Grace Christensen

During my time at Iowa State, I have been exposed to a variety of roles that have given me a very broad overview of the pork industry. As a freshman at Iowa State I was bound and determined to become a swine veterinarian and serve the pork industry by doing research on diseases and vaccines to ensure the health of our U.S. swine herd. But after experiencing all these different opportunities, I kept coming back to a few things: I love to work with others, capture a big-picture idea, and investigate resources to solve problems. I ultimately hope I end up in an allied industry company in a position that will give me access to cross functional teams and support the inner workings of a business. Eventually I want to be directly involved with decisions and hope I can manage a team of people.

Naturally, I like to position myself by taking opportunities I’m not entirely sure I’d enjoy or even excel at that push me out of my comfort zone and allow me to progress in my career. I have no doubt that this will follow me throughout my career and foresee myself to work in a variety of different roles throughout that time. After I graduate from Iowa State University, I plan to seek out a position with a production or allied industry company that allows me to be directly involved with producers. To efficiently progress up the corporate ladder, I need to understand the basics more thoroughly – including transportation, feed ordering, budgeting/cash flow, etc. Even though I grew up with pork production and have had a production internship, I have not yet had the experience to be directly involved with the responsibility for the livelihood of an operation. I understand that I have so much to learn and know about the pork industry and hope this first three to five years of my career will start me with a solid foundation to exceed upon.