Food safety advocate and educator Patricia Buck became involved in foodborne illness prevention in 2001 following the death of her 2-½ year old grandson, Kevin Kowalcyk from complications of an E. coli O157:H7 infection. After his death, Buck became aware that America’s food safety systems are seriously compromised. In response, she co-founded the Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention with Barbara Kowalcyk, Kevin Kowalcyk’s mother, and served as the organization’s first executive director from 2006-2011.
Ms. Buck is currently serving her second term on USDA’s National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection and since 2009 has served on the President’s Food Safety Working Group. From 2007-2010, she served on the Board of Directors for the Partnership for Food Safety Education. In addition, Buck was a co-author of CFI’s 2009 report, The Long Term Health Outcomes of Selected Foodborne Pathogens.
Ms. Buck also represents CFI on the Safe Food Coalition and the Make Our Food Safe Coalition. She championed the SFC’s efforts to label mechanically tenderized meat and worked diligently with the MOFS to pass and fund the Food Safety Modernization Act.
Ms. Buck has presented on a variety of food safety topics and has been interviewed multiple times by local and national media. She has a M.S. in Education and a M.A. in English. In 2004, she was awarded the “Outstanding Woman of the Year” by Pennsylvania’s Mercer County Commission of Women. In 2011 she received a National Rotary Award from Rotary International and was honored as a Food Safety Champion for Extraordinary Advocacy Leadership by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The mother of five children and grandmother of eleven, she and her husband reside in Grove City, Pennsylvania.