Being Mark Jenner is a honed, discipline.  It doesn’t just happen.  Sometimes, it is exhausting.  Mostly it is, quite simply, a GRAND ADVENTURE!!!  I just returned from my professional ag economist meetings in Denver.  And it is official.  I am a card-carrying nerd.

And I am not just your normal status quo nerd.  I am so nerdy, I don’t really fit the conventional professional agricultural economic standards.  I am a nerd’s nerd. A flaming nerd in fact, often fired up about burning biomass.

But the Agricultural and Applied Economist Association (AAEA) are so cool they welcome me in every year.  Agricultural economists learn a specialized language and it is fulfilling to return to the hub and for three days to be able to speak economics without having to translate our thoughts into plain English.

This year, my favorite part of the meetings was realizing how ‘together’ and insightful the young, ag economic leadership is.  In a time where many traditional economic datasets and policies are shifting wildly, it is encouraging to witness young leaders see viable pathways through the chaos.

Also this year, listening to my colleagues share the visions and solutions, I was able to remember the beauty of my highly specialized connection to my own vision for difficult to value bits that most everyone else misses.  It is lonely in the margins.  But it is my comparative advantage.  And if I aspired to the traditional measures of ag economic success, my career would look more like everyone else’s, but fitting in has never been high on my list of career objectives.  I am wired to elevate undervalued resources and opportunities, and that has afforded uncommon benefits.

It was great to catch up with long-time colleagues and meet new ones.  It was especially gratifying in the current political climate to realize the rich, synergistic benefits from the scholars that were here in the United States from other countries, economies, and cultures.  We are all better for the opportunity to figure economic efficiency out together, even if the best measures for that are elusive.

I was able to announce the release of the legacy agribusiness textbook I have been revising, Principles of Agribusiness Management.  I entertained numerous kind colleagues with my marketing graphics that illustrate a hypothetical relationship between my career and the price of crude oil and the rate of inflation.  Most, were kind and listened to my gentle mockery of an easy over-reliance on economic indicators with a single factor for meaning.

My work hat says, ‘Solvem Probler.’  That is me.  The most common thread in the ten careers I have held is that they were businesses I began (two), or positions that had not existed before I arrived (four), or I was hired after an institutional reorganization to lead the group on a new frontier.

The 1,000-mile drive to Denver and back, provided time for reflection on my career journey.  It has been a good one.  It is auspicious that my professional academic career began on 8/8/88, as I moved back to graduate school after farming.  My book will be available in hardcopy on 8/8/25, thirty seven years after I began my professional ag analytical career.  August 8th is a metaphorical bookend.  How cool is that?

I am grateful to be part of my highly specialized association of ag economists (AAEA).  Also grateful for all the support and acceptance from my peers in a discipline in which we are trained to be skeptical.  Thanks!