Latest / The Source – The Jorgensen Land & Cattle Podcast / Episode 20: More Than an Internship with Reagan Nielsen
Transcript
- speaker-0: Mm-hmm. Over a hundred years of experience lie in ideal South Dakota. The team at Jorgensen Lan and Cattle is going to take the time to offer insight into that experience along with many other industry experts. If you're ready to learn and grow, this is the Source. Well, good morning folks. Happy to be back with you on the Source. I'm Jamie Wolf, as per usual, joined by Regan Nielsen today. Y'all have met her in the past, but happy to have Regan back on. as per usual it's it's full steam ahead at JL C right now. the boys are chopping silage and getting wean kios and I know everybody is is a little short of sleep and It's a busy time right now. couple sales coming up. San Saba, Texas, October 29th, and Arcadia, Florida, November 13th. you guys saw the new the new website ads there on the last couple episodes ago with Shannon. be sure to check those catalogs out. Videos will be coming soon. always excited for that. So today, extremely happy to be joined by Regan Nielsen. Regan is gosh, your title has changed, so I wouldn't get it wrong, so I'm gonna let you give your title. It's okay speaker-1: Okay, you can you can call me HR. That's generally how I am referred to. so I do I do a lot of the HR here. That's what I was originally hired for to do payroll, onboarding, things like that. And in for the purpose of this podcast, I think it could be internship coordinator is another kind of facet to the job. so something that I really enjoyed picking up my it would be technically the first full summer that I was here Back in just the summer of 25 was the first internship season that I coordinated. So it's just getting better for sure. speaker-0: And so so Regan, remind everybody again of your your background and how you came to JL C although have always been at JLC. Yes. speaker-1: Yes, so I grew up just, you know, very, very close. I can see my childhood home from my office window. I graduated from Augustana in 2017. I had a Bachelor of Arts for in education. So I was a teacher at our local school district for seven years, doing special education various ages. my final stop in education was early childhood education, special education. I really thought that was gonna be kind of my, you know, what I was gonna do forever. and then my brother. Nick approached me with with a job to be potentially to take some things off of his plate. He was doing payroll, he was doing onboarding and things like that. And as we know, he just didn't have the time to dedicate to that. So I was really happy, really happy to take that on. It was a really, really great career move. Definitely scary, but it was a wonderful career move. So I've been at JLC since June of twenty four. June of twenty-four, so just over two years. speaker-0: You bet. And for those of us that onboarded with Nick, I think you're they're they're probably quite happy that you are behind the wheel now, Regan. speaker-1: I also onboarded with Nick. So he's very excellent, but he's very fast. speaker-0: Yeah. I I think something maybe before we jump into talking about internships, Reagan, that's that's kinda kinda fun to point out is you obviously are a Jorgensen. But maybe you you talked about it when we did the first episode, the lost episode that someday will will reappear. But you you maybe didn't know just how many opportunities were available to work at Jorgenson Landing Cattle and how many different things JLC has their hands in and touch on that a little bit about just the breadth and scope that you manage now of You know, there's so many different opportunities to to work for for this organization. speaker-1: Yeah, that that is a great question, Jamie. Growing up, I always knew of our operation. I knew I actually did not know the scope of how of how big it was. I was very much a a bystander. I loved going to the sales. I loved hearing about, you know, what my grandpa Martin, what Cody, what Greg, what my dad, what they were doing. but I never had like a internal look. I I never pushed for an internal look on it. So when Nick had approached me with the opportunity I I felt very lucky that, you know, I was being asked to be this a part of this family business that I I really never assumed or never, like I said, initiated conversations about how I could be a part of it. so it has been a very big blessing to one just to be a part of the family business and to have this my role grow more and more and more. But actually being in it in and as HR I do a lot of we have a monthly meeting every month called People Needs and it's basically just talking about who do we have here, what are they doing, what do we need. And I think that gives me the most internal look to the operations and what this person is doing on a specific day. What should they be doing? What areas are we missing? I would have never ever imagined the scope of the business. so it it is that that's a great question because it was something speaker-0: Right. And you know, with with the sporting club today and ideal soil solutions and Jorgensen land and cattle, basically any facet of of agriculture that you want to touch, for a for a young person that's looking for a career, there's probably opportunity in ideal South Dakota. speaker-1: There is. This goes back to your conversation with Shannon on, you know, a couple podcast episodes ago about you know, my my intro into agriculture. I I don't well, I have worked cows twice now. I've worked cattle twice here now. