Program Overview
Strong business management abilities have always been critical in leading successful teams and organizations, and our current environment has only increased this importance. The Seed Management Academy, formerly known as the ASTA Management Academy, is a valuable opportunity for anyone involved in the seed industry. In partnership with the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), we’re committed to nurturing growth, innovation and excellence within the seed industry. During the academy, Drs. Brady Brewer, Scott Downey, Brenna Ellison and Pete Hammett will take you on a deep dive into the practical application of general management concepts vital to the long-term success of seed firms, discuss the changing agribusiness environment and implications for the seed industry, explore marketing strategies and more.
Previously a week-long program, the Seed Management Academy has improved its delivery model! The academy’s impactful content will now be delivered through a blended model approach featuring some online and in-person aspects. Two weeks before the academy, you’ll receive pre-recorded videos from each instructor overviewing key concepts to be discussed during the live sessions. You’ll review these videos and gain a foundational understanding of topics, then you’ll join us on Purdue University’s campus to practice these concepts and tools through group discussions and activities that simulate real-life application of management principles.
Whether you’re an experienced decision-maker or new to the industry, this academy is beneficial for all levels of responsibility and segments of the seed business, including vegetable/garden, row crop and turf grass marketplaces. Over 1,340 participants representing more than 300 firms worldwide have completed the Seed Management Academy. While it is not required to attend as a team, past participants have found it beneficial to attend with others from their organization.
For questions about this program, team pricing or more information on who should attend, contact Aissa Good at aissa@purdue.edu or (765) 299-3486.
“The most impactful part of the ASTA Management Academy was the strategic nature of the discussions facilitated by great faculty, as well as the chance to network and learn from others in the industry about their challenges and opportunities.” – Corey Beck, Licensing Lead, Beck’s Hybrids
Key Benefits
- Discuss the changing agribusiness environment and future implications for seed companies;
- Explore marketing strategies and financial management tools;
- Understand the five functional areas of business and how decisions can impact each area;
- Evaluate strategies for leveraging competitive advantage;
- Gain leadership tools that add value to your organization and help employees achieve higher performance.
Program Content
Marketing Management
With a firm grasp on the changing agribusiness environment, this session will focus on what it means for a seed firm to have a true market orientation. You’ll learn how to create and communicate points of difference by examining topics such as customer satisfaction, market disciplines and demand innovation.
Organizational Leadership
This session will help you acquire new skills and tools for evaluating and managing your own and others’ performance. You’ll learn about change management, building productive working relationships, improving managerial communication and defining performance management strategies.
Financial Management
Understanding and correctly using key financial management tools is essential in addressing many day-to-day problems seed firm managers face. In this session, you’ll focus on developing core financial management competencies and utilizing them to make decisions.
Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management is about aligning your organization and supplier activities to efficiently and effectively meet the needs of your customers. This session will cover inventory management strategies, demand forecasting and chain partner alignment.
Strategic Management
Strategy formulation helps organizations determine and match their internal goals, strengths, limitations and resources with opportunities and challenges that exist in the external business environment. Strategic positioning and critical competitive capabilities such as speed, quality, and innovation will be the focus of this session.
Educational Credit
You can earn CEU and CCA credit at this program.
Program Partner
The See Management Academy is offered in partnership with the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA).
FACULTY MEMBERS
Brady Brewer
Brady Brewer
Brady Brewer is an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics. Brady’s teaching responsibilities include the undergraduate agribusiness management course and the economics course in the MS-MBA. His research agenda includes the broader topics of agribusiness and profitability, agricultural finance, and production/supply chain issues at the farm level. His extension program includes educating farmers on credit concerns and lending, as well as working with the agricultural banks across the state. Courses that he has previously taught include the agribusiness management and agricultural finance courses at both the undergraduate and graduate level.
Before joining the faculty at Purdue, Brady spent three years in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at the University of Georgia. While there, he taught undergraduate courses in agribusiness management, agricultural finance and a graduate course in agricultural finance. Brady grew up on a family farm in Oklahoma that raised wheat, soybeans, alfalfa, and cattle. He received a B.S. in agricultural economics and accounting from Oklahoma State University and later earned both his M.S. and Ph.D from Kansas State University in agricultural economics.
