GOING THE DISTANCE FOR AGRICULTURE

By Barbara McBreen

The summer of 2012 was a hot one, but that didn’t stop Bethany Olson from training for competitive cross-country.

Bethany Olson

“You have to love running—whether it’s 100 plus degrees or 21 below—you have to work out,” says Olson, a senior in agricultural business and international agriculture.

As a member of the Iowa State University Women’s Track and Cross Country teams Olson trained hard this summer to reach her mileage total of 85 miles per week. An important goal because she believes cross- country competition is about teamwork.

“If you don’t put your time in, you are letting your team down,” Olson says. “There are no timeouts when you compete in cross country because it’s an individual contribution to the team.”

The teamwork paid off last year when Iowa State University’s Women’s team brought home Iowa State’s first Big 12 Championship trophy. Corey Ihmels, Iowa State University director of men and women’s track and cross country, says it’s because of athletes like Olson.

“The easy part is doing the hard work, the hard part is balance. I ask students to manage life, school, get enough rest and eat well,” Ihmels says. “Bethany is very involved academically and she’s a committed athlete. She’s doing things right.”

Olson’s a team player in everything she does, but balancing all her interests is a challenge. Along with Cyclone athletics, Olson is a member of the Agricultural Business Club, Alpha Zeta, the Honors Program, Collegiate FFA, Lyrica (an Iowa State women’s choir), the Student Athlete Advisory Council and serves as a student ambassador for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

One of Olson’s interests is travel. In grade school Olson listed traveling the world as one of her lifelong goals. She started her college travels in Argentina as part of an agronomy and economics travel course during spring break. The twelve-day trip was packed with farm and ag industry tours along with a few tourist stops.

Olson wrote an 80-page report summarizing the trip and credited Sergio Lence’s connections for making the trip a hands- on tour. Lence, a professor of economics and course adviser, grew up on a farm near Carlos Casares in the Province of Buenos Aires.

“Students like Bethany make the effort of leading travel courses worthwhile and motivate me to continue doing them,” Lence says.

Nathan Johnston, a senior in agricultural business, also went to Argentina with Olson. The two grew up four miles apart from each other near Jewell, Iowa. They both have similar career plans. Johnston says the long-standing joke between them is who will be the other one’s boss.

“In high school we were involved in 4-H, cross country and FFA co-presidents together. We followed each other to Iowa State and both went into the ag business program,” Johnston says. “It’s been great to have a friend like Bethany at Iowa State.”

In June, Olson continued her international studies and traveled to Southeast Asia after being selected to participate in the International Collegiate Agricultural Leadership Program sponsored by the U.S. Grains Foundation and the National FFA. She and Karl Kerns, a junior in animal science, were among twelve students nationwide to participate in a trip to Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.

The group toured an aquaculture farm on the Mekong River in Vietnam and met with commodity representatives in Saigon. Olson says the experience emphasized Iowa’s global connection to agriculture, especially when they visited the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade in Singapore.

Both study abroad opportunities fit Olson’s plans to pursue a career in marketing and with an agricultural business or organization that includes international connections.

“I hope to have a career that is focused on furthering the productivity of farmers and their agricultural practices around the world, while helping consumers under- stand that agriculture is an important and necessary part of their lives,” Olson says.

Olson is co-chair of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Ag Career Day. Her past awards include recognition as a Foreman Scholar and the Branstad-Reynolds Undergraduate Scholar. She was raised on a fifth-generation family farm and graduated valedictorian of the South Hamilton High School Class of 2009

FINDING A FUTURE IN ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION

Andrew Paxson grew up enjoying the outdoors in the in Fox River Valley area northwest of Chicago. As president of the student Soil Water and Conservation Club he builds ground water flow models.

By Barbara McBreen

Andrew Paxson spent his summer biking, canoeing, mussel hunting, weeding and educating others about the importance of ecological preservation. It was an intern- ship that fit him perfectly.

“We covered ecology, history, philosophy, economics, botany and geology all in nine weeks,” Paxson says. “The internship helped me understand that I’d like to pursue a career in ecological restoration.”

Paxson, a senior in environmental science, spent last summer as an intern with the McHenry County Conservation District at Glacial Park. It’s an area north-west of Chicago and north of Algonquin, Ill. The 3,500-acre park is located one hour north of where Paxson grew up hiking and enjoying water sports.

“I like to challenge interns with basic questions,” says Tom Simpson, field station ecologist with the McHenry County Conser- vation District. “This summer we had many involved discussions about how and why we do conservation. Andrew was always engaged in the discussion, which helped everyone else participate.”

This summer brought hot, dry weather to most of the Midwest, which made it challenging to work outside Paxson says. At times he was worried about starting fires with vehicles used in the park. As streambeds began to dry up, he also participated in a mussel rescue and survey.

“We were on our hands and knees in the river trying to find these mussels in the mud, it was like finding gold,” Paxson says.

When he returned to Iowa State this fall, he found the drought also dried up his water-sampling job. For the past three years Paxson has taken water and sediment samples from Squaw Creek to measure E. coli. The water sampling not only provided a job, but a basis for his research.

“The data is interesting because we have samples from flood years and from last spring when the creek began drying up,” Paxson says.

Michelle Soupir, professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering, says Paxson’s help with data collection will provide the basis for stream modeling. The project not only measured E. coli in the water, but also in the streambed.

