USSEC’s St. Louis headquarters is happy to welcome two summer interns, Tori Lock and Reed Greatting. In their own voices, here’s a bit about each.
Tori Lock: My name is Tori Lock and I will be serving the United States Soybean Export Council this summer as a communications intern. Originally from the rural community of Carrollton, Missouri, I decided to follow my passion for agricultural communications to the University of Missouri. This December, I will graduate with my Bachelors of Science in Science and Agricultural Journalism with minors in Agricultural Economics and Plant Sciences. Outside of my major, I have become very involved in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources (CAFNR) through various organizations. Throughout the school year I work with the MU Ag Alumni Board planning events and promoting the college and our organization to CAFNR Alumni. I have also served as the President of Sigma Alpha – Professional Agricultural Sorority, the CAFNR Week Steering Committee Chairwoman and as a CAFNR Ambassador.
This summer I will be working strategically with the USSEC communications team on various projects including website and social media content creation and content management. I am also fortunate enough to be traveling with the team to gather information from conferences around the nation and globe to advocate for U.S. Soy for a growing world. Experiences such as these do not come about every day, so I am ready to see what is in store for the summer of 2017!
Reed Greatting: Being from Columbia, Illinois, I have grown up around agriculture. My hometown is a pretty big rural community, so I have been around agriculture my entire life. Personally, I have never farmed, but my uncle has a small farm in Menard County, Illinois where my brother and I spend a lot of time in the fall. In my free time, some of my favorite hobbies include hunting, fishing, watching Mizzou football, and enjoying the outdoors. Both my grandfather and my mother went to Mizzou, so when it was time for me to make my college decision, it was easy for me to follow in their footsteps. I knew from the beginning of my college career that I wanted to go into business, so I thought it would be a great career path for me to combine that with my passion for the outdoor which led me to Agricultural Economics. When I learned about USSEC, I thought it would be a great opportunity to gain experience and knowledge in the agricultural industry. This summer through my internship, I hope to better my understanding on how an agricultural business runs and operates in all aspects. I also hope to gain experience in interacting and working with international markets. I haven’t fully decided the exact career path that I would like to end up in but commodity trading and logistics are big areas of interest for me that I could see myself going into. I hope with this internship that I will be able to find my exact niche for the agricultural industry that I would like to end up in. I am very excited for this opportunity.
USSEC welcomes Tori and Reed and hopes that they will gain valuable experience as they learn about the U.S. Soy industry’s efforts to build demand worldwide.