We survived graduation weekend here at UNL. I know Matt missed graduation because he was home helping plant corn. Troy made it to the MBA reception on Thursday night and started work today at CoBank in Omaha today. Congratulations again to both Matt and Troy!

Today on our website we added a section that features Matt and two of our alumni Chris Kerr and Aaron Raymond. These videos were shot recently and each student provides some perspective on the MBA Agribusiness Specialization. For those of you looking at the distance option, all three of these gentlemen took distance classes while at UNL. To check out the new videos go to http://mbaa.unl.edu/spotlight/mbaa.aspx

Hopefully, these videos are helpful and provide interested students with some additional information about the program and the value of an MBA. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

lbrown4.unl.edu or 2-5086

Lance

In December UNL decided to move the graduate graduation ceremony to Friday afternoon. For me today is the toughest day of the year as we say Goodbye, Great Job and Good Luck to our Agribusiness Program graduates.

Today two MBA Agribusiness Students officially become MBA Agribusiness Alumni.

It seems just like yesterday that these two gentlemen came to campus and started in the program. We have gone to Husker Harvest Days, Claas, and numerous other places, but what I will never forget is our amazing field trip to Kansas City. We saw a state of the art pork processing plant, watched the KCBOT close on a Friday afternoon, ate some amazing Bar-B-Q, bowled in the coolest bowling alley I have ever been in, and literally sat in the best seats in the house at the KC Royals' Kaufmann Stadium. It was the best 20 hour whirlwind field trip I have ever been on.

So Troy Collins and Matt Weeder, Congratulations!!! We will miss you in the program. Thanks for all of your contributions and stay in touch and yes Rodney when you graduate in August, I will have a sappy blog post for your also!!!

It's been several weeks since I posted on this blog and I apologize for not keeping more up to date. Our NAMA team, which I am the co-adviser for reached the finals of the student NAMA competition for the first time ever. We are Big XII Champs and placed 6th overall out of 30 + teams. It was a great experience. Unfortunately, it also meant I was not able to Blog or Tweet as I had planned to earlier.

As we end the school year, I thought I would give a quick update on the students who will soon be alumni.

Troy Collins will be starting his full-time job with CoBank in Omaha in the middle of May. Troy is a South Dakota State University undergrad and interned with a farmers cooperative in Kansas last summer. He has worked on an renewable energy project for his assistantship and we are thrilled that he is employed and staying in Nebraska!

Matt Weeder will also be starting his full-time job and getting married this May. Matt and his future bride, both graduated from Northwest Missouri State and both have decided to serve as campus leaders for a FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students) chapter at a yet to be determined university. We are thrilled and excited for Matt!

Rodney Ensz will be graduating in August after his internship this summer with Farm Credit Services of America in Omaha. Rodney is a Bethel College graduate and currently plans to return to his family's farming operation near Beatrice this fall. Like many of our fellow alumni, we believe the skills Rodney learned through this program will give his family's operation a competitive advantage in the ever changing world of production agriculture.

Finally, Ashley Bergthold, who had been leading our blogging efforts has taken a full-time position with Syngenta starting in May. A Mizzou alum, this position will allow Ashley to be closer to her family in Missouri along with giving her a head start on her career in Agriculture. She plans to utilize the flexibility of our MBA Agribusiness program to complete the program via distance. While we'll miss Ashley's creativity we are very excited about this full-time emmployment opportunity for her.

Also of note the other 4 students currently in the full-time on-campus program have internships lined up for this summer. While I know the job market is very tight in many places, agriculture seems to be growing and still looking for talented individuals to make contributions to their organizations. In addition, many of our agribusinesses are starting to look and specifically ask for employees with MBA's. Regardless of if you do it on campus or on-line there is enormous value in having your MBA.

I will be attending the National Agrimarketing Conference next week in Atlanta http://www.nama.org/amc/. I hope to communicate from that conference via this blog and through our Twitter account next week. If you are also going, please feel free to contact me, I'd love to talk to you at the conference.

Lance

As UNL welcomes Nebraska native Evan Williams who is the Co-founder and CEO of Twitter, to campus tomorrow, I thought this would be an excellent time to announce the UNL MBAA twitter account. You can sign up to follow all of the latest news in the UNL MBA Agribusiness program at www.twitter.com/UNLMBAA. Tweets should start tomorrow as I watch the live video-cast of Evan Williams and will include reports from the NAMA conference next week in Atlanta.

You can also join our Facebook group Nebraska MBAA where you can connect with students, alumni and other individuals connected to the MBA Agribusiness program at UNL.

The media has focused a great deal of attention on social media. Facebook just announced its 200 millionth member and “Grandmas” are the fasting growing segment of users of these communication tools. I would be interested to know if any of you are using social media to communicate professionally in the agribusiness industry. While I have a lot of friends in agriculture who use social media, I only know of one who is trying to use Facebook as a professional tool. If you use social media please leave us a comment. I would love to know how you use it and how it is working.

Lance

It's that time of year when new calves are born, crops are planted, and we graduate another class of students here at UNL. As we prepare to transition three of our current MBA Agribusiness students to alumni, I am excited to announce that all three are officially employed after graduation.

Troy will be working for CoBank in Omaha, Nebraska.

Rodney will be interning this summer for Farm Credit Services of America and then returning to his family’s grain and swine operation this fall.

Matt will be working for Focus (The Fellowship of Catholic University Students).

While I will miss not having these three gentlemen on campus and won’t be able to relive our unbelievable trip to Kansas City last April in person, I’m so excited about the opportunities Troy, Rodney, and Matt are about to embark on and thankful for their contributions to our program.

In addition, Ashley, who has been our primary blogger, accepted a full-time position with Syngenta and will be transitioning to our distance program. This is a great opportunity with a great company so we wish her the best in her new position.

In my opinion, there is no better industry to start a career in than agriculture. As the average age of agricultural producers and professionals continues to increase, agribusinesses are strategically acquiring young talent to fill leadership positions within their organizations. Students that have the knowledge the MBA Agribusiness provides along with solid internship or previous work experience are finding excellent job opportunities, even this economy.

For more information about the MBA Agribusiness program and how you can take "Agribusiness Anywhere" please feel free to contact me via e-mail lbrown4@unl.edu or by phone at 402.472.5086

Lance

Check out this great work done by our newest MBA Agribusiness student Ross Miller!

http://www.agecon.unl.edu/Cornhuskereconomics/2009cornhusker/4-1-09.pdf (159KB)

Cornhusker Economics is published weekly by the faculty of the UNL Agricultural Economics Department.