I graduated this past May from Purdue with an agronomy major. Now that I am officially "grown up," I can tell you I am doing just what I wanted to do as a child "when I grow up". I will be working for John Deere Corporate and graduating from Purdue has greatly helped me fulfill my childhood dream of working with John Deere tractors everyday.
Last summer, I was blessed to receive an internship with John Deere's marketing department. I was based out of Ottumwa, Iowa but travelled around the southern and western part of U.S. with a prototype baler. Through the different states during the summer I talked to many farmers trying to get their opinion of this specific baler and how they thought it compared to other balers. It was an absolute blast and made the summer fly by. Following my internship I was offered a full time job with them.
In the middle of July, I will begin my 15 month training period with John Deere Corporate in the marketing department. Morrisville, a suburb of Raliegh, North Carolina will be my new home for the next six months. After that I will relocate to Orlando, Florida for a short period of time and then will complete the rest of my training at another Corportate location across the U.S. For my first set of training I will be working with small ag equipment, such as lawn and garden tractors. I will learn about this equipment and experience what a role in dealer development would be. As of now, this is where I would like to end up after training, in dealer development, so I am very excited to start of learning about this role. Those involved in dealer development are the liaison between corporate John Deere and the sales branches. They teach the dealers and salespeople about the equipment and how they can understand the machine to sell it.
Now that I am a month away from beginning this new chapter in my life, I will take a short moment to reflect on all that Purdue has given me. Attending this world renowned university has been an awesome experience from being taught by well known professors to just making friends of lifetime. The education I have received let me learn about what I was interested in and fueled my passion of agriculture. I was blessed to receive awesome summer internships due to the education, leadership, and personal development I receieved as a student which has then opened the door for a lifelong career. My time at Purdue can never be forgotten and I wish each of the incoming freshman for the upcoming year, to never underestimate what influences being a Boilermaker can have on your life.
Best,
Kole Kamman
Class of 2015
Purdue Agronomy
