Douglas Hines grew up on a small horticulture/blackberry farm in North Texas. In order to escape the world of agriculture, he pursued an education in chemistry. As you can see, that did not work. After a few years in the radio-pharmaceutical industry, he returned to ag in 2001, where he used his analytical chemistry skills to lead and monitor GLP studies. In 2012, he entered the world of regulatory affairs, where he began to exploit the power of database architecture and his passion for automation through data deconstruction. His second passion of process efficiencies for pesticide registration also began at this time, when he was introduced to CropLife America.

Douglas’ first interaction with EPA and CLA was as a member of the Inerts Steering Committee in 2011. Three years later, he was elected the chair and served in that role until its dissolution in 2023. As chair, he worked on permanent and temporary solutions to reduce the CSF workload and enable flexibilities within the existing regulatory frameworks. One of the permanent solutions was the commodity inert list, that allowed certain inert supplier changes without modification to a CSF. Temporary solutions included the BIT memo in 2018 and the EO/PO memo in 2021.

In 2023, the Product Chemistry Working Group was established and Douglas is serving as the first chair. During that tenure, the Multi TGAI Source CSF concept has gained traction and will hopefully be implemented soon. He has also represented CLA in the CSF Working Group and the PRIA IV negotiations. In Canada, Douglas has worked with CLC and the Product Chemistry Subcommittee to introduce the concept of the commodity inert ingredients to Canada. Recently, he has joined the sustainability committee and is excited to contribute to that important cause.