This week we celebrate National FFA Week! While we shine the spotlight on it this week, FFA members are experiencing personal and professional development all year long.
Keystone Cooperative is a proud supporter of FFA, and they’ve created a program specifically for graduating FFA members who want to get right into the workforce. Sarah Morehouse with Keystone explains their SEED Program, which stands for Securing Experience and Employee Development.
“The whole entire goal of the SEED Program is to hire students right out of high school that are not interested in post-secondary education but have a passion for agriculture. And so, they come into our program with Keystone, they are in rotations, they go through all of our divisions, and at the end of it we sit down and figure out how we can keep them for the rest of their career.”
Eliza Uliczny is a current Keystone SEED professional going through the different rotations, which includes their grain, energy, agronomy, swine & animal nutrition, and corporate office divisions. In speaking with new SEED applicants last week, Uliczny told them how truly unique this opportunity is.
“There’s nothing like this out there. It’s a one-of-a-kind experience and really sets people up to succeed. I mean, there’s no way that you can get in this program and fail- that is not what they want us to do at all. So, there is nothing that you can do to not succeed when you’re in this program. So, I would highly encourage anyone to join.”
Morehouse explains why they recruit FFA members for the SEED program.
“Not only is it about your experience in agriculture, but FFA teaches those lifelong skills that we’re looking for in our seed professionals: passion, work ethic, communications. Eliza is doing a great job, obviously. And so, FFA instills those things into these different applicants and we’re just really excited to be a part of it.”
Applications for this year are currently closed but keep an eye out for those to open again soon. Hear more from Eliza about how FFA prepared her for the SEED program in the full HAT interview below.