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, but that that's you know, when you think agriculture, when a lot of things people think agriculture, that's what they think. You know, that boots on the ground, outdoor, hard, hard work. and that was something I never really had a foot in when I was young and growing up. I do help my I I would love to help my husband more doing that on on his operation, but you know, there are so many different areas. We have I'm I'm HR for an egg for a huge egg company, you know, I'm the internship coordinator for a huge egg company. We have so many people in office, so many people remote. There are so many different opportunities than just that boots on the ground outside hard, hot, cold work. speaker-0: Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. So we I had nothing to do with it. Thankfully Philip Philip jumped in for me and he did the the intern podcast from the twenty twenty six interns and that's been a really, really popular episode for us hearing those those young people's stories and what they got out of the internship. But Regan, if you would just kind of step back a little bit when we talk about internships and you may not necessarily have the full history but when did well I should say this because we had when I did the pre-sale shenanigans episode, Brian Angus from South Africa jumped on and he was an intern in like the late seventies. speaker-1: Yeah, so it goes way back. Actually, here at the office, my grandma Mary was a meticulous record keeper. And so we have books, pages and pages of of her record keepings from how how many years ago. And there is a book that actually talks about the interns that they've had. So the interns date back. I don't even want to put a date to it because I wouldn't know, but a very long time. But I would say probably in the last I think we could probably say last, you know, six to ten years, Nick has kind of been a charge of that and how he has stated it, this is this is not my words because I never saw his process, but how he has stated it, he would get an email from a potential intern. He would say, Yep, come join. And and then the intern would come here and that would kind of be that. And you know, he knew that he wanted that process to be better. So now it looks a lot different than it used to. That the vetting process looks a lot different. speaker-0: I so so let's go ahead, Regan, and just you know, even from as you said, you coming on board there in twenty twenty four, I know how internships look has has certainly changed. because I don't think there was the segmentation at the time and and really trying to point towards different internship type roles. It was really just a JLC intern and we kind of threw you in wherever wherever they needed. Yeah. So so talk about how you've changed that that process a little bit and the different internships that we're gonna be talking about looking into summer of 2027. speaker-1: Yeah, sure. So last year, for example, was the first year I think we really started to kind of fine-tune this internship process because you know, being an intern at Jorgons Atlanta Cattle is truly such a unique opportunity and we want to harness that full potential of what, you know, they could see in their eight weeks here. So the two internships that we offered last year were pretty broad, a crop and a livestock. The crop looking like looks like, you know, being on the hang crew, maybe help with, you know, some tending for, you know, any planting operations or anything like that. That happens in their time here. And then we have the livestock, which includes processing, sorting, moving cattle from you know for the rotational grazing, things like that. how we did it though last year is there's this really neat site called Handshake, and it's basically like the Facebook of colleges where you can post, people can connect, they can apply right for that internship on Handshake there, and it's connected to hundreds, thousands of colleges around the nation. so I I Been using that with really, really great success. I think last year our livestick, our livestock internship is by far, far and above the most popular one out of the two. And we probably got 60 plus applicants for it. And then how I did that was once they applied for the internship on Handshake, I would personally email them a link to fill out an application. So it asks about their year in school, what school are they in, what is their major, when is their graduation, what is their background in egg, if any, do they have any special interest? Things like that. So from those, we probably had around 48 applications filled out, those full applications. And then we what I did with those once the application process was complete, and this is where it got a little late in the year. We we drug it, I drug it on just a little too long. But once we got all those complete, I compiled them all together. So we had kind of a graph of who's going to be top five fits, you know. from an experience perspective, but also from like a learning and going forward perspective. So we we got down to probably ten applicants. I emailed our top five because we had five positions last five five positions open last year. And that's kind of how we caught those people. Now some of them had already committed to other to other internships at that point. so thankfully Shannon is kind of steering us in steering me in the direction of doing this a little more quickly, which I appreciate. just so we can get those kids like Nick made the point on Monday. Those kids that are looking now for an internship are those