First Sprecher Award Winners Announced

The Wisconsin Agricultural and Life Sciences Alumni Association (WALSAA), the organization that supports the connection of students, faculty and alumni to the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS), is proud to announce the first recipients of the Nancy J. Sprecher Enhancement Award. This scholarship award goes to a CALS graduating senior who has shown outstanding leadership and academic excellence and exemplifies the qualities that the late Nancy Sprecher displayed during her career.

Nancy J. Sprecher grew up in Wisconsin. She graduated from the UW-Madison in 1978 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Agricultural Journalism. While in school, she was Queen of the Little International Livestock Show and played an active role in campus life. She loved anything with agriculture in its name. She began her career as a market analyst at DeKalb AgResearch and Gene Kroupa Associates, and then joined the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, first as Executive Vice-President and rising to Chief Operating Officer. Toward the end of her long career she moved to Minneapolis, MN, and became a director of Women’s Food Service Forum, an organization that promotes women in leadership positions in agriculture/food related industries. She was very involved in her community, travelled widely and had a lifelong love of music. She was a kind, giving person and a leader that staff looked up to for her brains, as well as her integrity. Sprecher was successful in a male-dominated field and paved the way for other women to move ahead in those industries. When she died in 2021 at just 64 years of age, her wish was to have a scholarship fund established at CALS that would support the careers of students’ post-graduation.

Three CALS graduating seniors have been chosen to receive the Nancy J. Sprecher Enhancement Award in 2023. They are Sarah Alumtawa, Mae Hurtado-Thiele, Lauren Lansing. Read more about these recipients below.