After high school, FFA members can continue staying involved in the organization by joining an alumni chapter.
The official Bayer FFA alumni chapter has 115 members in the St. Louis, Missouri Area. Eric Currey is the current chapter president and one of the founding members.
“About two years ago, a few colleagues and I had the understanding that there were other agricultural companies that had FFA alumni chapters, and at the time Monsanto did not,” Currey states. “We thought, ‘hey, we work really closely with farmer customers and in a lot of rural communities and it only makes sense that our company would have an FFA alumni chapter.’”
He is an alumni of the Alwood FFA chapter in Woodhall, Illinois. His experiences in the organization have helped shape his career.
“The opportunities that FFA afforded me and the skills and the knowledge that you garner as you go throughout your years was really valuable in getting a start in my career,” he adds.
Chapter vice president Mindy McDermot was not a high school FFA member, but after college, she became an ag teacher.
“I did about 15 years of ag education work, but then went to work for what was then Monsanto, and is now Bayer, and then moved over to the Climate Corporation, where I do training materials,” McDermot states. “So, it’s kind of cool that I get to use my teacher skills in a corporate environment.”
Today, she has the opportunity to work alongside some of her former students.
“The cool thing I get to do now is, I get to see those kids in the industry, and actually there are some of my former students working right along here at the Climate Corporation with me, and that’s really cool, to see students that were in a high school classroom learning about agriculture for the first time and to see them succeed in the ag industry,” she notes.
She encourages all students to consider participating in FFA.
“FFA is going to help you develop those leadership qualities that even if you aren’t going into a career in the agriculture industry, that you are really going to be able to set yourself apart by developing those skills at the high school level,” she adds.
The Bayer alumni chapter works to give back to local chapters by hosting silent auctions, and plant sales to raise money for FFA.
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