K-State’s Hadley Named Chair-Elect of National Governing Body for Extension
September 29, 2026
Submitted by Gregg Hadley
K-State Assistant Vice President and Director for Extension Gregg Hadley called his recent ascension as chair-elect of the Extension Committee on Organization and Policy a credit to the extension work being done throughout Kansas.
The organization – commonly referred to as ECOP – is the governing body of the nationwide U.S. Cooperative Extension System. Hadley will serve as chair-elect (similar to vice president) for a year, and will take over as chair of the national body in October, 2027.
“This is exciting for me, but it is also exciting for K-State because I think it talks to the reputation that K-State Extension has in the United States,” Hadley said.
He added that he was chosen as a representative of ECOP’s North Central region, a group of 12 states. “It could have been someone from any of those 12 schools chosen to move forward as chair-elect, and it ended up being the director of K-State Extension that was chosen,” Hadley said.
ECOP operates within the Board on Agriculture Assembly of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, known as APLU. Its representation includes directors and administrators from 76 U.S. land-grant institutions. Its headquarters is in Washington, D.C.
“We work on such things as making policy recommendations to the federal government and the U.S. Department of Agriculture about things related to extension,” Hadley said. “We work with our advocacy groups in developing a budget ask each year. We also look at policy that comes through (the U.S. government) that affects extension, and we work with our APLU legal side to determine whether there are concerns with federal policy that is coming down.”
ECOP also considers national programming issues and forms teams that guide those issues. Bill Hoffman, executive director of ECOP and associate vice president for APLU, said “the work of ECOP is important since it provides leadership and policy decision making on behalf of a large, diverse and complex Cooperative Extension System.”
“The needs of Kansas are not only different from California and Florida, but are also different from Missouri and Nebraska,” he said.
For the past several years, Hadley served on ECOP’s budget and legislative committee. As chair, he notes, “I will be responsible for leading and facilitating all national discussions on extension; communicating those needs to and from the federal level; and communicating monthly to the entire system about what’s going on at ECOP.”
The appointment turns into a three-year commitment; one as chair-elect, one as chair, and one as past chair.
“Gregg’s previous national leadership of the ECOP Budget and Legislative Committee and the Extension Foundation Board of Directors qualifies him to provide leadership with a national lens,” Hoffman said.
Hadley has been the Director for Extension at K-State since 2017, and served as associate director for nearly six years before that. He succeeded Daryl Buchholz, who also served a term as chair of ECOP during his time at K-State.
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