Celebrating the fruits of our labor
I should have known better. Asking ag staff to write a blog for Labor Day (or, really, at any point during harvest season, but especially in the heat of harvest) wasn’t going to generate much enthusiasm. With my desk job, I’ve learned to not make any comments, at all, about hot and muggy weather. No one wants to hear my jokes, or even my sympathy, when there is sweat dripping off their nose. I’ll add this to my notes – no extra writing at crunch time.
And when an REC is short-staffed, it’s even more difficult. We’ve just finished a summer with fewer part-time seasonal crew than we’ve seen for a few years. Don’t misunderstand me – we got the work done. I mean, THEY got the work done. There were some sad days as our high school and college bound summer crew left us to prepare for the next seasons of their lives.
For a while this past year, we had a LOT of open positions! Somehow, though, we’ve come through most of that dry season and are preparing to welcome several new full-time staff members! A harvest, of sorts. This long Labor Day weekend seems like an appropriate time to highlight these new employees. Please welcome them when you can!
Juan Carlos Villeda, a Guatemala native, is a fall semester intern from EARTH University in Costa Rica. Juanca will be with us until early December and has a robust schedule of hands-on learning activities ahead of him. Kristin Simons is Juanca’s supervisor, and they plan to focus his agronomy work on crop research. He will spend a small part of his time serving the community by working on food insecurity.
Madison Bierman is our new Livestock Specialist, starting today. Madison is a North Dakota native and a NDSU Animal Science alumni. She brings with her enthusiasm and experiences from commercial cattle operations. Madison will be an integral part of our new smart feedlot expansion working with camera and weigh scale technologies.
Agustin San Pedro will be a new Agronomy Specialist, joining us as soon as his paperwork is complete. His focus will be twofold: trial management for off-station trials and support for on-station product evaluation trials. Agustin comes to North Dakota from Chile where's he been evaluating various agriculture products for usage and efficacy.
We finally have an organic agronomy expert on our team again! Qasim Khan has been at the Montana State University Southern Agricultural Extension Center for about 20 years, and is very familiar with the Upper Great Plains and our weather, crops, and people. Qasim’s first day at the Carrington REC will be September 30.
Jeff Stachler will take our Extension Agronomist baton from Greg Endres on October 1. Jeff, too, is very familiar with North Dakota, and comes to us from Griggs County, where he has been their NDSU Agriculture and Natural Resources Extension agent since September 2020.
Feel like you’re missing out on a good thing? We still have full-time technical positions open – on Agronomy and Livestock Research Teams and in Seedstocks production. Looking for flexible part-time hours? We’re also looking for a custodian.
If you have a desk job like me, you are probably celebrating a holiday today – enjoy! If you are a farmer or rancher, today is maybe like all the other days – work to do – but please be safe as you feed the rest of us.
Linda Schuster
linda.schuster@ndsu.edu
Administrative Assistant