Scott Downey
Scott Downey
Scott Downey is the director of the Center for Food and Agricultural Business and a professor in the Department of Agricultural Economics. He teaches in many of the center’s programs, as well as leads sales and marketing courses of over 300 undergraduate students each semester. Scott joined Purdue University on a full time basis in 2000 after spending 15 years in the financial services industry. He is also the lead author of “ProSelling: A Professional Approach to Selling in Agriculture and Other Industries.”
Scott is a frequent speaker and consultant for agribusiness industry sales teams on professional development topics like precision selling, sales management and competitive sales strategies. The discovery process he created has been adopted by Fortune 300 companies and has been presented all over the world.
Scott received his bachelor’s degree at Purdue University in 1985 and his MBA from Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Calif., in 1991. He completed his doctorate at Purdue in 2007 in consumer behavior, looking at the relationship sales preferences of ruralpolitan buyers.
He has served as an adviser to the Purdue chapter of the American Advertising Federation and helped students found the Purdue Ag Sales and Marketing Club. He is active in the National FFA sales competition and has been active on local boards at United Way and other organizations.
Scott is a fellow of Purdue’s Teaching Academy, which strives to bring together the best teaching faculty from across campus. He is the recipient of the 2012 Richard Kohls Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award in the College of Agriculture at Purdue. He won a national teaching award in 2011 from the Agriculture and Applied Economics Association, the service organization for academics in agricultural economics.
His wife, Laura, is a veterinarian and currently heads a business that provides patient drug adherence products to pharmacies.
Allan Gray
Allan Gray
Allan joined the agricultural economics faculty at Purdue University in August 1998. Allan currently holds the position of Land O’Lakes Chair in Food and Agribusiness. He works with food and agribusiness managers across the U.S. and internationally providing industry insights and strategy facilitations. He also teaches professional development seminars and workshops in the Center for Food and Agricultural Business at Purdue. Allan also teaches strategic agribusiness management in the undergraduate and graduate programs. Allan’s research interests are agribusiness management, strategic planning, decision under uncertain innovation, and entrepreneurship.
Allan serves as the executive director of the Center for Food and Agricultural Business (CAB). In this capacity, Allan provides strategic direction for the center helping to drive both executive education programming and Center research. The center’s mission is to meet the needs of the industry in professional development in the areas of sales, marketing, finance, strategy, talent management, and leadership.
Allan also serves the executive director of the Digital Innovation in Agri-food Systems LAB (DIAL). In this capacity, Allan provides strategic direction for market research and new business development. Allan works with the annual cohort of DIAL Fellows to identify industry challenges and create new startup companies to bring digital innovation to the industry that helps improve transparency, traceability, efficiency, resiliency and food safety across the food system.
Allan has won numerous awards, including the American Agricultural Economics Association’s (AAEA) Distinguished Extension/Outreach Program Award, the Purdue University Dean’s Team Award and the United States Distance Learning Association’s Excellence in Distance Teaching Award. In 2012, he received the inaugural Early Career Leadership Award from the National Association of Agricultural Economics Administrators.
A native Texan, Allan and his wife, Stephanie, have two daughters and a son.
ASSOCIATE FACULTY
Pete Hammett
Pete Hammett
Pete Hammett is a visiting professor with over 25 years in Talent Management ranging from organization culture, employee engagement, leadership development, team effectiveness, change leadership and coaching. Prior to starting Hammett Consulting, Pete was the head of Human Resources & Talent Management at OGE Energy Corporation–a regulated electric utility whose 2,400 employees serve more than 800,000 customers in Oklahoma and Arkansas. While at OGE, he developed Talent Strategies, which achieved a 6.5% improvement in employee engagement and a 20% increase in the pipeline of “ready now” leaders at the executive & manager levels.
Pete held the position of Director of Client Services & Sr. Faculty at the Center for Creative Leadership. CCL is the world’s foremost provider of executive education. Pete’s business experience also encompasses several key positions at American Express, including VP Operations & Technology where he was in charge of Relationship Management and Business Process Innovation. While at Amex, Pete served as Director of New Product Development where he was responsible for building the business & relationship management framework for Amex’s co-branding and affinity products.
