My Summer with USMEF

By Kelsey Scheer, USMEF summer intern

Enjoyed an evening visiting with
Janel Domurat at her humble abode in the mountains.

Well, I have been back in Nebraska for about a month now, and my summer in Denver is getting farther and farther behind me. Many times I have been asked how my summer was, and I have nothing but positive things to say about my amazing experience in Denver with the U. S. Meat Export Federation. I appreciate the opportunity that was given to me by the Nebraska Corn Board and USMEF. I enjoyed this experience and know that I learned way more than I ever thought I would.

My last month went by extremely fast!!

I spent the majority of my last month finishing up work with the Technical Services Department. We continued our work to update the Slaughter and Processing Plant information. I received emails back with the information for each plant, gathered all of the data from the emails, and imputed it to an excel spread sheet that I had created.

The men of USMEF actually do work. Just kidding.
They do a lot of work at the office and take out the trash on moving day!

Some of my time was spent finalizing all of the information on the Corn Project handout that I had been working on all summer. Last week I received the final handout, and I have passed it on to John Hinners, Jessica Struetzel, and Erin Borror, the USMEF employees that have helped me out with the project since the beginning. Once the project has been finalized, handouts for the remaining top ten states will be created and distributed to the respectable states.

My last week and a half at USMEF was spent helping them to move offices. Like I mentioned in my last blog post, the company had to move offices because of the extremely high rent that was being charged at their downtown location. To prepare for the move, we had to get several boxes ready to go to a storage facility. We also packed up the offices, kitchen, and all of the office supplies. On my last day I helped to make sure that the furniture and boxes made it to the correct offices at the new office building.

Greg Hanes (left) and John Hinners (right) looked out over the
 Colorado State Capital Building from the view of their offices. 

Overall, my summer with USMEF was a complete learning experience. I now have a wider view of agriculture, past that of just production. I better understand exports, from learning who our top export countries are and what percentage of our production is being exported - and how much it takes to get our products around the world to those consumers who desire them. I also understand how valuable these exports are, not just to the livestock producer, but also to other commodity producers. It was enlightening to experience firsthand all of the work that the USMEF staff put into promoting exports as well as the teamwork between them and leaders of corn, soybeans, and other farm organizations. I had several opportunities to network with international USMEF employees, USMEF members, and NCBA (National Cattlemen’s Beef Association) members.

I want to thank the Nebraska Corn Board and the United States Meat Export Federation for giving me this wonderful experience!

A weekend before I came back to Nebraska, I enjoyed hiking and biking
in the mountains with some family friends from back home.