When Braxton Steffen (Precision Ag Technology ’19) stepped foot onto Mitchell Tech’s campus, he didn’t know what doors would open to him.
“I was set on coming here, but I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do,” he said. “I wanted to go to a hands-on school, but I wanted a combination of not just something I would do every day, but something that every day would be different and some days would be more challenging than others. I liked working on stuff, but I didn’t want to be a mechanic. I wanted to break out and find new challenges.”
After a bit of research and some visits to campus, Steffen settled on studying precision agriculture.
“It’s just such a fast-changing career,” he said. “There are always new things coming up, new products. Everything is always changing.”
Thriving on figuring out evolving technology, Steffen found himself interning at, fittingly, the Agtegra Innovation Center in Huron. The company hired him upon graduation, and he’s since been promoted to precision ag service manager.
“We work a lot in the shop in the winter, and outside of winter, we are out in the field a lot and dealing a lot more with troubleshooting, rather than doing motor work. It’s always something different,” he said. “There’s a lot of different things you can do with Precision Ag. Mitchell Tech gave me a broad look at ag topics. Even the ones that weren’t necessarily specific to precision have come in handy in my career.”
In his role, Steffen oversees the work of various ag professionals, and one thing remains clear: the quality of ag education that Mitchell Tech offers.
“Some friends went to other tech schools and they didn’t have a very good understanding of electricity – especially DC electricity – and that’s a lot of what I use now,” he said.