Pete had a distinguished career in Aerospace and Defense where he designed the technical platform responsible for allocating spacesuits to Shuttle flight crews. Pete also participated in developing the infrastructure needed to manufacture the XM40 gas masks used in Desert Storm. Pete holds a doctorate of strategic leadership from Regent University, a master’s degree in business administration from Wilmington University and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Wesley University. He is certified to administer and coach multiple psychometric assessments, personality assessments, 360s, Emotional Intelligence, Change & Influence. He has published many articles on leadership, and his book, “Unbalanced Influence”, focuses on the myths and paradoxes of effective executive leadership.
Program Agenda
*Please note that Indiana is on Eastern Time (ET).
*A printable pdf of the agenda is available for download here.
Tuesday, August 15
8:00 am
Welcome and Kick Off
9:00 am
Thinking Strategically: Implications for the Seed Industry
Brenna Ellison, Purdue University
Lunch
1:00 pm
Sales and Marketing – Creating and Communicating Value
Scott Downey, Purdue University
5:00 pm
Adjourn
5:45 pm – 7:30 pm
Networking Reception – Digby’s Pub and Patio
Wednesday, August 16
8:00 am
Leadership and Change Management Strategies
Pete Hammett, Hammett Consulting
Lunch
1:00 pm
Operations and Supply Chain Management
Bobby Martens, Iowa State University
5:00 pm
Adjourn
Thursday, August 17
8:00 am
Financial Management for the Non-Financial Manager
Brady Brewer, Purdue University
Lunch
1:00 pm
Business Strategy
Brenna Ellison, Purdue University
4:30 pm
Closing and Final Thoughts
5:00 pm
Adjourn – Safe Travels Home
TRAVEL AND INFORMATION
Program Location
Purdue University
Krannert 758
403 Mitch Daniels Blvd.
West Lafayette, IN 47907
Hotel
A block of rooms has been reserved at the Union Club Hotel located at the heart of Purdue’s campus in West Lafayette. Contact the Union Club Hotel at (765) 494-8922 or click here to make your reservation. Remember to mention that you are with the Seed Management Academy (group code ASTA) to receive the $179/night room rate. Check-in is 4:00 p.m. and check-out is 11:00 a.m. The room block and discounted rate will expire at 5:00 on July 9.
Union Club Hotel
201 Grant Street, West Lafayette, IN
(765) 494-8922
Across the street from Krannert
Locate with google maps
GETTING TO PURDUE UNIVERSITY: DIRECTIONS AND MAPS
Meals
Please plan to eat breakfast before attending the program. Lunch will be provided for you each day. Coffee, soft drinks and refreshments will also be available throughout each day. A dinner reception will be on August 27.
What to Wear
The attire for the program is business casual. The weather in West Lafayette during August has average highs reaching 84 degrees and lows of 62 degrees. Layers are recommended for the classroom.
Materials
Materials will be provided for you throughout the program. All the presentations will also be emailed to you following the program.
Seminar Payment/Cancellation
Payment for the program is due upon registration. Please refer to our cancellation policy for full details and information.
Contact
Cooper House
Event Manager
(765) 418-6993
chouse@purdue.edu
Program Cancellation Policy
If a participant is unable to attend a Purdue University Center for Food and Agricultural Business program, the participant may choose to: 1) transfer their registration fee to another participant within the same company, or 2) choose to receive a credit for the same program or another program that takes place within the 12 months following the originally booked event. However, a request to use a credit must be received no less than 30 days prior to the program start date, otherwise the credit will not be valid. No refunds will be issued regardless of cancellation date.
The Center for Food and Agricultural Business reserves the right to cancel a program due to low enrollment or other circumstances which would make the program non-viable. If a program is cancelled, registrants will be offered a full refund. Should circumstances arise that result in the postponement of a program, the Center for Food and Agricultural Business has the right to either issue a full refund or transfer registration to the same program on the new future date. The Center for Food and Agricultural Business will not be responsible for reimbursement of any participant expenses related to the cancellation or postponement of an event.
Should circumstances arise due to COVID-19 that result in the postponement of / or change to an online program, the Center for Food and Agricultural Business has the right to either issue a full refund or transfer registration to the same program on the new future date.
Seed Management Academy
Take a deep dive into essential management concepts vital to the long-term success of seed firms, adapt to evolving agribusiness environments, explore marketing strategies and more.
