Laney Herrin Scholarship 7K Run/Walk

Please come out and join us on Saturday, September 12 at 2:00 p.m. to support the Laney Herrin Scholarship 7K Run in Liberty, IN.  This scholarship is in honor of my mother who was a teacher at Union County Middle School.  She loved teaching and she had a special passion for encouraging children to read.  This race is designed to financially contribute to her scholarship fund which is awarded annually to graduating Union County High School seniors.

The 7K run/walk is open to all ages and will begin in front of Union County Middle School (488 State Road 44 E. Liberty, IN. 47353).  The entry fee is $20 and it is due by Friday, September 4.  All participants will receive a t-shirt and awards will be given to the top men’s and women’s finishers.  If you are interested in signing up, please visit the web site: http://www.wix.com/nolannp/LaneyHerrin7K or you can also click here to access the entry form: Laney Herrin Run 

Those of you who know me know how close my mom and I were – and I would greatly appreciate it if you would participate in this race if you are able – she would be so thrilled to have a scholarship in her honor since she valued higher education so passionately.

Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions and please spread the word!!

2009 Best Places to Work in IT

The national Black Data Processing Associates (BDPA) and WorkplaceDiversity.com recently announced that Monsanto was one of 11 winners of the 2009 Best Companies for Blacks in Technology Award. Monsanto has been recognized for this award for the second year in a row.  This year’s winners also included Allstate Insurance, American Airlines, Compuware, Eli Lilly and Company, Health Care Service Corporation, Merck and Company, State Farm Insurance, Sun Trust Bank, Wal-Mart Stores, and WellPoint.

In addition to this award, Monsanto was also named by ComputerWorld as one of the 100 best places in the US to work in IT. Monsanto moved up eight positions in the rankings, from No. 13 in 2008 to No. 5 this year. The magazine indicated telecommuting and flex schedules as a determining factor in receiving this accolade.  ComputerWorld 100 also recognized Monsanto as No. 1 in Training.

Monsanto Global Pledge Awards

At Monsanto, the Monsanto Pledge defines what we believe and how we make decisions. It is the heart of our identity as a company. It is our commitment to employees, our customers, community members, other key stakeholders and the public, to behave ethically and responsibly. Our commitment to having integrity in everything we do.

And every year we honor the best examples of this commitment with a Pledge Award. The Pledge Awards represent the highest honor that Monsanto gives its people for demonstrating commitment to the Pledge while creating value for the company, its stakeholders and the public at large.

This year, we are devoting two weeks to recognize our Pledge Award finalists and winners–Monsanto people worldwide who have combined these core values with outstanding performances in agricultural sustainability, technological innovation, community involvement, environmental performance, process improvement and other areas.

Congrats to all of the nominees, finalists and winners – my personal favorite is the Bollgard II Introduction in Burkina Faso! Below are 6 video’s highlighting this year’s winning teams:

2008 Predictions Revisited

I was just rereading some of my old blog posts and I completely forgot about the predictions that I made almost exactly a year ago.  I thought I’d take a few minutes to comment on the accuracy of my predicting abilities: http://e2beard.wordpress.com/2008/07/28/end-of-the-year-predictions.

First up was Robert Pattinson’s rise to tween stardom – I completely hit that one out of the park.  He’s been consistently #1 on the IMDb star meter for months!  I can’t open an US Weekly without seeing his mug all over the gossip sections.   He even presented at this year’s Academy Awards! Next up was Henry Cavill from The Tudors – I think the jury is still out on this prediction. While he hasn’t exactly become a house hold name yet, he is currently filming a very big budget action movie called War of Gods – he’s playing the main character Theseus.  Plus, I actually get a huge number of hits on his picture from Google images. I’m optimistic, but it’s still too early to tell.  I crashed and burned on my final prediction – Jim Caviezel did not hit it big in 2008, and the space alien vs. Viking movie (Outlander) went straight to video – ugh. 

All in all, I’m pretty happy with my record and hopefully Henry Cavill’s new movie won’t go straight to video.

Associate Brand Communications Manager – Genuity

We’re in the process of launching our highly anticipated Genuity brand, a family of traits that exhibit drought tolerance, cold tolerance, nitrogen use efficiency, etc., which will help famers increase yields while reducing their consumption of water, land, energy, and other finite natural resources.

I’m most excited about the Genuity First-Generation Drought-Tolerant Corn (http://www.monsanto.com/droughttolerantcorn/default.asp) which will thrive in dry climates such as Africa and the western US plains region – hopefully turning the most inconsistent food producing areas into dependable, high yield growing regions. 

Due to the launch of these new products, I’m going to be recruiting for several positions in the upcoming months that support the marketing, branding, messaging, and/or communications strategies behind these product launches as well as general mid to senior level marketing positions that fall under our established brands and/or the Monsanto umbrella.  One of these current open roles is the Associate Brand Communications Manager – Genuity, which will focus on creating marketing communications plans and strategies that support the launch of this brand.  Here is a quick video, which I think gives some really good information about Genuity:

Commodity Classic 2009 Bloggers

Monsanto’s Future Ag Journalist Fellowship Program allows student journalists the chance to go behind the scenes of various shows, and give viewers their perspective of the event through their blogs. 

Brooke Hoelscher is a junior at Texas A&M majoring in Agriculture Communications and Journalism: http://brookescommodityinsider.blogspot.com

Megan Ott is a sophomore at the University of Illinois majoring in Agricultural Communications: http://megansclassicchronicle.blogspot.com

Check out Brooke and Megan’s blogs to see the Commodity Classic 2009 through their eyes. You can also follow the real time #CClasic tweets from the event: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23CClassic