Imperial men visit KC, Chicago, Washington on tour with LEAD

    Jakob Burke and Jon Lechtenberg of Imperial took part in a 10-day National Study/Travel Seminar Feb. 8-17 conducted by the Nebraska LEAD Program.
    Dr. Terry Hejny, Director of the LEAD Program, served as group leader for the study/travel seminar that took LEAD Fellows to Kansas City, Washington, D.C. and Chicago.
    Nebraska LEAD Fellows met with business, industry and government leaders on the tour.
    Highlights in Kansas City included visits to CenterPoint, MyCo Planet, Region 7 EPA and Dairy Farmers of America to meet with Farm Journal and Cultivate KC, among others.
    In D.C., they met with officials from the American Farm Bureau Federation, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Embassies of the Canada and Mexico and the USDA.
    Among the stops in Chicago were the Greater Chicago Food Depository, NuFarm, the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences and Climate-Fieldview. Also included in this year’s experience were briefings regarding the John Deere operations in Moline, Illinois.
    A major objective of the study/travel seminar is to provide participants with the opportunity to meet leaders who help shape local, state and national policy in agriculture and related areas and to create first-hand exposure to varied social and economic conditions/issues that exist in the United States, Hejny said.
    The mission of the Nebraska LEAD program is “to prepare and motivate men and women in agriculture for more effective leadership” and is designed to speed up the leadership process.
    The LEAD Program includes men and women, currently active in production agriculture and agribusiness. It’s a two-year leadership development program under the direction of the Nebraska Agricultural Leadership Council and in cooperation with the University of Nebraska’s Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
    Program content, essential to leadership, focuses on economics, government, human relations, communications, international trade, sociology, education, the arts, social-cultural understandings, as well as agriculture.
    For more information, or to request an application for Nebraska LEAD 42, contact the Nebraska LEAD Program, 104 AgCom Bldg, PO Box 830940, Lincoln, NE 68583-0940 or telephone 402-472-6810.
    For details on the selection process or to request an application, visit: www.lead.unl.edu.
    Application deadline for the next two-year program is June 15.