focusing on longterm forecasts across multiple commodities. Prior to joining Informa, he spent six years with Cargill, Inc., as
part of their global analytics team. At Cargill, he worked as an analyst for the wheat and cotton markets
where he was responsible for forecasting area, yield and production, and domestic consumption and trade
flows. He has experience in applying his analysis to generate timely and accurate insights for advising
traders in the futures and cash commodity markets. Baird has a bachelor’s degree in agricultural business and
a master’s degree in applied economics from Montana State University.
07-27-16
About Informa Economics IEG
A part of the Business Intelligence Division of Informa PLC, Informa Economics IEG is a world leader in
comprehensive agriculture, food industry, agribusiness and commodity research, information, analysis and consulting.
With a core team of research analysts and consulting specialists, Informa Economics IEG serves many of the world's
leading agribusinesses. Headquartered in Memphis, Tennessee, the company has offices in Washington, D.C.; St.
Paul, Minnesota; Winnipeg, Canada; London, England; Brussels, Belgium; and Sao Paulo, Brazil. It is the company’s
economic expertise and client base that combine to provide unique insights and strategic and long-term planning for
agribusinesses around the world. For more information, see the Informa Economics IEG web site at
http://www.informaecon.com.
About Informa PLC
Informa operates at the heart of the Knowledge and Information Economy. It is one of the world’s leading business
intelligence, academic publishing, knowledge and events businesses. With more than 6,500 employees globally, it has
a presence in all of the major geographies, including North America, South America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East
and Africa.