New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and Secretary of Agriculture Art Brown
Paging through the many personal photo albums that Art Brown’s staff and friends have compiled for him over the years, one is struck by his cheerful exuberance in the images. Clearly, Art Brown is a person who enjoyed his career as New Jersey’s longtime Secretary of Agriculture. And New Jersey enjoyed his valuable contributions during his decades-long tenure.
The leading architect of the popular “Jersey Fresh” marketing campaign that broke new ground by focusing on locally grown produce and became a model for such programs nationally, Art was tireless in promoting New Jersey agriculture in its various forms. He is shown tasting a spoonful of honey at a fair, eating Jersey corn or a leg of Jersey-bred turkey, posing with a prize-winning rabbit, sampling fresh oysters, picking pumpkins, sitting astride a cutting horse, making the rounds at the county fairs, shaking hands at the Horse Park of New Jersey, promoting Jersey Fresh products for school lunches, and on and on.
It almost seems as though where two or more farmers were gathered, Art was there. By his side, in many cases, was one of the eight New Jersey governors under whom Art served. They were Tom Kean, who appointed him in 1982; Jim Florio, starting in 1990; Christie Whitman, beginning in 1994; Donald DiFrancesco, who took office in 2001; three who held the office ceremonially in early 2002: John Farmer Jr., John O. Bennett and Dick Codey; and finally Jim McGreevey, inaugurated on January 15, 2002. “It didn’t matter whether they were Republican or Democrat, I got along with all of them,” he says.
Art retired from the Department of Agriculture in 2002. However, he continued his career by coming back to the faculty of Rutgers’ School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (it was called Cook College back then) to teach, consult and return to his roots as an Agricultural and Resource Management Agent with Rutgers Cooperative Extension.
He recalls that when he finally retired in 2008, “then-President McCormick sent me a letter, conferring emeritus status on me with 37 years’ experience. Of course, that included a 20-year leave of absence – I’m willing to bet the longest in the university’s history.”
