OFI 205: FFA Career Development Events – What A CDE Is, And How They Pull This Off At National Convention

SHOW NOTES

Scott Jacobs is the Career Development Event (CDE) specialist at the National FFA Organization.  He is in charge of coordinating all the CDE’s at the FFA’s national convention.  With over 60,000 people attending the convention and over 3,000 members participating in CDE’s, this is a massive effort.

There are multiple events with everything from speaking and marketing to judging livestock.  Each event presents its own logistical challenge from microphones to obtaining dairy cattle, loading chutes and corrals.

Scott accomplishes this with help of hundreds of volunteers who come from as far away as Puerto Rico.  The entire nation pulls together to pull off the convention and all of the CDE’s.

Things that happen behind the scenes that are just not thought of are abundant.  For example, each winner in a CDE receives an engraved plaque.  However, there are only 4 days from beginning to end at the national convention.  So, the plaques all have to be pre-engraved, just waiting to find out what the name of the winner will be.  After that is determined the rush is on to complete the plaque so it can be presented to the winner on the final evening.

In addition to providing a way for these students to excel and compete, CDE’s give real world experience and exposure to students in a number of different careers.  This takes place at the chapter level all school year long, works its way up to the state level and the best of the best compete at the national convention.

I hope you enjoy learning about how the CDE’s work from Scott Jacobs!

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR SCOTT JACOBS:

Office Phone: 317-802-6060

Email: cde@ffa.org

Twitter: @Scottjake

FFA LINKS:

National FFA Organization

Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE’s)

Support FFA 

Donate to FFA – One way that FFA students are able to start small businesses is through an FFA grant of $1,000.  In 2014, 141 FFA students received these grants.  With your donations, more students can get this head start – pay it forward.

REASONS TO DONATE TO FFA:

• Only 2% of Americans grow and raise most of the food and livestock consumed by the other 98% as well as the rest of the world.  FFA is providing the needed education, training and resources to Americans that will carry that torch forward and insure that America continues to have inexpensive, quality food.
• Rural Communities will rely on entrepreneurship in the future for population growth and job creation.  The FFA is a major catalyst to that entrepreneurial growth.
• Farmers, ranchers and those working in agriculture give the rest of America incredible amounts of freedom because the search for food is as simple as going to the grocery store:

“Because American farmers are able to provide for so many of us, they give more and more of us the freedom to pursue goals and livelihoods beyond growing the food we need to survive.”

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack 

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