Funding Rural | Episode #7 | Season 2: Youth Development to Bridge Divides with Uriel Aguilar Torres
Oregon Institute of Technology student Uriel Aguilar Torres has his sights set on starting a managed service provider that serves small-to-medium rural agribusinesses. In high school, Uriel was selected as an Oregon FFA state sentinel—a state officer for the program formerly known as (and what many people remember as) the Future Farmers of America. That experience gave him skills such as public speaking, leading mixed-aged groups, and competition experience that most future business leaders learn much later in their career.
“I wouldn’t be where I’m at today without FFA.” –Uriel Aguilar Torres
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More about Uriel Aguilar Torres
Uriel is an experienced IT personnel with most of his skills in technology and some in agriculture. He started his leadership journey in high school, and his participation in FFA made him develop interest in leadership and agriculture. As the State Sentinel for Oregon FFA, Uriel was involved in the creation of leadership programs for more than 15,000 students, conducting workshops in different districts (areas) of the state and working with professionals to raise awareness of agricultural education.
Uriel is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in information technology at the Oregon Institute of Technology (Oregon Tech) and is the newly elected student government President for the Klamath Falls campus. His academic and leadership positions are supported by his professional experience as the IT Manager of Material Flow where he has played a crucial role in fine-tuning of vital business solutions, efficient communication and management of strategic IT projects that have increased organizational efficiency.
Besides technical skills, Uriel has a passion for solving social problems. In the end of his first year at Oregon Tech, he wrote and submitted a detailed technical paper on rural broadband to Dr. Basil Gooden, the Under Secretary for Rural Development of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. The recommendations provided in the report provided tangible solutions for the extension of broadband internet in the rural areas, proving the commitment of Uriel in the pursuit of closing the digital gap.
From his work in IT management, leadership, and advocacy, Uriel’s passion is clear in his desire to bring change and growth to the technology and agriculture industries. He strives to make a difference in the society in every opportunity he gets to work.
“I didn’t raise any animals in FFA—all my friends did—but my supervised agricultural experience was working here, at this company. I started out as a first level or tier one IT specialist…” –Uriel Aguilar Torres
Discussion Questions
- Can philanthropy do a better job engaging young voices in their work? How do you engage young people in the work you do?
- What skills do you wish you learned earlier in life? How can you support those skills in young leaders of tomorrow?
Resources
- Oregon FFA Letter from Uriel
- Meet the Oregon FFA’s 2022-23 state officer team | FFA/4-H | capitalpress.com
- FFA members explore agriculture in Costa Rica – Morning Ag Clips
- Uriel makes the President and Dean’s list at OIT
“After I graduate from Oregon Tech, I’m hoping to start my own managed service provider, providing technology and Internet services for rural agribusinesses.” –Uriel Aguilar Torres
Transcript: Episode #7 | Season 2: Youth Development to Bridge Divides with Uriel Aguilar Torres
Erin Borla 0:00
Hi I’m Erin Borla, and you’re listening to Funding Rural. Growing up I was big into 4H as a kid, I spent time raising pigs and showing horses at the county and state fairs. And I also had the opportunity to build and develop leadership skills that still serve me today. skills like record keeping, public speaking and how to lead a group of kids and adults. When Roundhouse has the chance to work directly with young leaders, we always take it that’s what got me so excited when I met Uriel Aguilar Torres. He’s in his second year at Oregon Tech with a major in it and a minor in business. And he’s currently working at a company called material flow and conveyor systems in Donald Oregon. But I met him when he was the Oregon FFA State Sentinel, a state officer for the program formally known and what many people remember as the Future Farmers of America. But today’s FFA is just that FFA. A program similar to my experience in4H that supports leadership development, community stewardship, and skills that can help enhance the communities where their students live. Young people see different gaps, challenges and opportunities, and they allow organizations like ours to think innovatively. What surprised me most about Uriel was that he was not doing a traditional FFA project of raising animals or researching certain agricultural practices. His project was about technology. Ultimately, technology is designed to support people and practices and to make our lives easier. Not everyone sees the world of agriculture as connected with the world of it. Urial saw firsthand how cutting edge techno innovations could support farming practices, and that lit his fire. But he saw that came with challenges like a lack of broadband or understanding of access to resources. I’d love for you to meet Ariel and learn more about him.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 1:50
So personally, I didn’t raise any animals in FFA. All my friends did my supervised agricultural experience, or SAE was working here at this company. Actually I was I started out as a first level or tier one IT specialist where I did all the tedious tasks of going to help people and posting on some small little updates on our website, and social media. And through that it was how can we better update our website and stuff like that. Give me some recommendations for younger people. But my friends who did show they showed animals such as lambs, pigs, goats, cows, stuff like that. And that’s a lot of hard work from starting out early in the morning to late at night.
