Industry Members

• Jeni Rudolph, Merrill Equipment
• Julie Bohr, Nicolet National Bank
• Josh Schmidt, Ag Country
• Ed Sabey, ProVision Partners/ Allied Coop
• Megan Krull, Riesterer & Schnell
• Melissa Heise, Swiderski Equipment
• Candace Watters, Service Motor Company
• Ashley Madson, Bayer Crop Science

NTC Members

• Greg Cisewski, Dean
• Bobbi Lee, Learning Coordinator
• Jenna Breitenfeldt, Ag Outreach & Asst. Farm Manager
• McKenna Dassow, Student Success Asst. & CSR
• Bill Schultz, Advisor
• Alex Crockford, Faculty
• Dr. Elizabeth Hillebrand, College Veterinarian
• Trevor Frank, Faculty
• Charl Van Der Next, Director of Farm Operations & Faculty

Skip chair elections due to respect for Chad Glaze. Will do elections in Fall. Greg welcomed everyone and led introductions.

Jeni- what is offered in ag business class- animals classes, sales, marketing, ag accounting, farm business management, powerpoint and excel.

• Classes allow for test out
• PPA- hired student part time, enjoys her time at school. Set up for events.
• PPA- June Dairy Breakfast- June 23rd- sponsorships letters sent out
  • Ag adventure tent- at fair
  • Gold outing- sept 5th
  • Possibly holding Alice & Dairyland

Ed Sabey- did hire students, but didn’t talk to them. Putting them in equipment and running tanker and involved in drones.

Candance- speaking to schools and getting into youth apprenticeship. Would like to increase students from NTC and would like to increase partnership.

Ed- Sat on midstate meeting- NTC on the map. Name is brought up- not a competition, what are they doing at other tech schools. NTC is making an impact and is “Flagship” for tech colleges.

Melissa- Building on apprenticeship and internships. Internships- a little more specific. Marketing, agronomy, precision, so industry knows what they should be teaching the students. Helpful for both the industry and student. Apprenticeship is becoming huge. Younger students are wanting to start working full- time. Shift in public as a whole, used to want 4 year degree, now students want 2 year to allow for them to go into work. Utilize the Diesel apprenticeship and add on from there. If there is an interest in an apprenticeship. Industry is involved and need to know what wants to be taught, and tehn move to teaching facility. Need to know that this is what industry want and not what the education wants to teach.

Technology is taking off in the crop, will need technicians. If fulfilling industry need, can create a certificate.

Agronomy certificate starts in Sept, learns the technology. “Crash course”- can be completed in one year. Stacking classes so students are able to work at the same time.

Can build Ag marketing certificate. Talk to Bill regarding courses if interested.

Rotational- fit into ag business course, working with marketing, sales, technician, to give good site of business at Service Motor.

Ashley- agronomy- need for UAV and drone training. Using for spraying, stand counts, etc. Can see the trend growing.

• Crop Science changed to Agronomy Program- $290,000 grant to change program to upgrade technology. ½ capital and ½ experience. Captial- large ag drone for classes, Trevor and alex will be licensed. 5 drones for students to learn on. Covering what is required for drone licensing, with flight hours logged, can get drone license afterwards, trailer for drone.
  • Pay for iso kits, attach to tractor
  • Enclosed UTV, have multiple models
  • Pedal tractor with auto steer
  • 2 year subscription for ag meter?
    • Current software is outdated
    • Was able to create guidance license to put on tractor.
  • Writing precriptions
    • Can be exported to planter
  • 2 courses
    • Open education
      • Can be used by anyone at any college
        • Agronomy data
        • GIS
  • Student and faculty traveling to Texas and Kansas and east peroria
• Hired local drone operator- planted cover crop
  • Put on 70 lbs cereal rye grass
• Involved updating classes and new classes
  • Precision drone applications
  • Precision applications
  • Commercial vegetable class
• Crop Science Grant

Jeni- how many farms use drones

• Student that graduated last spring
  • Using drones in reources
  • Developing pilot study with UW
    • Pea study
  • Can determine when peas are ready to harvest due to reflectance of light.
• More usage for commercial vegetable rather than resident farms
• Brought drone to farm tech days
  • More people are looking as drones being the viable opportunity
  • 5 drones package $55,000

Student drove drone with AI regarding weed detection Grant starts in July.

Drone & pedal tractors in trailer for events

In February, Charl brought 9 students to compete in the Wisconsin Dairy Challenge. This event is a collaboration between universities and technical colleges to compete. The students go to a dairy farm, and learn the financial parts of the operating farm. They must then determine what the owner should change and how they could make a better profit. They compete in teams, but the teams are selected by the competion. All students must learn to work with

• February- 9 students to dairy challenge
  • Collab with universities and tech colleges and compete
    • Go to dairy farm
      • Financial part on farm, what would you change and how could they make a better profit?
        • Got there at 3pm, at 4pm they were in meetings until 10pm
          • Be at breakfast at 6am and meetings until 10pm
            • They don’t get to pick teams, no schools are able to be on the seem team.
              • 3 farms they went to, 2 students took first, 2 students took second. Never placed before,. 140 students in total
                • Next year in South Dakota
• PAS state
  • Thank you everyone who came to career fair and judging
    • First, second, and third, all students placed
    • Trevor received Advisor of the Year
    • 24-25 students went, all qualified for Nationals
    • Swine, equine
• Nationals
  • A lot tougher
    • Students did teriffic
      • Lot of colleges that have joined since COVID
        • NTC shows that this is the college that brings it
          • Not all students went to nationals, animal and livestock specialist, Ag machinery specialist, one diesel student placed for precision ag
            • Brought all programs together
            • 3 individuals in top 3
            • 2 teams placed in top 3
• Ed Sabey- What are we doing right for students to be doing so well.
  • Dairy challenge- met with students when they didn’t have class
    • Spent ~ 20 hours at different farms hitting all the points
      • Their hardwork and willing to compete
    • Nationals
      • One of the bigger chapters that attends
      • Chapter can be only good as your advisors.
        • If the advisor doesn’t put in effort, the club isn’t going to put in effort
      • Some chapters are mandatory
  • What makes success, success?
    • All faculty worked with the students in each industry.
  • Club met every week a month in advanced before state
  • Students motivate each other
  • Envolvement is what makes us successful. All faculty, students, industry willing to donate for the cost to go for Nationals
    • Gave the students an opportunity to go.
• Next year Nationals will be at Wyoming. This is a hands on educational opportunity

The College-Wide Initiatives PowerPoint was shared with the committee before the meeting. There were no further questions.

Continuing Education and Professional Development.

We hold a wide variety of continuing education classes. NTC would be willing to find someone to teach courses if there is a topic we do not already have.

• National Ag Day
  • NTC hosted the WTCS National Ag Day on March 19th. Secretary Romanksi, Alice in Dairyland, and WTCS President Morna Foy all participated in the event.
• Governor’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence
  • On May 6th, the Governor’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence will be having their meeting at NTC and touring the Agriculture Center of Excellence.