THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 23, 1994 TAG: 9410250512
SECTION: HAMPTON ROADS WOMAN PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
IF YOU THINK a job in agriculture requires being fitted for overalls and a milking stool, think again. Think about Jane E. Campbell.
She's a graduate of Virginia Tech's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, and on the board of its alumni organization. She grew up in rural Mint Spring, Va., outside Staunton, and from her current home in equally rural Zuni, she can hear the hum of nearby machinery drying the peanut crop. So it probably wouldn't surprise you to know that the bounty of the land surrounds her at work, too.
What might be surprising is seeing that the bounty is sealed in cans rattling past on a production line and carted around in boxes on forklifts in a Norfolk factory. Campbell sits at a desk, not on a tractor. And she walks her factory floor in a hairnet, not the North 40 in a straw hat.
Campbell, who has a master's degree in business administration in addition to her undergraduate major in food science and minor in chemistry, is plant manager of H. B. Hunter & Co. The company makes the syrups and nuts and fruit toppings that the kids at local fast-food chains dip out for your ice-cream sundaes.
Campbell, 29, shows that working in agriculture doesn't require a sunburned neck or a mortgage on 100 acres and a barn. And the field is wide open for women seeking nontraditional careers, says John M. White, associate dean of Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in Blacksburg.
In addition to food processing, agriculture students majoring in environmental science, biochemistry and agricultural economics as well as the more-traditional animal, poultry and dairy sciences, and horticulture find jobs across the board: environmental control, water-quality control, solid-waste management, landscaping, nurseries, pharmaceuticals, marketing, finance with the Farmers Home Administration, agriculture-related savings and loans, cooperatives and commodity brokerages.
Some do 21st-century stuff in genetic research, working on better seeds, better animal drugs and disease-proof crops and livestock.
``Agriculture is sophisticated in terms of technology,'' White said. ``It has moved from labor-intensive outdoor jobs to technology-intensive indoor jobs, and there are more job openings nationally and in Virginia than we can fill.''
Campbell always liked science and started out to be a doctor, but she changed her mind in college. While looking for another science-oriented career, she met a woman who worked in quality control for Hershey's Foods.
It turned out they both had a lot of the same academic interests and strengths. Campbell knew she didn't want a desk job or do laboratory research, so she turned toward the agriculture school and the food field.
After graduation, she started in quality control at Hunter, where she handled customer complaints, checked the specifications of the raw ingredients and measured things like sugar content, color, acidity and thickness in its products.
``And for women, it's a great place to be,'' Campbell said. ``Because food companies are very open-minded, and looking for women.
``Everyone who hears `agriculture' thinks of dogs and chickens and bulls and that sort of thing.''
Almost half the 1,500 students in White's agriculture school are women, skewed somewhat by a three-fourths majority in pre-veterinary programs.
Although fewer women use it, Virginia Tech also has a two-year agricultural technology program with about 100 students, many looking for retraining for midlife career switches.
``Agriculture is a huge business,'' White said. ``The food and agriculture business controls about 22 percent of the money in this country.''
One area with an exploding need and a lot of women entering it, White said, is golf-course management.
``You know, they're building a golf course a day in this country,'' White said. ``It's a field that has a tremendous shortage of human capital educated in that. There's just a huge market for that.''
In fact, the maid of honor at the wedding of one of his daughters recently accepted a job as greens manager for a new Richmond golf course.
From hot fudge to sand traps.
``Many of the gender barriers have been broken down,'' White said. ``Agricultural science being a male's world is over.'' MEMO: To find out more about education, training and careers in
agriculture, call Virginia Tech at (703) 231-6503 or your local Virginia
Cooperative Extension Service office found in the blue pages of the
phone book. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Staff
Jane E. Campbell is plant manager of H.B. Hunter and Co., which
makes toppings for ice cream sundaes.
by CNB