Owen Palm, is CEO of 21st Century Equipment, a 16-store John Deere dealership with locations in Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming. Palm spoke at the 2021 Precision Farming Dealer Summit on the dealership’s year-long investment in education and training of employees on precision farming practices, and how the challenges of 2020 influenced progress and plans for the future.
As we’ve all learned, the skillset possessed by a really good precision ag technology specialist is hard to find. They are in high demand and thus expensive, and they take extensive training to develop.
With ongoing shortages and delays in parts availability and shipping, precision and iron dealers are seeing opportunity to develop robust early order programs to roll out this summer.
The college offers an associate degree in Applied Science in Agriculture (60 credit hours). Students enrolled in this program may specialize in precision farming technology by selecting up to 15 credit hours in this area and agriculture business, sales and agronomy.
The college offers an AAS in Precision Agriculture and customized precision ag- related training for agricultural producers, insurance underwriters, equipment dealer and agricultural cooperative employees and others.
Offering training on Ag Leader, Trimble, Reichhardt, Norac and Integris Systems in twice yearly customer training events (spring/fall). Also offering individual training opportunities on any HTS Ag products and SMS software, year round.