“He went out weekly and collected water and sediment samples,” Soupir says. “We found that bacteria concentrations in the bottom sediment was higher than the overlying waters.”

Paxon’s research focused on plotting
E. coli concentrations in watersheds using geographic information systems technology. The results will be included in a modeling project used to predict E. coli concentrations in streams. He presented his research in poster sessions through the Science With Practice program and at the Research at the Capitol event in Des Moines. Both programs give undergraduate students research experience with mentors and faculty.

Paxson served as president of the Soil and Water Conservation Club Student Chapter from 2009 to 2012, which builds water flow models for educational groups. He also was a member of the Skunk River Navy, a student group that cleans trash out of the river. He also gained practical experience serving on Iowa State University’s Storm water committee.

“MS. ENTHUSIASM” WORKS HARD IN AND OUTSIDE THE RESEARCH LAB

Brandi Malchow, junior in agricultural biochemistry, hopes to follow in the footsteps of her adviser and mentor Don Beitz .

By Calee  Himes

If Brandi Malchow could major in everything, she would.

After spending a semester at a university without a tradition of agriculture, the junior from St. Cloud, Minn ultimately chose agricultural biochemistry at Iowa State University. It fed her interest in biochemistry that began in advanced biology in high school and her longing to be reconnected with her agricultural roots that were seeded in FFA.

Agricultural biochemistry combines science and math to help further the understanding of human, plant and animal life. With diverse interest areas combined, agricultural biochemistry is a perfect fifit for Malchow, who sees it as a means for “understanding molecular mechanisms of various life processes.”

Malchow loves her major, but is especially thankful for her adviser, Don Beitz, Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor of Agriculture and Life Sciences in animal science and in biochemistry, biophysics and molecular biology. She credits him for helping shape her Iowa State career.

She even aspires to become a “female version of Beitz”, she jokes. Like Beitz, she wants to earn a Ph.D. and become a research professor and adviser. Finding a future that involves helping others is a must for Malchow. She’s especially interested in studying diabetes, Chron’s disease or another pressing health issue related to digestion.

“Brandi is Ms. Enthusiasm,” Beitz says. “She works hard for her grades and is very involved in activities outside the classroom.”

That’s likely because one of the first things Beitz told Malchow was to work really hard, but play even harder.

Malchow took Beitz’s statement to heart.

“Academics and activities are two separate things and both deserve equal time and attention,” she says.

She’s a member of Student Admissions Representatives, the Transfer Ambassador Program, Women in Science and Engineering and is a Cyclone Aide—all of these programs tap into Brandi’s desire to mentor new students and help them navigate their first few semesters of college. And she tutors math, science and Spanish at Woodward-Granger High School.

Malchow’s planning to attend the Emerging Leaders Retreat, an overnight, off-campus retreat for students interested in building leadership skills, and will spend a semester at Louisiana State University in the spring as a national exchange student. She’s always been curious about living somewhere else and is intrigued by the south. She also hopes this experience will expand her network while she’s researching graduate schools.

She enjoys being so involved because it’s a great way to network with people she wouldn’t otherwise encounter in her major. In fact, the Cyclone Aide program is where she met most of her friends.

Malchow sees every day as a new adventure. “Every day is the best day ever,” she exclaims. Whether she’s going over math problems with a student, conducting a campus tour or taking a calculus test, she looks forward to something new and exciting each day.

CRUNCHING DATA, MARKETING SOLUTIONS

Darrin Rahn

Darrin Rahn talks as fast as he walks and for good reason – he’s normally juggling meetings, mentoring, working, studying and writing marketing plans.

Interpreting statistical data intrigues Rahn. That’s why he’s combined two majors – agricultural business and marketing. He’s also the go-to person for marketing solutions.

He helped Dakota Hoben (’12 ag business) successfully campaign for president of the government of the student body. And he’s written award-winning marketing plans for both a product development team and the National Agri-Marketing Association competition.

“When I do marketing it’s driven from the quantitative and research perspective, the creative side is just the cherry on top,” Rahn says.

Rahn is well known in the college. In 2011, he was elected to serve as the president of the Agriculture and Life Sciences Student Council. As president he saw how clubs interact in the college and how the college interacts with other colleges.

“It was fascinating,” Rahn says.

He also took the lead on organizing a successful Ag Week, starting with an ad campaign. The “Our Roots Run Deep” slogan was printed on posters and t–shirts to increase awareness about the week’s activities and opportunities available in agriculture. The fall event included a first-time student concert and full-page newspaper advertisements outlining the weeklong schedule, which included free lunches, lectures, entertainment and a food drive.

His interest in figures also helped him in his work with Mike Duffy, an economist who analyzes farmland price trends in Iowa. This year, Iowa land prices hit record highs and Rahn was part of the team that put the data together.

Along with being involved in clubs, committees and mentoring activities, he’s also made the Dean’s list every semester.

“Being involved is what I do,” Rahn says.

Rahn is interested in the consumer end of food production. He says he was inspired by his internship with Hormel Foods Corporation. In June, he started his dream job in Minneapolis at Target as a sourcing business analyst, where he’ll collaborate with global vendors, designer partners and buyers to deliver and source Target store brand products from concept into stores. His long-term career goals are becoming a merchandise buyer or in brand management within the grocery and food product categories.