Ines Hanrahan

Ines Hanrahan, Ph.D., has served as Executive Director of the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission (WTFRC) since August 17, 2018. She has been with the Commission since 2005. Ines was the Commission’s project manager prior to becoming Executive Director. Dr. Hanrahan provides administrative leadership to the organization, oversight of the WTFRC staff, and contributes to strategic planning for the WTFRC.

Ines strives to ensure all funding is geared towards investments in industry priority areas to enable increased productivity, improved product quality and to help growers stay economically viable in a globally competitive marketplace. She is committed to fostering vibrant public-private partnerships with tree fruit scientists worldwide. Hanrahan believes that with active involvement with diverse industry members WTFRC can contribute to empowering the entire industry to shape the future through innovation.

She is highly dedicated to connecting with the next generation of industry professionals, both as a mentor and as an industry leader, and to setting a positive example for an increasingly diverse global work force.

Hanrahan grew up in East Germany where her family grew what they could due to food insecurity and her grandmother’s lifelong passion for gardening. She first came to the U.S. and Washington State as part of an agricultural exchange program. Hanrahan learned about the scope of the WA tree fruit industry while working in South Africa where she read The Good Fruit Grower and became determined to write for it one day.  Hanrahan’s interest in farming is not only part of her roots, education, and work. She, her husband and son live, work on, and own a commercial fruit orchard that they have expanded and has been in her husband’s family for more than a generation.

Education:

Ph.D. Horticulture, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA, 2005

Agricultural Engineering Diploma, Area: Horticulture, Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany, 1999