Unlike Miller, Miley Gonzalez had been in training for the political side of agriculture for a long time before he came to Penn State. Growing up on a farm and ranch in southern Arizona, his family was very involved with 4-H and FFA. In high school, he worked with the state senator on issues related to agriculture and education. He also was involved with campus politics and organizations and served as president of his college fraternity.

Then, in 1997, after years of work in teaching and extension, he was nominated by President Clinton as undersecretary for research, education, and economics of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During President Clinton’s tenure, Gonzalez oversaw four agencies that support the local ag producers, as well as the research, education, and extension efforts for the nonfarm public. “The Agricultural Research Service is USDA’s principal in-house research agency,” he says. “The Cooperative State Research Extension and Education Service (CREES) is USDA’s most direct link with the land-grant colleges and universities. The Economic Research Service is USDA’s principal social science research agency, and it examines the economic and socioeconomic components of our agricultural system. The National Agriculture Statistics Service does the Census of Agriculture and all the official reports on crops and livestock production.” In a nutshell, Gonzalez dealt with policy issues related to the cutting edge of science and research, and transferring this research-based knowledge to the public.

Today, Gonzalez is the associate dean and director of the Agricultural Experiment Station in the College of Agriculture and Home Economics at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces. While working in Washington, D.C., he was on leave from a position as associate dean and director of academic programs at New Mexico State University.

Gonzalez earned his doctorate in agricultural education from Penn State in 1982. During that time, he also worked as a 4-H faculty member in community development. His research focused on the professional competencies needed by extension agents in Pennsylvania, such as teaching capabilities, working with youth, and understanding social action processes. After graduation, he used the results of this research to develop curricula at Iowa State and New Mexico State Universities. Now he’s using it in the international arena, working with a group that’s developing the first doctoral program in agricultural education in Latin America.

It was the college’s international presence in Latin America and Eastern Europe that drew Gonzalez to central Pennsylvania. “Penn State has a wonderful reputation internationally,” he says. “They’ve provided leadership for a lot of work in Ukraine, Poland, and the Czech Republic.” Gonzalez spent time in Venezuela, working for the private sector as well as directing a Penn State project. He’s also worked in Mexico and Central America. “It’s been fun for me working in the Americas, because I grew up bilingual,” he says. “I’ve been able to take advantage of my Spanish language capability.”

While working with USDA, Gonzalez maintained close contact not only with the college, but also with people in various parts of the state. He made a lot of informal visits to grower groups, emphasizing the importance of agricultural research. He also worked with the growing number of Latino workers in areas like Adams County. “Pennsylvania’s population continues to age,” he says. “So we were looking at ways to entice young people into production agriculture and related businesses. We also looked at ways to get into the urban arena and have those folks understand the importance of rural communities.”

Although Gonzalez has spent much of his career working in the public sector, he believes training people for the private sector is making a resurgence. “In the 60s, we moved away from training and developing ourselves for our own businesses to preparing to work for somebody else,” he says. “But now, with the emergence of small businesses like the dot-coms, we need to go back to helping students understand the kinds of abilities they need for ownership and entrepreneurship—for being their own bosses. Much of what we do now is really customer-driven, even in production ag. We’re no longer just producing corn, we’re producing a product that’s ready to serve, ready to eat, and higher in protein.”

Crops of Trees
Marc Lewis was fairly certain he’d be involved in the family lumber business after graduating from Penn State with his bachelor’s degree in forest science in 1978. “Our ancestors have lived in the same area—Sullivan County—for over 200 years,” he says. Today, Lewis and his brother Melvin run the Dwight Lewis Lumber Company, a sawmill in its third generation of family ownership. Melvin earned his associate’s degree in forest technology from Penn State Mont Alto in 1975. Their mid-sized but productive lumber company prides itself on using environmentally friendly practices and getting the best possible yield from this valuable renewable resource.

“The public has this perception that people in the logging and sawmill business are out to strip all the land of trees,” Lewis says. “But we like to see trees. We don’t like to see bare ground. Our livelihood depends on sustainable forests.”

Lewis says the college benefited him by offering scientific viewpoints on how forestry is practiced. He also learned how to make contacts and find information. “Now I’m doing day-to-day business with people I went to college with or who also have a Penn State background,” he says. “I played soccer at Mont Alto with Keith Atherholt, who runs and co-owns our distribution yard.” Atherholt received his bachelor’s degree in forest products in 1979.

Now, Lewis Lumber is working with SmartWood, a program accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) that evaluates and certifies forestry operations worldwide that meet environmental standards. When customers buy certified wood, they know it comes from a well-managed forest. FSC offers two levels of certification. “Chain-of-custody” certification, for wood processors, tracks products from the forest to the final product. The chain of custody includes all links in the value chain, from stump to shelf. “Chain-of-custody certification assures our customers that only wood from certified forests is sold to consumers as a certified product,” Lewis says.

Another type of certification, for forest landowners, evaluates the kinds of management practices used on the land. “Lewis Lumber gets 10 percent of its lumber from our family’s forestland, which we’re in the process of getting Forest Management Certification for,” Lewis says. “It’s a long, involved process. First, we write up a management plan. Then SmartWood comes in with a group of professionals to make sure that we’re using environmentally sound practices. A hydrologist, for instance, makes sure we’re keeping buffer zones around the streams and not building roads that are going to erode. Biologists make sure we’re protecting natural areas, sensitive areas, and flora and fauna.We’re not just concerned about the trees. We’re concerned about wildlife, scenery—the entire forest ecosystem.”

Getting your wood certified makes good philosophical sense. Today, it also makes good marketing sense. “People are becoming more aware that we can’t just go in and cut trees for today and not worry about the future,” Lewis says. “Some people don’t even feel we should be using any wood products. But we believe there’s nothing better environmentally you can use. What’s the alternative—finite resource-based products such as plastics or metals? Even recycled paper requires 60 percent virgin fiber.

“If we grow trees right, we not only assure that we will have wood products for the future, we also assure that there will be forests to support other plant life and wildlife, and to provide areas for recreation,” he says. “SmartWood is one of the ways we can get our story out there.”

Marc Lewis’s degree from the college opened his mind to different ways of looking at the family business. For John Gearhart, one course in genetics changed the direction of his career. Aimee Taylor discovered through a college internship that being a scientist doesn’t have to mean working in a traditional lab. The college’s strong international presence allowed Miley Gonzalez to explore an already flourishing interest in international extension. Sheila Miller learned she could do anything with her degree—even the last thing she thought she might do. For every one of them, there are thousands of other stories.