Tom Drader

Tom Drader is an accomplished professional in agronomy and genetics, currently serving as the Director of Global Variety Development at Lamb Weston since August 2015, where responsibilities include developing potato varieties for the fry processing industry across multiple continents and creating breeding pipelines in collaboration with global and local breeders. Prior experience includes roles as Principal Agronomist/Geneticist managing a Global New Variety Program and contributions as an Agronomist/Geneticist at Conagra Foods, focusing on the selection and development of new potato varieties for the processing supply chain. Additionally, Tom held a postdoctoral research fellowship at USDA-ARS-WRRC, where research centered on microarray methods in wheat genetics, and managed a lab at Washington State University, overseeing a team studying resistance mechanisms in barley. Tom holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics and a B.Sc. in Microbiology from Washington State University.