LEAD fashions Agriculture leaders of tomorrow

June 15 is the deadline to apply for the LEAD (Leadership Education Action Development) Class 33. Each class stands for a year that the program has been going, and over the previous 32 years of LEAD over 900 Nebraska residents have completed the program, according to Dr. Terry Hejny, LEAD Program Director.

“LEAD is the premier agricultural leadership development program for Nebraska Ag. people,” said Hejny.

“The leadership development happens when they are in the program and the action development is up to them. It happens after the program; it’s up to them what they do with their experience,” he continued. “We don’t claim to say that we developed all these leaders, we say that we fast-tracked them into position. We give them experience and opportunities so they find out what they are really passionate about and help them see where they can really make a difference.”

The Nebraska Agricultural Leadership Council started the program in 1981 through cooperation with Agricultural Builders of Nebraska, Inc. and the Institute of Agricultural and Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

According to program officials, “They all had recognized the need for a nonpartisan, nonpolitical organization to promote and develop future agricultural leadership. The council’s overall mission remains, ‘to prepare and motivate men and women in agriculture for more effective leadership.’”

“In the late 70s there was a real concern where the future Ag. Leaders were going to come from,” said Hejny, who has been director of the program for six years. “The industry was getting older. Now we are still concerned that the industry is getting older but it was a big concern back then. So some of the University of Nebraska Administrators and some of the Ag. leaders in Nebraska got together and said ‘how are we going to solve this problem?’”

At the time, Hejny said that the Kellogg Foundation out of Battle Creek, Mich. gave grants for a state to begin an adult Ag. leadership program, and through those funds and the donations of others, the LEAD program was established.

Even though the program is very closely affiliated with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the program director said that the group will visit every public and private higher education institution in the state during their two-year program.

A new LEAD class begins every year and runs the course of 19 months, which includes approximately 60 days of class participation over that period.

“Every fall we bring a new class in and then we graduate one every March,” he said.

Hejny said that he is always recruiting new participants but with the June 15 application deadline in sight, interested parties should start filling out the paperwork now.

“They need to request the materials and get going on it,” he said. “The application isn’t lengthy but they want to put some thought into some of the open-ended questions about the issues that face their community, the state or the country. They are also required to submit two professional and two personal references, which are also due June 15.”

After the application process, the program director said that five interview sessions will be held in different regions across the state in July.

“They come in and they are interviewed by a five-person team of people from the regional area that make a recommendation to the board of directors,” said Hejny. “Then the Nebraska Ag. Leadership Council make their final selection and then the new class starts mid-September.

“We look for men and women between the ages of 25 and 50 that are involved in agriculture, such as farmers, ranchers and Ag. business-people that want to make a difference in their community and want to improve professionally as well as personally.

Up to 30 participants will be selected per class and since it’s a statewide program students will learn about every region of the state through their classmates and will build lasting friendships through the seminars.

“They need to be passionate about rural life, they need to have an open mind, they need to be willing to commit their time of 60 days in the 19-month period, and they will need to be willing to attend some seminars and some travel seminars.”

Hejny said that during their first year in the program students will study local, state and national issues and in the second year they will educate themselves in more international-type agricultural issues. The students will participate in six, three-day seminars located around the state during year one, and will get to travel and learn for 10 days visiting Kansas City, Washington D.C. and Chicago.

“Our classroom is the whole state of Nebraska,” said Hejny.

During the second year they have six more three-day seminars and a 14-to-16-day international travel seminar.

Each participant pays $2,500 in tuition total for the two years of the LEAD program, and Hejny raises another $14,000 for each student through donations he collects for the program.

“We have a lot of donors. Everybody has a vested interest in it,” he said.

The program is nonprofit and donations come from big companies, but also small businesses and individuals, according to the program director.

“When it comes down to it we probably have 3,000 donors,” he said. “A lot of people write us checks because they believe in the program. It’s a real public-private partnership that has been really successful.”

Hejnysaid that at the end of their two-year program students receive a certificate of completion at their banquet of approximately 275 people.

But the program director said that the experiences the students gain greatly outweigh the importance of the certificate itself.

“That little piece of paper is great to say that they completed it, but it’s really what they do with those experiences that are so important,” he said. “People don’t do this program to get that piece of paper. But in the Ag. sector if a potential employer sees that they were in the LEAD program that means something. You can tell someone who was in LEAD between someone who wasn’t.

“It’s cool because then we push them out there and say go get involved. Do something back in your community, whatever it is. The important thing is that they go back to their communities and they get involved. It may be on the school board, it may be city council, county commissioner, 4-H leader – they get involved.

“Our program is really based on servant leadership, and serving others first before you serve yourself,” he said.

Hejny said that a lot of prior class participants have gone on to be on boards of trustees, advisory boards, and that some have even gone on to become state senators and U.S. Senators.

“We teach them how to think, not what to think, and that is important,” he said.

To get the necessary LEAD Class of 33 application forms interested participants can call Hejny at 402-472-6810 or email [email protected].