Erin Borla 2:41
Yeah, and I was so I was in 4H a 100 years ago. And 4H and FFA are sort of sort of partners. But they’re FFA slightly different. But one thing that we talk about a lot in our 4H experience is the leadership development that you get through those programs. So talk a little bit about what students get to operate and how they get to learn about those leadership opportunities. And then I’d love to hear about your experience as a state officer. So we can talk a little bit more about what that looks like. But I think there’s so much more than just the just the one project, right?
Uriel Aguilar Torres 3:15
Yeah. So FFA has both career and leadership development events, where those career leadership development events are those career development events, where there’s contests such as veterinary science, agricultural sales, marketing, agribusiness, where you’re covering all the different types of careers that are available in the agricultural industry, and doing those mock events. So for me personally, I competed in the ag sales event, where we had to do cold calling, make flyers, sell, sell one of our products that we either invented or we are going to represent that company and make a pitch to a customer, and try to convince them to buy our product, through our pricing, through our customer service. All the aspects that a salesman would have to do, or the veterinary science competition where you’re having to show how you would give a vaccine to an animal. How will you attach a muzzle to them? What are the different terminology and tool identification as well identifying diseases and bacteria, shields, panels judges and doing a skit on top of that where you’re depending on the year sometimes you may be at a clinic. Other times you may be out on the farm depending on the year but those career development events, those students can find their niche and agriculture saying what do I want to work in? Do I want to work in sales? work directly with animals? Do I want to do more farm Co Op? There’s a co op contest as well. It’s basically almost any career in agriculture. There’s a niche They where they can find that in those FFA career development events and the leadership development events. That’s public speaking, whether it be extemporaneous public speaking, or prepared public speaking, where they’re planning a 10 minute memorize speech or extemporaneous speaking where they get one sentence and have to speak for five minutes on that topic. And on top of that, there’s various other public speaking events that student can compete in, such as job interview contest to get those students career ready. I wouldn’t be where I’m at today without FFA. To be honest, it’s, it’s a one to one in a million experience, I’d say.
Erin Borla 5:39
Okay. So, state office, that’s a big deal. Like it’s a big deal. And I want to hear all about how it’s a big deal.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 5:49
So, to be in order to become a state officer, you have to go through about a three day interview process. And their interviewing round robin style, your extemporaneous public speaking, you’re prepared public speaking, even hat can you read off of a piece of paper, stuff like that? How well do you work in a group. If you get elected, you hit the road that same week, you’re going to Corvallis and starting your onboarding. So you get one day at home after you get elected. And then it’s off to Corvallis where you go through a one week training to get you prepared and say, Alright, here’s your basic rules. As a state officer, here’s the deep dive into Oregon FFA how we operate. And then you’re back in high school. Because you got elected your senior year of high school right before spring break.
Speaker 1 6:42
Oh my goodness. And then you travel like you are on the road, because it’s sort of like a gap year right? Most students don’t go into college, they wait a year.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 6:50
For Oregon FFA said officers aren’t allowed to go to school, they have to take a full gap year for it. So during after state theory, you hit the road on to 10 more camps. And they’re all back to back from September to early October. Every day, you’re at a camp, which is both exhausting, and you get tired, but it’s rewarding at the same time, because you’re getting to spend time with those members who elected you and the members who you got to know before state office. And those new chapter members who maybe you’ve never met before, throughout your time in high school, and you’re in FFA, but you’re going to build those strong connections at a camp. Because for me, I think sitting around the campfires were really started building those strong connections and keeping in touch with those members, whether it be through social media or texting each other. Because for me, that I enrolled throughout the year, my year as a state officer, I’d go I’d call like, say, hey, Evan, how are you doing? It’s been a while since we last talked, it’s good to talk to members because they’re the main reason that you run they are the reason that you run for state office because you want to make an impact on them and your organization that made an impact on you.
Erin Borla 8:04
Talk about additional leadership skills to like being able to just reach out and say, Hey, what’s happening in your area? Like I’d like to know more about you know, Oregon’s a big state, right? You’ve got different especially when we talk about agriculture, right? You got cranberry bogs on the south coast. And then you got beef cattle up in northeast Oregon and hay and wheat fields. And you know that around the Columbia River Gorge plus the orchards Oh my goodness. It’s all different.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 8:29
Yeah, talking to students who live in rural eastern Oregon, or who live in the Portland metro, completely different lives. Being in what I would say called a member’s territory, because it’s their home, you’re getting to visit them. And it’s a whole nother experience. And that goes for every part of the state because each truck each of the FFA pickup trucks put almost 40,000 miles on in one year of just traveling to different corners of the state is just a whole nother experience. unlike no other. During state office, I also got the opportunity to shear a sheep for the first time ever.