ones that are gonna be really, really committed to learning. Not to say we won't get somebody that's very committed, you know, in March, but really good to have a good roster. you know, from the start. But anyway, once we got our our kids picked out, we had one from Fresno State, we had three three from SDSU, two from STSU. speaker-0: I believe it was speaker-1: And then one from MTI. And they were wonderful. I do the coordinating with them, so I get them here, I get them onboarded, I get them well, I don't take them to their house personally. Usually Philip does that, but thankfully my aunt Linda Watson is so gracious and lets the intern stay kind of in her her complex, so it's very close to the farm. we get them here, get them introduced to Philip and Dylan, who was CowCAF manager at the time, and then they just really take off from there and I I get pretty hands-on. you know, it and Philip takes over. so that is how the process goes. Something that we tried last year and discovered it needs a little more boundaries. We want to do a rotation, we want to do an internship rotation. Like you and I talked about, there are so many facets to this business that they're going to miss if they're just sorting balls all day, every day. Which is that's what they want to do. That is wonderful because that is, you know, a huge job in the summertime. But I don't think that. I don't think that brings justice to everything that we do here. And I think that wouldn't bring justice to the intern to learn as much as they possibly could while they're here, which is the goal, is for them to learn as much as they possibly can. So we started this internship rotation. And the rotation that I had set up, I have it up here. they're here for eight to nine weeks. So we once a week, the goal was to get them to a different facet of the business. So whether that's the feeding team, the shop, trucking, getting them in the office to see. Of the admin side of things, doing doing a little bit of time with our GPS callers, being on the hanging team, silage chopping, being over at the lodge. That was a popular one this year that it didn't quite work, so I really want to make an effort to make that work this summer. And then different egg applications. So the issue with it was our our managers who are so amazing with interns, it's hard to give up, it's hard to give up an employee for a few hours, and I totally recognize that, especially with how good. our interns were this year. They were so excellent. I just think Philip and Dylan and John had kind of a hard time saying, yeah, I'm gonna let you go for a couple hours over here. speaker-0: Yeah, and that's when when you get ones that are of a certain skill level, they're no longer interns at that point, they become employees. you know, and I I I've shared a little bit of my intern experience on this podcast. It was not a Jorgensen Lana cattle, but it was a another seed stock operation, but it was it was one manager on ten thousand acres with six hundred and fifty mama cows. He hired me because I had all the experience. I was not an intern, I was an employee. And it was, you know, it was just work at that point. It was you know, and and Dustin did did a job of trying to make it an internship where, you know, there were some things that were outside of what I had done, but it was still in my wheelhouse of experience. speaker-1: Yeah. And I don't think that's a deaf that's definitely not a wrong way to go about an internship. I feel like that's very common. But, you know, like we talked about with so many different areas of the business, maybe they'll find an area that they didn't even know that they had an interest in. And I think that's what I really want them to take home is wow, like I learned this new thing this summer. Like like like Nathan, never had been on a horse and by the end of the year, by the end of the summer, he was so comfortable, you know, sorting cattle on a horse stuff like that. That was something he did not want to do, but he walked away. Yeah. So the rotations were meant to be staggered. So like, you know, they're not all gonna go to the feeding team for this for this day. It was staggered in a pretty decent cycle. It was just hard for the managers to to manage that. So we are looking at it at doing it a little differently next year. And something I want to note about the rotations, I think the coolest part, if we could have stuck with it this year, again, no fault of anybody's, week 10, Nick had expressed interest wanting to be able to sit down with the interns and and talk about the internship. What was their favorite part if they were to come back to JLC? What would they want to do? so I think that that would be a huge benefit to the interns to be able to sit down with Nick for a half hour to an hour to really just dive deep into what they learned at this, you know, during their time. speaker-0: Absolutely, absolutely. Any any opportunity, you know, for us as much to learn from them as them to to learn from us is is always good. so going into twenty twenty seven I know there's we're gonna stay with a livestock and a a crop internship and then there's gonna be a third one, correct? speaker-1: Yes, that is right with our you know with the introduction of Ideal Soil Solutions this year, really unique opportunity that my my dad Brian had brought to me about having an an agronomy internship. We are they are creating a permanent test plot in 20 in 2027, very large test plot. So I think it will be a really neat opportunity to bring in some more agronomy focused students to learn about, you