Lance Honig grew up on a crop and livestock farm in northeast Kansas. He graduated from Kansas State University in 1990 with a degree in mathematics. He began his career with USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) in the Kansas field office where he spent six years before transferring to the Indiana field office. After two years there, Lance moved to the NASS headquarters in Washington, D.C., and spent six years as the national wheat statistician. After two years as deputy director of the North Dakota field office, he returned to Washington, D.C., to become the head of the fruits, vegetables and specialty crops section. Lance later served as the head of the field crops section before assuming his current position as chief of the crops branch in 2008. In this position, he is a permanent member of the Agricultural Statistics Board for crops and oversees the NASS crop estimating program.