Hi Friends,

I am writing you this blog from the good ole' Stephenville, TX! I arrived home late Sunday night and am absolutely loving being home with my family and friends.

Last week was my final week of my internship with Dow AgroSciences... and also the week I interviewed for a full-time position with the company. The interview process was rather long and included a dinner interview Thursday night, and interviews from 7:30 am-4pm on Friday. There were 10 other interns who received an interview and each of us were required to present a 10 minute presentation first thing Friday morning detailing our summer projects and accomplishments. Going in to the process I was somewhat nervous just because that is a lot of interviews for one day! After completing the day, I could not help but to be extremely excited about the potential opportunity to start my career with such a wonderful company! They told us we should be expecting a phone call sometime this week to inform us one way or the other.


Yesterday.... I received the much awaited phone call and was so excited to have RECEIVED A JOB OFFER! God is so so good and I truly could not be any more excited! I do not know where I will be located yet, but I'm sure wherever it is, I will love just as much as I loved Indianapolis.

In addition, I turned in all of my project work that I worked out throughout the entire summer. I felt very accomplished with the work I completed and had great feedback from everyone that I worked with. It's crazy to think that I of all people, would have loved my job as much as I did. In all honesty, it was originally hard for me to picture myself walking through corn and soybean fields all day, but it was such a wonderful experience! I learned SO MUCH, and I also learned SO much about myself as a person. I feel like I grew and mature in ways I never thought possible. As for now, I am excited to return to College Station to finish my Senior year of college at Texas A&M University.

Blessings,
Macy

ONE MORE WEEK!

One more week, one more week! While I am extremely excited and anxious to return back to Texas to be amongst my friends and family, I am also sad to be leaving Indiana. It is hard for me to find the appropriate words to adequately describe the absolutely wonderful summer that I have had thus far. From an awesome job, to making new friends and working with wonderful people, to learning and experiencing new Agriculture every single day, I would not trade the past 14 weeks for anything.

Before moving to Indiana, I was completely soooooo excited to be here and never even thought of any challenges that I could potentially face. After making my final intern presentation last week, I began to reflect on the summer that I have had. I moved here not knowing one single person, I had never been in a corn or soybean field in my life, and I was moving 1,024 miles away from home. I would be living in a hotel from exactly 100 nights in a city with over 1 million people. Add all of those things up together, and let’s just say I was ready to conquer the world in front of me! I even often wonder what in the world made me decide to make such a huge move such as this one. Am I glad I did it? ABSOLUTELY! I have never learned so much in my whole entire life, and I had a blast doing so!

Last week, I had the opportunity to present my final intern presentation at our National Sales Kickoff meeting in Downtown Indianapolis. With that said, I am confident that this one presentation consumed more of my time and efforts than any other college presentation I have ever given. Not only would I be presenting to a decent size group of people, I also was to create a sales-type booklet to give to everyone in my district that could be given to customers. Needless to say, I was pretty pleased with the end result, especially considering the amount of time I put into these two documents. In addition, I am also pleased to announce that I have been given the opportunity to interview with Dow AgroSciences for a full time position this coming Thursday and Friday! I could not be more excited or honored to have the opportunity to interview with this company that I have grown to love so much.

Not only have I learned a tremendous amount about myself and agriculture this summer, I have also gained some valuable hands-on sales experiences that I know will be of great benefit to me when I start my sales career following college graduation. I have learned what it takes to be successful in the sales field, and I no doubt have a greater appreciation for American farmers.

I am writing this post with exactly 7 days left in Indianapolis. This upcoming week is going to be an extremely packed week for me as I wrap up my internship, but this time next week and my feet will be back on Texas soil!

Blessings,
Macy

Time Flies When You Are Having Fun! ;)

Whoever came up with the famous saying “Time flies when you are having fun” is what I like to consider a genius! It was not until this summer until I truly realized just how true these seven words really are. When I arrived in Indianapolis on May 13^th, I never imagined the time would go by SO quickly!! I have just two more weeks before I fly back to Texas.

This past week was a very successful and busy week for me. I am giving my final presentation in just a few short days, so every evening last week I worked diligently on completing this large task. I will be presenting more than one time, to multiple people, and many consider it one of the most important parts of your entire internship. Knowing these things, I have tried to make sure that I will do a great job. Also, I spent the week in Southern Indiana, Kentucky, and even made a stop in Tennessee. In other words, that means a LOT of driving!

I visited all of my customers in Kentucky, and also made some cold calls. People think I’m crazy and I might agree sometimes, but I really enjoy doing prospect visits. I love the opportunity to get to stop at a location who does not do much business with Dow, meet everyone in the office, and tell them why and how Instinct can be of value to them and their growers. I think of it as a great chance to make a difference larger than simply walking fields all day.

