Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, Illinois state director of Rural Development, has been appointed to a USDA senior staff position in Washington, D.C.

Dirksen Londrigan will serve as the administrator for the Rural Business-Cooperative Service starting in late January. She has served as USDA’s Rural Development state director since January 2022, and will replace Karama Neal, who is departing USDA and returning to Arkansas. 

USDA’s Rural Business-Cooperative Service offers programs to help businesses grow as well as job training for people living in rural areas.

"It’s a fantastic set of programs," Dirksen Londrigan told RFD Radio. "When you think about the meat and poultry processing expansion program, the fertilizer production program that were stood up in the last couple of years, it’s those programs. It’s the renewable energy portfolio within Rural Development. Plus, so many of our tried-and-true Value-Added Producer Grant and our business and industry loan programs.

"It covers a lot of territory, and I’m honored and thrilled."

While she’s sad to leave her Illinois staff, Dirksen Londrigan said the office is in good hands with Deputy State Director Molly Hammond, who will step in as acting director.

Dirksen Londrigan has over 20 years of experience in the nonprofit sector, working with community, regional and state leaders. She is the lead for the Illinois Basin Rapid Response Team for the Interagency Working Group for Energy Communities. She is a lifelong resident of Springfield, and her family members still own and operate the centennial farm in central Illinois where her grandmother was raised.

Dirksen Londrigan graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and is a former director at the University of Illinois Springfield.