WASHINGTON, DC — June 14, 2006 — Oregon Grocery Association President Joe Gilliam received the 2006 Food Marketing Institute (FMI) Donald H. MacManus Association Executive Award. The award was presented in recognition of Gilliam’s extraordinary leadership in public affairs.

“Over the years, Joe orchestrated numerous victories for food retailers and small businesses that delivered significant hard-dollar results,” said FMI President and CEO Tim Hammonds, presenting the award here at the Washington Public Policy Conference June 12-14. For example, Gilliam:

• Played a major role in Oregon’s 1990 workers’ compensation reforms, representing small businesses, whose premiums were reduced by more than $2 billion in 10 years.
• Chaired a class action that recovered $225 million for employers affected by a legislative raid on the state’s workers’ compensation fund.
• Saved Oregon retailers more than $200 million over the past four years through two reductions in unemployment tax rates.

Gilliam helped lead the campaign to defeat the first state measure to mandate that bioengineered food be labeled. Such measures could have swept across the country had it passed, Hammonds said.

Presently, Gilliam chairs the National Recycling Project in a mission to craft recycling laws that the industry can support, rather then opposing mandatory-deposit bottle laws year after year.

FMI honors an association leader annually with the Donald H. MacManus award, now in its 16th year. The award’s namesake served the industry for many years as executive director of the Rocky Mountain Food Dealers Association and as FMI’s first Western Region director. He also served in the Colorado State Senate, rising to the position of Democratic whip.