Now I will be the first to admit that sometimes Cold Calls do not turn out as wonderful as I had hoped prior to the visit. Sometimes guys are unwilling to talk to you, and can even say things like they don’t have time for you!! But I will say this; I have definitely learned to have tough skin this summer. In sales, you can just go ahead and expect for people to turn you away. Despite this, you also have to remember that they are not necessarily rejecting you and you cannot take those instances personally.

On Friday, I was honored to be 1 of 5 students on a panel at the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities Summit (APLU) at IUPUI. I had the opportunity to tell about my college/internship experiences before the floor was opened for questions. Events like this often require me to reflect on my years spent in the college classroom, and allow my brain to remain challenged. It is also so neat to be a part of such a wonderful group like this one.

As for now, only 2 more posts before I will be back in Texas!!!!!!!! Let’s hope for some exciting news in the coming weeks! ;)

Blessings,
Macy

3 MORE WEEKS!

Hi Friends!

Its hard to believe that I only have 3 more weeks here in Indiana. I am getting super anxious and excited to see all my friends and family in Texas, but I know I will be really sad to leave here. Below was how I spent last week... Just another week walking fields! ;)

• Monday, July 25^th I traveled to Greensburg to meet the Dillsboro Helena Intern so he could help me locate their trial. This is a test between 7 different products so it will be good yield data to collect. We did yield estimates for each of the products in the field… Instinct had the highest numbers so hopefully it will yield that was as well. I enjoyed learning how to calculate these figures and I am excited to share some of the good pictures I was able to take. I then traveled to Rushville to scout my manure field and was pleased to again notice a difference in the treated corn. This is one of my very few manure plots, so this will also be great data to have. I had also planned to locate my trials with Harvest Land Rushville but when I got to the location, the Manager was unable to meet. I had already spoken with him on the phone and he said that week would be great, and then plans changed. Situations like this have really been great learning experiences for me throughout the summer.
• Tuesday, July 26^th I met with Nikki Hall for breakfast at Cracker Barrel to discuss my end of the year intern presentation. Following this, I traveled to the Fountain town area to meet with grower Craig Fout. He provided me the information for all four of his Instinct trials, as well as took me to locate all of the fields. After this, I went to Harvest Land so Manager Todd Overmyer could provide me with plot maps for each of the fields. I then went back to each of the fields to look for any visual differences. I also signed the fields that were on major roads. I noticed some differences in a couple of these fields, but the lack of rain made it difficult in a couple of the others.
• Wednesday, July 27^th I scouted fields in the Bainbridge/Rusellville/Roachdale area. With Russellville having more than 10 fields, I did not get to all of them. Also, Christy and I are working together on these, yet we are still lacking some information from a few of the growers. Despite the fact that we have located the fields, it does not do us much good until the farmer tells us the area that is stabilized, and the area that is not. I did not notice a lot of visual differences in a couple of my Bainbridge fields, but again, I think the no rain issue is playing a big part in this.
• Thursday, July 28^th, I traveled to Portland to meet with grower Greg Miller to collect his trial information. He has 4 different products in this field and is extremely organized, so I am excited to see the yield results we get from him. I scouted all three of the Harvest Land Bryant trials, the Ag Best Dunkirk trial, as well as got to scout my very first “service call” for soybeans. The last time I was in the area, this was the grower that agreed to try First Rate on his soybeans. He only used .3 oz and the Marestail were taller than the beans. He thought the product burned the weeds a little, but did not get rid of them in the higher ground areas in this field. Later that evening, I had the opportunity to judge the Supreme Showmanship for Dairy and Beef Cattle at the Jay County Fair.
• Friday, July 29^th I met with Grower Jeff Amos at his farm in Rush County to do a video testimonial. He has several hog barns and uses this manure for all the acres he farms. This is his second year to use Instinct and last year he said he saw anywhere from 10-20 bushel increase, and his corn is looking extremely good this year even with the little rain they have had. He hauls manure as well and told me that he tells every one of his customers that they need to use Instinct! I figured this would be the perfect opportunity for a great testimonial, especially being that he uses manure. I spent the rest of the day scouting my fields in this area. I have a couple of trials in the Greensburg area where noticeable differences were very apparent in both. One of the fields was showing great signs of being effected by no rain, hopefully this will change soon. With that said, you could easily tell where the Instinct was in the field, despite the fact that it too was showing evident signs of firing also.

Until next week, Be Blessed!!
Macy