W. Lynn Hodges
Vice President
Mr. Hodges is a former Commissioned Officer with the US Public Health Service performing over 23 years of federal service with the FDA and FSIS.
Mr. Hodges recently finished a government career of 38 years (state and federal) of food safety work. Lynn’s food safety experience includes supervisory activities with the Oklahoma State Department of Health, supervisor for a large metropolitan health department, and as a regional food safety specialist with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
His duties at FDA included teaching food safety courses of many types such as HACCP, management of State/Local Food Safety programs, food borne disease and epidemiology, and providing technical guidance to federal, state, and local food regulatory officials.
His career also included over 7 years of service with the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service where he taught classes in FSRE (Food Safety Regulatory Essentials), Food Imports, and regulatory education sessions for small and very small plants. He also served as a Senior Advisor while at FSIS.
Mr. Hodges concluded his federal government career at the FDA as a Senior Regulatory Operations Officer. He served as the Training Officer for the Food Processing and Technologies course that was taught at Purdue University, Michigan State University, and Texas A&M University.
Mr. Hodges is graduated from Oklahoma State University with a degree in Biology and also received a Master of Environmental Science – University of Oklahoma. Also, he has been trained in Quality Auditing, SQF 1000, SQF 2000, ISO 22000, Food and Drug Law, Food Defense, epidemiology, etc.
Some of Mr. Hodges’ activities and accomplishments while working for the FDA and FSIS:
- Planned and directed food inspection education programs for FSIS Import Food inspection personnel assigned to the various U.S. Ports of Entry for meat and poultry food products. Member of the National Conference for Food Protection.
Planned and directed food defense education programs for FSIS inspectors in evaluation of food processing facilities’ food defense programs - FDA – Performed special investigations of consumer complaints, manufactured and retail foods, and product recalls.
- FDA – Provided education courses, seminars, and standardization for state, local, federal, and tribal food inspection personnel.
- US Food and Drug Administration Outstanding Service Award/Medal awarded for identifying egg-laying farms using CDC/State of Utah epidemiological data that identified shell eggs that were contaminated with Salmonella enteritidis resulting in removal of shell eggs from the consumer market.
- Member of the National FDA Retail Food team that performed and completed the first nationwide statistically-based national retail food survey to determine sanitation/food safety practices in different categories of retail/institutional food facilities
Other Leadership Positions Held
- U.S. Navy Pacific Partnership – Solomon Islands
- Pandemic Flu Coordinator – USDA/CFL
- FSIS ESF-11 Lead Representative to FEMA REG VI
- USDA Food Safety Education Campaign – Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
- FDA National Retail Standards Committee
- FDA National Retail Standardization Committee
- FSIS representative to the Conference for Food Protection – Manager Certification Committee
Mr. Hodges is a former Commissioned Officer with the US Public Health Service performing over 23 years of federal service with the FDA and FSIS. He retired at the rank of Commander in May 2012.
