Packed. Fun. New. Engaging. Future. Challenging. Travel. Leader.
These are all words that easily describe the past week. Monday morning began the 2015 Cargill Intern Forum. Roughly 350 interns from across the country met in Minneapolis, Minnesota for two days as an entire group, then different business units held their own intern forum for various lengths.
Cargill AgHorizons interns from the West Region
On Monday, interns heard from various speakers including:
- Paul Hillen – Vice President, Corporate Brand, Digital Communications and Marketing
- Jinping Dong – Senior Scientist; Mark Hosmann – Global Talent Leader, Career Development
- Kaye Delange – Vice President, Operations Manager, Cargill Salt
- Roger Bont – Senior Director, Global Food Safety and Quality Customer Relations for Cargill Corporate Food Safety, Quality and Regulatory
- Leslie Coleman – Global Human Resources Leader
- Michael Wagner – Commercial Vice President – Food Sector Lead, Cargill Corn Milling North America
- Ann Burke – Transition Management Office Lead
After the speakers interns had a Diversity and Inclusion training and ended with business unit breakouts to network amongst interns in our own business.
Tuesday began with a competition kick-off where interns were challenged to create a product and a business plan. In the afternoon we had a leadership panel consisting of:
- Greg Page – Executive Chairman, Previous President and CEO
- LeighAnne Baker – Corporate Vice President Human Resources
- Joe Stone – Corporate Vice President
- Willard McCloud – Global Director, Inclusion and Diversity
My favorite statement from the leadership panel was from LeighAnne Baker:
“Never stop learning and go where the opportunities lie.”
Group D1 interns after presenting their product.
Our day was completed after hearing from Dave MacLennan, President and CEO of Cargill, Inc. We quickly learned that MacLennan was down to Earth and also known as DMac to employees worldwide. As an intern, it was a indescribable feeling that such leadership was willing and able to spend an hour of his time with interns.
Following his speech, I have the unique opportunity to interview DMac for my Future Leader Project through Agriculture Future of America. He provided very knowledgable insight into his life as a leader for Cargill and gave exceptional advice. My favorite response from DMac was when asked what do you describe as personal success.
“Personal success answers the questions: have I impacted people, have I been a leader that they respected, did I help raise a good family, was I true to my values, do I make quality friendships along the way. Some people work and do pretty much nothing else; and I work hard. I have three friends and the first Friday of each month we have booked for breakfast. We do it about three times out of 12 but it’s on the calendar.”
Before my interview with DMac, President and CEO.
The intern forum was completed after Wednesday’s activities with AgHorizon business leaders. The day consisted of a panel, Sales Effectiveness training, round table discussions and a tour of the Lake Office – Cargill’s Global Headquarters.
After activities were concluded on Wednesday, I had yet another unique opportunity to interview Cargill AgHorizon’s National Sales Leader, Kent Krager. Krager shared very insightful thoughts on his career path and professional career along with useful advice for my personal upcoming career endeavors.
“I work every day to provide for my family. It’s not for a paycheck but I work to provide for my family. I want my family to be secure. I’m fortunate enough that my wife works at home full-time with my kids, which I view as a full-time job. It keeps her busy and it allows me to focus on work in my job. I want to be in a position where my kids have the stability and the security to have the same type of education and same type of chances that I had. I was fortunate that my father and my father-in-law have worked really hard to support myself and my wife and that’s really important to me. So that’s a piece of it.”
After my interview with National Sales Leader, Kent Krager.
“I don’t know if I’ll get to a point when I say ‘yup, that’s enough.’ I’m a driven person; I want to make a difference. I really want to make a difference. I don’t necessarily need to create a legacy but I want to make a difference where people look back and say ‘That guy made a difference in my life.’ If I get to a point where people say ‘that guy made a positive influence for me in my development and he allowed me to see bigger opportunities. He allowed me to identify and expand skills I didn’t know I had,” then I think I will be at a point where I’ll be really happy. I think that will be the point when I say I accomplished what I wanted to.”
As this above shows, Krager is very dedicated to his family and faith, along with his profession and Cargill. Spending time with Krager was a great ending to my time at Cargill’s intern forum.
I finished the week with a project work day and an agronomy ProShop in Wood River, Nebraska. Friday afternoon I made it back to Albion for Cargill’s annual golf outing and attended the Albion dirt track races that night. It’s been a relaxing weekend spending time to reflect on this week’s extraordinary experiences. This has definitely been a great week of my summer in living in Albion, Nebraska!
bonham42
Fencerow Findings 