Dr. Thraen has over forty years experiece working with the U.S. dairy industry. Dr. Thraen studies the commodity market contracts for milk, cheese, butter and nonfat dry milk trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Dr. Thraen served as co-director of the National Extension Program for Integrated Dairy Risk Management Education and Research (1998-2002), a national program to develop educational risk management materials and computer software for the dairy industry. The impact of the IDRMER program was recognized by the American Agricultural Economics Association with the Distinguished Group Extension Award – 2000. Dr. Thraen integrates his interest in the United States dairy industry with teaching undergraduate agribusiness marketing and quantitative agribusiness methods, along with graduate level applied quantitative optimization modeling. Dr. Thraen’s research work has appeared in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Journal of Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Review of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Agricultural and Food Industrial Organization, Journal of Futures Markets, The North Central Journal of Agricultural Economics, The Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, The Journal of Animal Science, The Journal of Dairy Science, The Journal of Agricultural Cooperation, The Journal of Economic Development and Cultural Change, and the Journal of Policy Modeling. Dr. Thraen has served as a consultant to the United Dairy Industry Association, Dairy Management Inc., and private companies.
