About me:

54 year old Male from Bismarck, United States In my early days, I viewed traveling abroad like “going to the moon” and never dreamed I would one day fly outside the America. Today, I have hosted over 30 participants, was recently named ND Exporter Of The Year, and continue to impart my business and agricultural knowledge and practical hands-on skills to help improve global farming practices.

Learning about the rest of the world has helped me develop my business and made me more comfortable meeting people from different cultures face-to-face.

I came to realize that the best way to establish these relationships was to visit them in their home countries, and also have them visit us here in the U.S.

It’s different – in America you can just pick up the phone to make a contact, but people from other countries like to see a face.

My business has benefited from several international commerce opportunities since joining this platform. It has expanded into 12 different markets and a majority of sales now come from overseas– an unthinkable statistic even a decade ago.

This international guest hosting program has helped my business evolve. It has opened my mind up. We would not have started our export business, and we’d be less familiar with the rest of world if it wasn’t for this program.

I have contacts and friends in many parts of the world. Having many contacts in the world makes me much more of a believer that we need more peace, and as a result, I am a more peaceful person.

Helping international students and workers improve their farming techniques and gain confidence is a priority for me. The visitor visa exchange program sponsor facilitates trainee programs for my global participants.

On the farm, I look forward to teaching my guests how to run each piece of equipment and seed one particular crop that becomes their responsibility.

When they return home abroad, I keep them updated on the crop’s progress throughout the year. I want to teach them everything we do on the farm: the marketing side, financials, and agronomics. Participants can learn from what they did well, and what needs to be done better.

We’ve grown so many different crops on our farm just to try something different after seeing what people from around the world grow. This has changed the way we farm, and we’ve added some crops to our farm based on what I have learned.

Treating my international trainees like family and overcoming cultural obstacles together has helped me sustain relationships across borders. I believe I have learned as much from my trainees as they have from me. It's a WIN-WIN :)

I welcome anyone from all over the world -- as long as you meet the USCIS requirements for visa issuance. I feel like I get to be an ambassador for my state and country because most of the participants go back and they will speak well of the state and our nation to their families and home communities.

When we develop a good friend from another country, they are ambassadors for our country as well.

I am very thankful for the opportunities this platform has given me, and I look forward to welcoming and inspiring a new crop of participants from other countries soon.