Sarah Van Gorp - 2002
A bountiful market for her talents
Before her graduation in 2002, Sarah Van Gorp envisioned herself working for a public relations agency or a big corporate entity such as Disney. Being a town kid from Cedar Falls, she’d never thought much about agriculture, let alone considered it a viable career environment.
That didn’t matter to Iowa Soybean Association officials, who appear to have made a bang-up hiring decision. In just two years, Sarah has become the point person for soybean producers looking to market biodiesel fuels to the farm and trucking industry. Already a seasoned practitioner, she can take a subject that may appear to be of marginal interest to the general public and infuse it with urgency.
“If every on-road diesel vehicle in the U.S. would use a 2 percent blend of soy biodiesel, which is 98 percent No. 2 diesel fuel and 2 percent biodiesel, we could use up all of Iowa’s soybean crop,” Van Gorp said. One of the major benefits of the fuel, she says, is that it is renewable and better for the environment. About 50 percent of Iowa farmers already use soy biodiesel in their farm equipment.
When President Bush signed the JOBS bill that provided tax incentives to make biodiesel price competitive, Van Gorp dived headfirst into a detailed market analysis of the trucking industry. She’ll soon start developing a marketing plan for implementation in 2005.
Educating her constituencies on the advantages of biodiesel takes about 80 percent of Van Gorp’s time. She also is busy telling retailers and consumers about the clean-burning benefit of soy candles, the production of which has the potential to use 110 million bushels of soybeans annually.
How does a young professional gain the credibility needed to effectively advance important and complex agri-economic initiatives? Maybe it’s not such a stretch to begin with, Van Gorp said, since everybody in Iowa, somewhere in his or her life, comes in contact with agriculture. But if you want to be truly persuasive, there is positively no substitute for knowing what you’re doing.
“In the ag world, I usually find myself in front of a group of older male farmers,” she said. “As a young female, I had better know what I’m talking about. Once they find out that I do, it’s kind of like becoming one of them. You have to earn their trust.”
Van Gorp’s communications classes at UNI helped with developing those skills. She came to appreciate all of the opportunities provided by UNI’s rigorous public relations program once she became an active participant in the job market. Preparing campaigns for real clients in public relations classes, involvement with student groups like PRIDE & PRSSA, and an internship with the non-profit group Leave-A-Legacy gave her an impressive portfolio for interviews.
“Some interviewers were amazed that I already had such great experience in college,” Van Gorp said. “I found that UNI definitely has a good reputation in the field of public relations.”
Van Gorp has never really thought about leaving the state to pursue employment, which is good news for Iowans concerned about keeping homegrown talent in-state. Her experience may encourage other graduates to expand the scope of their searches into professional areas they had not previously considered.
“I never thought I’d be working in the ag industry,” Van Gorp said. “You don’t think of it as being fun and exciting, but I’ve definitely been surprised. I didn’t realize how big an industry it has become. Once you’re in, especially in Iowa, you realize that there are so many organizations relating to agriculture. My opportunities here are endless.”
|
