When Mike de Schaaf, the farm manager at Michigan State University’s Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center, heard about a worker whom a local grower recommended for a position at the farm, he didn’t have a chance to call the candidate before meeting him.
“Before I had a chance to call Cade back, he came through the door and said, ‘Hi, I’m here looking for a job,’” de Schaaf said. “I really appreciated his initiative to seek out this opportunity.”
As it turned out, Cade Krieger, who originally grew his passion for agriculture through the National FFA Organization, already had a connection at the Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center. He was enrolled in a prior Zoom class on vegetable production taught by Ben Phillips, a vegetable crops educator with Michigan State University-Extension who’s based at the center.
Phillips said, “When Cade began working at SWMREC, he said he was in my class, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh!’ At that point, it had to have been about two years.”