know, the soil health principles that Ideal Soil Solutions wants to share and you know the different biologists. logics that we use and how we apply those and especially with we have you know Andy Johnson he's our tech agronomist and he has so much knowledge about like the the DNA of the soil, the new testing practices that we're doing. So I think that's going to be huge opportunity for agronomy students. speaker-0: Yeah, and I I think something kind of fun to point out there is, you know, you talked about a permanent test plot and the things that go on at Jorgensen Lan and Cattle where this isn't just this is how we've always done it, we're gonna do it year in and year out. There's so many little experiments and different different tests that you're gonna get to see that maybe you don't even know are going on. that this team's working on behind the scenes that you'll get a chance to to see and be a part of. Things like the grazing collars, that's very new technology that you know, we're very much on the leading edge of utilizing that tech, an opportunity to see how that works. You know, whether whether that leads you into working for a company like that or just something to take back to to an operation that you land on in the future is is all these little things that that you just pick up Because we're always outside the box trying trying new things. speaker-1: Right. And I think that test plot leads right into this because the information I have here, it's going to have 144 individual plots for copper crop rotation sequences, different input studies, insect and disease studies. So I mean what a cool opportunity. I mean the interns that come this year will get to help start and implement that. So like I said, really, really neat opportunity. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. And somebody will be knocking on the door wanting to write a thesis before too long for that speaker-1: Wouldn't that be? speaker-0: kind of data set. Yeah. let's talk Reagan a little bit. something that that maybe the kid looking at an internship would be a little bit leery seeing ideal South Dakota. and you mentioned it, but let's talk a little bit about actually the time spent in ideal with some housing and those kinds of things that are that are here in ideal because that's always when you're looking at things like this a big question mark, right? speaker-1: Yes, for sure. So when I came on in twenty twenty four, when our interns left in August, I I asked them like what what can we do to make this internship better for those that are coming next year? And one of the biggest things they said was, you know, we didn't know what we are walking into, we didn't know where we were going to live, we didn't know what the town looked like. So something I implemented for the internship class of twenty twenty five is a huge onboarding sheet. I had, you know, different places that they could go in winter. I had the home address, emergency contacts, you know, I really want To make sure that these kids felt comfortable coming here. So the the homes that they stay in, we have both female housing and male housing. It is separated. they are located about I don't know, two miles, two miles from the farm, very short drive. so I have all that information and I send it to them prior so they can know the address, they can know you know the name of you know my aunt Linda, who takes such good care of our interns. I just have to point that out. She loves our interns like. her own kids. She takes such good care of them. so the I make sure that they get there, get their stuff moved in, get connected with Linda or Philip, because Philip lives very close as well. so that the moment they step foot, you know, in ideal, they are welcomed and there's very hopefully very little question about where they're going to be, where they're staying, where they get groceries, you know, where they need to go. another thing that I think is great to note that I always try to mention is yes, you guys do need to go get groceries, but remember we do have lunch at the farm every day. So I think that's always a really a really good surprise to the interns that you know they can come have lunch lunch with the crew. That's not something that they have to worry about. what else? I think that that kind of covers the you know the housing and transportation part. speaker-0: Yeah, you know, once you kinda get to ideal outside of of run into winter, not a lot of travel required at that point to get to the get to the farm and let's maybe maybe talk a little bit about we touched on it but really dive a little deeper into those internships themselves. with the livestock internship and, you know, kinda just touch on your descriptions of of what what you want to get out of those What what we're challenging the interns to get out of when they're here from a from a learning standpoint and what they can maybe expect to to spend their time doing. probably start on the livestock side, Reagan, as far as what what those kids are gonna expect when they get here. Sure. As far as their day to day stuff. speaker-1: So with our livestock internship, and I should mention all the the dates of these are really quite flexible. Our livestock one typically starts in the summertime. You know, after post post graduation, summertime has started for college kids. That's generally when we start that one. And Philip is their manager. And if you listen to to his podcast with the interns, he is awesome and he just loves he loves the energy and the, you know, the different experiences that the interns bring. But