Michael Swanson

DIRECTOR

Michael Swanson, Ph. D., works as the agricultural economist and consultant for Wells Fargo, the largest agricultural lender in the United States. His responsibilities include analysis and forecasting of some key agricultural commodities (wheat, soybeans, corn, and cotton) and livestock sectors (cattle, dairy and hogs). The analysis includes the impact of energy on agriculture. Additionally, he works with the bank to develop credit and risk strategies for bank customers. The bank maintains a multi-billion portfolio of loans involving these and other agricultural products.

Other significant responsibilities include macroeconomic and international analysis. This analysis focuses on the impact that these developments will have on agricultural production and agribusinesses.

Prior to working at Wells Fargo, he supervised a portion of the Land O' Lakes supply chain for value-added cheese. This process involved scheduling the production, warehousing and distribution of over 400-million pounds of cheese on an annual basis. He also supervised the forecasting process for majority of sales for the value-added division of this large national dairy cooperative.

Before working in the dairy processing business, Swanson lived and worked in Colombia, South America, for four years. He worked for Cargill Cafetera de Manizales S.A., the Colombian subsidiary of Cargill. His areas of responsibilities included grain imports and value-added sales to feed producers and flour millers. Operations provided services of unloading, storage and transportation to all parts of the country.

His first work was as a transportation analyst with the Burlington Northern RR. The primary responsibilities included system analysis and capacity studies in the northern region stretching from Chicago to Seattle. Swanson received his doctorate in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Minnesota 1998. His areas of specialization were production economics, statistics and regional economics. His doctoral thesis, which was sponsored by the NRI and the Norwegian government, showed how value-added tax data could be used to better estimate some key components of economic activity. He also received his master’s degree in agricultural and applied economics from the University of Minnesota in 1991. His undergraduate degrees in Economics and Business Administration are from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1986.