Mark Miller is the 9th president of the Arizona Food Marketing Alliance since 1943. Mark enjoyed a successful 36-year career as a Senior Vice President for the Hensley Beverage Company, the local distributor of Anheuser-Busch products followed by three years with Talking Rain.  He has served as a consultant for the City of Hope and as president of the Arizona Food Council.

Mark was honored by AFMA in 1998 as the “Supplier of the Year.”

Recently promoted to executive assistant at AFMA, Raynetta continues to be a consummate multi-tasker after 22 years with the association.

She assists President Mark Miller, Dan Tennessen-Arizona Cart Services, and other staff members with support.  She handles accounts receivable and payable and helps coordinate association events.

Also, she coordinates the coupon redemption program for the membership. She also has been known to bake for the board of directors, which has become an AFMA tradition. “I’ve managed to spoil them, but it’s my way of saying ‘thank you’ for their time and oversight of an organization that has come to mean very much to me.”

Raynetta was born in Longview, Texas, and was raised in Como TX, a small town of about 650 people in East Texas.  “It’s an agricultural area with mostly dairy farms, although my dad worked in the oil business and my mom was an administrator for a nursing home, still her & her brothers showed animals at the local & State fairs around Texas.

She started in the grocery business at 16 as the lone female sacker at a local Safeway, then worked at Brookshire’s, a Texas chain, as a deli associate, a cashier, and a scanning coordinator and then to Office Manager.   Next, she worked for a food broker, as an assistant to the retail director.

“The food industry,” she says, “is in my blood.”

Kristi Briceno is AFMA’s new Director of Communication. This includes editing the monthly magazine for the Arizona food industry. She will also head the golf tournaments, luncheons and any other special events that AFMA holds.

A little bit about Kristi . . .

She was born in DeKalb County outside of Atlanta, Georgia, and was raised in a small farm town in Middleton, Idaho. After graduating from high school, Kristi attended Boise State University where she received her associate’s degree. During the next few years, she traveled throughout the United States including Canandaigua, New York, a very small town on the Canadian border. After two short years, the snow and cold made her home sick, and that’s how she came to Arizona to be with all her family who had moved here.

Kristi landed in Kingman working for the Mohave Sherriff’s Department as a correction officer. Loving the job, but still not close to family, she moved to Mesa where she gave up the criminals and worked in the corporate world for Wells Fargo. While working there, she received her National Certification for Business Management, Group Management and Special Event Planning.

Wells Fargo also gave her the opportunity to take other courses through the University of Phoenix for business communications, human resources and accounting. The passion for helping people in the prison system never went away, so Kristi created an addiction rehabilitation program for women, “I Can . . . I Will.”  “When people become addicted to drugs or alcohol, we need to address their addictive personalities, and not look at them like they are broken” she says.

“I am very excited to work for AFMA”, Kristi says. ”The people in the office and board members have been amazing to me from the moment I started here.”

She has been married to an “AMAZING husband” for three years. They have six children between them and are expecting their second grandchild this year. In her spare time, she loves being a “GIGI” to Levi, her 4-year-old grandson, baking cookies and filling her home with all the Italian cooking and love she can.

Lisa Bednar is AFMA’s new Director of Community and Education.  This will include working with our community outreach programs that are important to our members.  Lisa will also head the Education Foundation Scholarship program.  This program is a very important part of AFMA and we could not be more excited to have her aboard.

Now a little about Lisa…

She grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and received her Bachelor’s Degree in Secondary Education from the University of Nevada.  Lisa accepted a position at an Anheuser-Busch wholesaler in Sacramento, where her career in the food industry began.

Lisa moved to Phoenix in 2000. Mark Miller, President of AFMA, hired Lisa at Hensley Beverage Company as a program coordinator. Little did she know she would stay at Hensley for the next 21 years in various roles in the Corporate Sales and Brand Management departments.

Lisa lives in the East Valley with her husband of 22 years, Bert. They have two children, a son, 16, and a 14-year-old daughter.

Because of her extensive background in the food industry, history of working with retailers and suppliers in Arizona and long-time interest in education, Mark knew that she would be the perfect person to coordinate with the many members served by AFMA. “ I am excited to be working with many of same retailers and supplier partners but just in a different capacity,” she says.

Lisa wants to continue AFMA’s passionate commitment to education through even greater visibility in the community. She hopes to become more involved with nonprofits who support education and promote events that are important to our members.

She recalls what Mark said, welcoming her to the AFMA team: “Be like a duck, so people can see you swimming above the water and not see your feet paddling under it.”