Jon Cassel

OBI FRENCH AFRICA

Jon Cassel rejoined the Operation Blessing team in 2004 and serves as the outreach center director in French Africa, based in Dakar, Senegal. He is a key player in Operation Blessing’s humanitarian efforts in Africa.

Jon holds a Bachelor of Science in large animal husbandry and a minor in agronomy and has extensive farming experience. From 1993 to 1997, he ran a 75,000-acre OBI-sponsored farm in the former Zaire, Africa, where he managed 80 full-time and 40 seasonal workers, as well as an inventory of more than $2 million in supplies and equipment. The farm ultimately yielded enough corn, soybeans, peanuts, sweet potatoes manioc, pineapples and papayas to help feed the 6 million-plus population of the capital of Zaire, Kinshasa.

Jon also owned and operated U.S. farms and most recently served as the Manager of Operations for the Wellsboro & Corning Railroad, a freight railroad in southern New York and several other short line railroads in Pennsylvania.
Jon’s travels have taken him to more than 50 countries on all seven continents. He currently makes his home in Senegal.