Intern Updates
August 2020
What a summer it’s been! I started my internship with the United States Meat Export Federation in June and I will be done shortly before my school starts back up again. Due to Covid-19, my internship, like many others, was shorter than usual. However, I have enjoyed every minute I’ve spent here in Denver and I learned so much in this short time.
As an Animal Science major with an emphasis on meat science, I knew this internship would be very educational for me. It was so important for me to get to learn about the international side of the meat industry. I grew up in a small Nebraska town, so I was hesitant about making the move to a big city like Denver for the summer. This summer, I have opened my eyes to so many new experiences and I’ve found that living in a big city isn’t all that bad!
While I was unsure how I would like working at an office based internship, I enjoyed being involved at a different level in the industry that I have so much passion for. The people at USMEF were so welcoming and I know that I can reach out to any of them in the future, if I ever needed anything or had questions.
Everyday I was involved with our morning marketing video call. During these meetings, we discussed the latest marketing tactics in the Denver office and in our international offices. I have also been involved with several international meetings with Japan and China. These calls are always educational as I learn what differences there are between our domestic and international markets as well as being exposed to different cultures.
During my short time at USMEF I have worked on various projects. This past month I helped to update our “Exporting Corn through U.S. Beef and Pork” handouts. We updated the 2018 numbers to the 2019 numbers. Each cornbord or checkoff around the country that helps fund USMEF will get their individual handout with the latest state corn export numbers. For example I updated the 2018 “Exporting Nebraska Corn through U.S. Beef and Pork” handout to the Nebraska 2019 numbers. These handouts are a tremendous way to show how each state harvested corn numbers helps with the exports of beef and pork. Another project that I have recently finished was our “Exporting Corn through Beef and Pork” brochures. These brochures are similar to the handouts but they are far more detailed with numbers of the 2019 year and future years. These brochures will go out to various corn boards like Nebraska for their own use.
The last project that I worked on is our USMEF Industry Relations banners. These pull up banners allow us to display our export numbers at various trade shows and conferences.
During my time in Denver, I had the privilege to visit the NCBA/CattleFax Headquarters in Centennial, Colorado with USMEF. We got together with these groups to just discuss the upcoming year within the cattle industry. This meeting included export updates, future markets, and also the cattle industry during Covid. I had another opportunity to return to their headquarters to visit with various departments and was educated on a deeper level of each.
During my time with USMEF, I have learned so much. As I’m getting ready to enter my last semester of college, I have a better understanding of the domestic and international meat market. One of my goals in life to help educate both consumers and producers about the meat industry and this internship has helped me gain more knowledge to do that. I can’t wait to see what the future holds and I am ready to take on my last semester at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