I think the biggest thing that I think we should focus on is how we handle handle the cattle in a low stress in a in a safe a low stress cattle handing handling environment whether that be focusing more on horseback which you know philip has really tried to push in the last few years because that does you know it is a more low stress environment which is better for you know the animals in general and then so a lot of a lot of bull sorting and something we do note not specifically in this description but I do ask applicants if they've ever been around bulls before You know, I think I have very little experience, so please jump in, Jamie. But being around bulls versus being around it's it's a totally different animal. If you say you've worked with cattle before, but have you worked with bulls? Because from what I've seen, it's a totally different animal. speaker-0: Yeah, I mean you're just you're s think about your your college male colleagues and if you are a college aged male and how you tend to act. there's a bunch of teenage boys standing out there and they f they fight and they're extremely testy at times. you know, a and at Jorgens Land and Kettle, the goal is for for the cattle to handle and you know that's something for our customers that's obviously important is that the cattle need to handle when those guys go pull bulls, they need to be able to pull bulls without too much fight, but they are still a testosterone fueled male creature that you know things can happen and they happen really, really fast when it happens. speaker-1: Right. So that's why I always ask. And and if you haven't worked with, you know, bowls before like we have on our operation, that that doesn't mean that you're not gonna be considered. But it is something for the applicant to consider. so animal health, they do a lot of processing. you know, semen testing is is a huge season in the summertime here. So there's a lot of, you know, pushing bowls through or pushing animals through our processing facilities. I some some data collection is really important, you know, learning how we do our data collection and how in important and intricate it is in how in how it affects our business and our you know our back end systems and then you know different facilities upkeep you know the cleaning how we clean our facilities what we typically like them to look like the phrase tour ready is used a lot here and that counts I mean and that is you know considered for our working facilities as well so that you know bare bones of the livestock the livestock one speaker-0: Yeah, and you know, probably as they get here, you know, if they get here in early May, depending on when school lets out, still some calf processing going on and maybe some breeding. I know they got a little of that this year on the cattle side as well. so always something going on, definitely, definitely no board days. speaker-1: And I do wonder if Philip will make this a thing every year, but they did that overnight cattle drive for you know the cow calf side, I believe, right? so you know that's something that maybe could be kind of a hook to get some people in it because I know the interns absolutely loved it last year. speaker-0: Yeah, and and for those of you that that missed it on social, they they took their bedrolls and their they went and night camped getting ready to move cows. They started at five the next morning, they they crowd their horses and did it did it old school. So speaker-1: Cowboy Experience. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You know, the older I get the less fun that looks like. So speaker-1: Yeah. So the next one that we have had in place is our crop operations internship. And to be quite frank, this has not been a super popular one. We have gotten people interested in it just because this time of year, you know, we're not gonna have an intern come in. They're not gonna get to jump in a big piece of machinery. That's just not it's not practical for for anybody. But we do like last year we Nathan was kind of our our floater. He, you know, they helped with, you know, the hang, the cutting, raking, bailing, hauling, stacking. Possibly some trucking. I know two of our interns did a lot of trucking last year. And so really they floated between that livestock and that crop. You know, if if applicable, maybe getting to see the silage shopping, getting to see any harvesting during the summertime, things like that. We had they got to go up the shop occasionally and kind of see how the shop worked and take their own things up there and see how that process is currently working. So that is kind of what fell under the crop internship last year. speaker-0: Yeah, and you know, the the summertime cropping side, outside of making hay, well those kids are in your typical internship window, few things going on, but it's not as not as busy certainly as the livestock side. speaker-1: Always something to do though in that in that on that side. And then our new one is the agronomy, and you're gonna have to forgive me, but I'm reading from the description just so I can get it correct. This is brand new. my dad is our our chief ag officer and he is very excited about this opportunity. He has such a passion for soil health. So I hope the kids, I think all of the interns, I know all the interns will get a touch of that this year, but getting to spend thirty minutes to an hour with my dad talking about soil health, I think. would be so eye-opening for everybody. But we are a no-till. We have been no-till since 91, I believe. So a lot of that focuses around a lot of this