I was ready to graduate with a BS in Mechanized Systems Management in 1999, but was uncertain about job prospects toward the end of my last semester. The mechanized ag job market (tractors, machinery, etc.) was soft at that time, so I saw a good opportunity to stay in school and build my skill set. I had been thinking about doing an MBA anyway and learned about the Agribusiness MBA program at a career fair on East Campus. The Agribusiness focus was a natural fit, considering my undergraduate major. I figured that getting an MBA would make me more marketable when looking for a job, and would allow me to be more versatile once in that job. Both of these assumptions were true.

While the MBA program does not make you an expert in any specific area of business, it gives you a broad skill set necessary to jump into many types of business environments and hit the ground running. In my current role as a Product Manger, I'm responsible for preparing and carrying out marketing plans for the scientific instruments we manufacture, understanding the markets into which we sell our instruments, and managing a budget in the process. I've been able to draw on a number of experiences from the courses and projects I completed in the MBAA program. Marketing, Management, Business Law, Intl. Business, Accounting, Org Behavior, Ag Econ - all of those courses have been relevant and helpful in one way or another for what I'm doing today.

My job today does not directly deal with agriculture, but my family still owns a dairy here in Nebraska. One of the issues our dairy has faced is increasingly slim margins and wild price volitility for the milk we produce. Market volitility is nothing new, but I think it is still one of the biggest risks for ag producers.

I should probably come up with some deep, profound advice here, but I'm going to go with something practical... keep your books. I've used my books a lot as references for my work, and am glad that I hadn't lost or sold them.