“We are expanding our customer service program this summer by adding a team of college interns,” Steve Pike, president of Fontanelle Hybrids, Fontanelle, Nebraska said. “It’s tough for young people to gain experience so that they can break directly into professional positions in the ag industries. That’s one of the reasons why we decided to create this program.”

A team of five college students from universities in Fontanelle’s marketing area is working across the Midwest meeting with growers to gather in-field data about Fontanelle’s top hybrids, called Dominators. “We have over 800 side-by-side competitive comparisons in the ground. In order to give our customers the best placement information possible, we feel that we need to have data about that hybrid all season long, not just at harvest,” Pike said. “In order for us to gather that much data, we needed help. The Intern Program is a great win-win because it gives us an expanded sales team when we need it, and it gives the college students invaluable experience meeting growers, seeing agronomics first hand and learning to work with tools such as GPS locators. The initial reports from both the students and the growers is that this is working out very well.”

The five intern team members include:

• Jacob Hans, Jonesburg, Missouri attending the University of Missouri-Columbia;

• Krystal Large, Imperial, NE attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln;

• Jason Perdue, Benedict, NE attending Northwest Missouri State University;

• Ryan Van Roekel, Pella, IA attending Iowa State University; and

• Sarah Witte, Scribner, NE attending University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Fontanelle Hybrids markets corn, soybeans, grain sorghum, alfalfa and sunflowers in Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Colorado, Missouri and portions of Illinois, Minnesota, South Dakota and Texas as a CORE Group company.