internship focuses around soil health. It's going to be focusing around that new test plot. They're going to do a lot of crop scouting. That's not something that we have had interns do before. Soil and tissue sampling, most likely with my dad or with Andy Johnson, our tech agronomist. And then doing yield checks. We are a certified seed dealer as well. So possibly getting to work with that cleaning, you know, how the seed is inspected to be sold as certified seed, how it's cleaned, the data that goes behind that, the record keeping. We have an employee here, Martin, that does just an excellent job with that and has such a passion for making sure that's done correctly. So super cool opportunity for anybody that's interested in ag. speaker-0: Yeah, and I I think really worth pointing out on that agronomy internship, Regan, as you've described it, so many different career opportunities moving forward out of that to find a place, whether it's in a sales standpoint or a research standpoint or you know, tech services. Just a just a million different things you're gonna be exposed to just out of that one internship that would really really open the door for for somebody that that maybe hasn't been in it and doesn't necessarily understand just how many different opportunities there are to work in ag and and not have to own it. speaker-1: Not just for an agronomist. I mean, hopefully these interns will get to connect with Chris Phillips or Mason, both of our salesmen for Ideal Soil Solution, our territory managers, and just learning about, you know, what what they do. So it just doesn't have to be that hands-in-the-dirt agronomy work, but there is, like you said, many different directions that they could go with any of these internships. speaker-0: Yeah, absolutely. And so, Reagan, as far as the internships are concerned, you know, we've kind of got the nuts and bolts, but and obviously we have our our standard internship time frames. if somebody was looking for, say, a semester long internship, something outside of the box, Jorgen Solana Cattle would probably be interested in trying to accommodate them, would they not? speaker-1: Absolutely. Absolutely we would. I think, you know, as we're talking about internships, something that we haven't mentioned yet is our J1 interns. so those are non-domestic interns that come we we go through a program through Ohio State University. And right now we have you know, we have somebody from Brazil, we have somebody coming from Portugal, we've had somebody from Ecuador. So that's a whole other facet of, you know, internship opportunities there that are months long. They can be up to a year long, those internships can be. But you Know if somebody were interested in a semester long internship, would be absolutely interested to talk to them about how you know if this is an area that they could earn credit or you know, anything like that. something else to mention is we are a Mitchell Tech Bill Dakota sponsor. We are sponsoring our first our first person through Mitchell Tech. He was an employee here after high school and he went on this awesome right route where he decided he wanted to go to Mitchell Tech, so we are sponsoring after the Bill Dakota program. So that is always, you know, a potential as well. speaker-0: Yeah, so so never never a lack of opportunity. No. speaker-1: Definitely not. speaker-0: What what other things do you do you wanna highlight on the internship program? speaker-1: I I do want to just highlight quickly the the professional opportunity we all of our interns this year had headshots taken that they received to use for you know whatever purpose they want to use them for. Something I'd like to look into for you know the future classes is resume building, having Shannon work with them on, you know, making sure that their resumes are, you know, up to date and look, you know, look appealing to employers. And then lastly, something we're going to start this year in 2027 is doing doing a review at the End. So at JLC for the last this will be our third year, we have done annual reviews, very in-depth, very personal face-to-face interviews that have been, you know, very I think they've been great for the company in general. But for these internships, I think it would be a really great time for the interns to see what these reviews look like, how to receive that constructive feedback, and how they, you know, just that professional setting. So on the professional side, every intern is going to receive those things as well. speaker-0: Yeah, and you know, for for those of you out there as undergrads that don't know what a having a professional headshot is worth, there's a lot of things that you'll apply for that they'll want a professional photo. and Boston does an excellent job on that. You know, and and one thing I think you talked about the reviews, Regan, but something the managers make sure that the interns get on and get in on as well is you know our monthly meetings and and how business is conducted at Jorgensen Land and Cattle, aside from just the day to day operations. speaker-1: I think that makes a really, really unique experience that they get a chance to sit in on those. speaker-0: Yeah, I mean, most ag operations you wouldn't understand would have meetings and there's a lot more of them doing this today than there was even five years ago. But actually understanding why we do what we do and both both from an op standpoint, a sales standpoint, where the business is going, the conversations that happen about vision, things that that no matter what career path you end up