MACA Announces Young Leader Scholarship Recipients

The Mid America CropLife Association Board of Directors has selected 12 college students to receive the MACA Young Leader Scholarship of $2,000 to be used for their college expenses.

This is the second year for the program which is designed to expose future agriculturalists to the crop protection industry and future career opportunities. Recipients will benefit from the financial compensation, exposure and networking with MACA members. MACA members benefit by developing a talent pool of future industry leaders and through the heightened awareness of MACA within the participating universities.

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The candidate’s educational focus is agriculture and all are enrolled at one of the Land-Grant Universities in the MACA region. They have secured a summer internship (2014) within agriculture, preferably within the crop protection industry. Additionally, the selected recipient is expected to attend the MACA Annual Meeting September 2-4 in Indianapolis to speak about their internship experience and participate in the meeting with MACA members.

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The recipients by state/university include:

Colorado: Patrick O’Brien is from California’s San Joaquin Valley where agriculture is big business. He chose Colorado State University to pursue a degree in Soil and Crop Sciences. He’s interning with Servi-Tech in Burlington, CO, where he will work alongside a crop specialist.

Illinois: Illinois native Nick Steppigis majoring in Crop Sciences with a special focus on plant biotechnology/molecular biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His 2014 internship is with Dow AgroSciences where he’ll work as the Northern Crops Crop Protection intern in Davenport, Iowa. He’s also interned with DuPont Crop Protection and DuPont Pioneer.

Indiana: Purdue University’s Nolan Sampson is pursuing his degree in Farm Management. His 2014 internship will be at AgriGold working in the northern region of Indiana. His internship will consist of marketing and sales, agronomy research, logistics and administrative.

Iowa: Representing Iowa State University is Jeffrey Barnes who is pursuing two majors — Agronomy and Seed Science. He’s interning with John Deere, based in Olathe, KS, and will serve as a Marketing Intern learning the new products and developing presentations for the products.

Kansas: Kurtis Clawson is from Kansas State University where he is pursuing a degree in Agricultural Economics and Agronomy. He’ll be working for Monsanto as a Channel seed sales intern in southeast Kansas and southwest Missouri. He grew up on a family farm and ranch in southwest Kansas where they used center pivot irrigation for their corn, wheat, cotton and sorghum.

Michigan: Addison Spolyar is studying at Michigan State University where she is majoring in Crop and Soil Sciences with a minor in Agricultural Business Management. Her internship, the second summer, is with Helena Chemical Co. at their retail location in Conklin, MI. While she doesn’t have farming in the family background, 4-H and FFA sparked her interest at an early age.

Minnesota: Kelsey Mussman, a Minnesota native is attending the University of Minnesota and majoring in Agriculture Education Leadership and Communications with a minor in Agronomy and Animal Science. She’ll be working as an intern at Genesis Co-op as a second year intern.

Missouri: University of Missouri’ student Clarissa Brown is majoring in Agriculture Education. Her internship will be with Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC for the second year in a row where she’ll serve as a Developmental Sales Intern. She’ll travel Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska.

Nebraska: Brennan Costello is a University of Nebraska student majoring in Agribusiness and will be interning with Monsanto as a Field Sale Intern. He’ll work with a local sales team on a variety of locally defined projects. He’s also served as a National FFA officer.

North Dakota: Jodi Boe is a North Dakota State University student working on a double major in Crop and Weed Science and Ag Economics with a minor in Soil Science. She’ll be interring for Bayer CropScience at the Northern Field Technology Station in Sabin, MN, where she will assist scientists evaluate crop protection compounds that have recently been developed.

South Dakota: Jade Kampsen is majoring in Agriculture Education with a minor in Agronomy & Journalism at South Dakota State University. She’ll be working at the Central Valley Cooperative at their Blooming Prairie, MN, location as a sales and marketing intern.

Wisconsin: Mikaela Breunig is studying Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She’ll be interning at Monsanto in St. Louis as the Seed Physiology intern in the Quality Assurance department.

After completing their summer internships the scholarship recipients will receive a $2,000 scholarship to assist with their tuition expenses.

Source: MACA

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