OFI 1591: Being Good Enough To Give The Boss A Day Off | FFA SAE Edition | Ethan Meissner | Marshfield High School FFA

Ethan Meissner is a 2022 National Proficiency Winner in the category of Agricultural Processing. Since his 8th grade year Ethan has been working at a local meat locker near Marshfield, Wisconsin. He started out doing carry outs, cleaning coolers and any other small jobs that needed to be done. But over time the business and Ethan both evolved and changed. Today, the locker specializes in making sausages and hot dogs, pretty much anything that is ground and then stuffed into a casing. Ethan has become much more proficient and knowledgeable in running machinery and really the whole operation. This ultimately led his boss to trust him enough to take a day off on the weekends and leave Ethan in charge.

Today Ethan is studying agricultural engineering at the University Of Wisconsin at River Falls. He actually started out at another university studying just mechanical engineering. However, he missed agriculture and transferred so that Ag could be part of the emphasis of his major. On the weekends and during breaks from school Ethan returns home and works at the meat locker. For the summer he has his eye on some internships so that he can explore this career field even further.

SUPERVISED AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE: Meat Processing

HIGH SCHOOL: Marshfield High School; Marshfield, Wisconsin

MASCOT: Tigers

FFA ADVISOR: Tim Heeg

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR ETHAN MEISSNER:

Click on the picture below to be taken to the Marshfield High School Ag. Department’s website:

Ethan’s FFA Advisor’s Email Address: heeg@marshfieldschools.org

Marshfield High School Telephone Number: 715.387.1101

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