Maryland Department of Agriculture Agricultural Inspector

Keith Hendricks

Keith Hendricks started with MDA in 1977 as an agricultural technician. In this role he handled all types of animal issues in Southern Maryland and the Upper Eastern Shore. Typical activities included fair and show animal inspections, livestock auction market inspections, disease prevention education and disease response. He has had many notable career successes over the last 32 years at MDA, including membership on the AH task force mobilized to establish a Maryland CEM network of quarantine stations to receive Maryland horses placed under quarantine in Kentucky, where the first cases of CEM in the United States were diagnosed in March 1978. Membership on the MDA AH task force deployed to Montgomery County in 1980 to identify and control a countywide outbreak of Acute Equine Diarrhea syndrome ultimately to be identified as Potomac Horse Fever (PHF). He was on hand to manage the animal health inspection requirements in 1997 when horses were exported for the first time from BWI airport to South Korea. Keith also spearheaded efforts to revamp the Equine Infectious Anemia regulation to provide greater protection for Maryland horses and make our time spent at horse sales more efficient.

Today, Keith serves as an agricultural inspector overseeing field operations and making sure that field staff are trained and have the resources they need to do their jobs on a daily basis and in an emergency. Other work-related activities include: MDA Emergency Disease ResponseTask Force, MDA agricultural responder and the Maryland Association of Agricultural Fairs and Exhibitions Society Committee. He studied General Agriculture at the University of Maryland School of Agriculture and Natural Resources.