Scott Downey is the director of the Center for Food and Agricultural Business and a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics. He teaches in many of the center’s programs, as well as leads sales and marketing courses of over 300 undergraduate students each semester. Scott joined Purdue University on a full time basis in 2000 after spending 15 years in the financial services industry. He is also the lead author of “ProSelling: A Professional Approach to Selling in Agriculture and Other Industries.”

Scott is a frequent speaker and consultant for agribusiness industry sales teams on professional development topics like precision selling, sales management and competitive sales strategies. The discovery process he created has been adopted by Fortune 300 companies and has been presented all over the world.

Scott received his bachelor’s degree at Purdue University in 1985 and his MBA from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif., in 1991. He completed his doctorate at Purdue in 2007 in consumer behavior, looking at the relationship sales preferences of ruralpolitan buyers.

He has served as an adviser to the Purdue chapter of the American Advertising Federation and helped students found the Purdue Ag Sales and Marketing Club. He is active in the National FFA sales competition and has been active on local boards at United Way and other organizations.

Scott is a fellow of Purdue’s Teaching Academy, which strives to bring together the best teaching faculty from across campus. He is the recipient of the 2012 Richard Kohls Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award in the College of Agriculture at Purdue. He won a national teaching award in 2011 from the Agriculture and Applied Economics Association, the service organization for academics in agricultural economics.

His wife, Laura, is a veterinarian and currently heads a business that provides patient drug adherence products to pharmacies.