in, some of that's just learning how to conduct yourself in that professional meeting type environment. speaker-1: Yep, exactly. So just more professional experience that they can, you know, take with them wherever they choose to go in their careers. And you know, we've had we've had interns that are they know that they're going back to their family operation. So getting to take, you know, getting to see this family operation at scale and what we do, what they do behind the scenes to to make this work so efficiently, I think is just really invaluable information. speaker-0: absolutely. And the last thing that that I'll kinda brush on when it comes to internships is our industry is extremely small from coast to coast. you would be amazed as to how many people know Cody Jorgensen, by proxy, Philip Jorgensen, Brian Jorgensen. and sometimes in this business it's not not as much what you know as who you know and how they perceive you. And so when you when you have an opportunity to do an internship like this or, you know, whatever internship you choose to do and I think you guys have heard that from a lot of different a lot of different people that close this podcast that doing internships, growing your network is extremely important. it can really help you in the next step of of finding your career. If you list a Jorgensen Landon Cattle internship on a on a resume, there's a pretty good chance that Cody's gonna get a phone call, whether you list him as a reference or not. because he's extremely well known and respected in the industry, people will call him and get his opinion. So Reagan, I appreciate you taking time to to jump on and and talk about this. first question and we'll put all the links in the in the bio on this episode, but if people want to learn more or or start thinking about applying, plug the handshake website and then where else they can find more information. speaker-1: Yes, they can go. Shannon did a beautiful job, Shannon and Boston putting them on our page. It's under the career tab for internships. So actually all three internship descriptions are listed there plus my email or like Jamie said, you can go to Handshake. I will have the application ready to send out if somebody applies. And something I encourage is just be very honest on your application. If you're, you know, if you want this experience to get more, if you want this internship to get more experience in the egg world, say that. If you want this internship to just Learn about you know the egg world and the different facets facets say that because we're looking for all of those things. speaker-0: So I have began to wrap all these episodes up when I have guests Reagan with a question. an eighteen to twenty one year old young person that that maybe has very little ag experience, but but thinks they wanna be in it, what is your best piece of advice now through the path that you've taken? What would be your best piece of advice to those those people that that want to fall back into agriculture? speaker-1: This is a really good question. And it's something that has become very apparent to me in my non-conventional way of getting back into or getting into agriculture, getting into the egg world, the family business. Anything you learn can be applied here. Anything you learn, anything you've done for past careers can be applied to this position. It's truly how you apply yourself. I can take my background knowledge of education and special education and it can be so easily generalized. to what I'm doing here. I have a passion for teaching. I have a passion for leading. I have a passion for building relationships. And those are things that I learned about in in college because it's something I was passionate about. It's something I did and it's something I I'm continuing to do today. So just because you don't have a background working cattle, running equipment does not mean you don't have a place in the egg world. speaker-0: Yeah, and you know, I think what sums that up really nicely is that it's not just the boots on the ground every day in the ag world. I'm a nutritionist by trade that now spends every day playing with genetics and marketing Angus bulls, which is my true passion. But I get to use all the all the dis different aspects that I learned getting there to understand the marketing side and it gives me it gives me a true understanding of the people that we're dealing with on a day-to-day basis. speaker-1: Exactly. So don't don't put yourself in a box. I wasn't just a teacher. I now get to do apply all those things that I learned in a totally different setting because I did not put myself in a box. speaker-0: That's that's an awesome way to sum this episode up because that really sums up the internship program. So thank you for taking time to jump on with us to talk about the internships, Reagan. hopefully you guys out there apply. If you have any questions, send Reagan an email. even if you really really have questions you need answered, call the office. you may get a return phone call later. Reagan's extremely busy all the time because how many kids is it? speaker-1: A four kids. Yeah. Four. Yep. speaker-0: Yeah. Regan's extremely busy. but she will get back with you if you have have questions that you need answered about this. it's a great opportunity guys. The interns always come out of JLC with with tools that they'll take on and and use. speaker-1: and relationships, I think. Yeah. So well thank you for having me, Jamie. I'm excited for our internship class of 2027. speaker-0: You bet. And we will catch you guys next time on the Source.