Erin Borla 9:13
Are you changing careers? Are you gonna do are you gonna be a sheep shearer?
Unknown Speaker 9:15
I don’t know.
Unknown Speaker 9:18
That’s hard work, I’ll tell you. It is. After
Uriel Aguilar Torres 9:20
It is after I was. I said dude your sheep looks terrible, sorry. And he tricked me. He said, Uriel I’m about to go in the show ring. And I said no. And he was playing with me. But I got so worried because the sheep out in the show ring look perfect. Yeah. Those kids work really hard to make their sheep look nice and clean and well trimmed. And then I was doing they’re doing a terrible job in shearing that sheep.
Erin Borla 9:51
Well, you have to give him a bow or something you could put on to cover.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 9:57
I don’t think there’s a bow big enough.
Erin Borla 9:59
Talk about An opportunity as a young person to be able to go and travel and build those connections and build that network. And now you’re at Oregon Tech, what are you studying at Oregon Tech reminded me one more time.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 10:10
I’m studying information technology with a minor in business. And I’m thinking about dual majoring with cybersecurity as well.
Erin Borla 10:19
Yeah, and that and you want to really focus that work in agriculture, right?
Uriel Aguilar Torres 10:25
I do. After I graduate from Oregon Tech, I’m hoping to start my own managed service provider, providing technology and Internet services for rural agribusinesses.
Erin Borla 10:37
That’s really great. I think that’s an issue that we hear about all the time. I know we’ve talked recently about a program and a paper you were writing around rural broadband access. And we’re hearing that from federal partners from state partners in almost every state about the interconnectivity and the lack of, of broadband access for so many rural communities.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 10:59
Well all give a first hand example here at work. We’re in Donald Oregon, we’re about 20 minutes south of Wilsonville and 30 minutes north of Salem, we have two internet service providers, and none of them provide high speed reliable internet. We were without internet for about two days here. And internet that was cutting in and out for about a week. And in order for us to get a reliable internet connection, it was going to cost us $25,000 in construction and permitting costs. We’re at a town of about 700 people. And if they only have two internet service providers, none of them being stable. Imagine towns in people who live even farther away from I-5 and live in rural Oregon and are just rural America, in general, the USDA on their broadband page, they say that 22.3% of Americans, lack in rural America lack the high speed internet.
Erin Borla 12:02
So talk a little bit about what it’s like being a young person sort of crossing the bridge of agriculture, engineering, agriculture in tech, what does that look like?
Uriel Aguilar Torres 12:12
You don’t see a lot of it.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 12:17
Well, you see it in big corporations. And, and I agricultural operations that are close to enterprise level. But those small to mid size operations, you don’t see a lot of technology, technical implementations, it’s still the pen and paper or they’re using a spreadsheet on their computer. There’s a lot of ways that you can automate those tasks to keep track for you. Like I saw, I went to a fully robotic dairy over in eastern Vale, Oregon. And I was just, like, surprised by the amount of technology that they’ve implemented there. It’s like, this is great, where they have a tracker on each of their cattle saying, Nope, you can’t be milked yet, because they’ve told us they’re their cattle are never forced to go get milk, it’s all on their own. And if the machine says knows that, okay, they just got milked 10 minutes ago, it’s still too soon, and we’re not going to let them in. And I was just like, that is amazing. The technology in the software behind that it’s, it’s a long time to develop, but it I can’t imagine what the cost was on that operation. Cuz it was a family farm too.
Erin Borla 13:30
So yeah, well in dairies or so I remember again, 100 years ago, when I was in school at Oregon State with an ag degree, we all had to participate, and go and milk at the dairy at 4am. That was part of the gig is you had to show up at 4am. And the manpower and the man hours of managing smaller family operations are really, really challenging. And that’s we’re seeing sort of the average American farmer is an older person now, right? I think what they say in Oregon, it’s over 65. I think nationally, it’s like 58. So because of the it’s hard on your body, it’s hard on your lifestyle, you don’t have all these other options, like you don’t get to go on vacation. When you’re a farmer or rancher, you have programs and projects. So to add in some of those technology pieces, where it gives you a little bit of a little bit of a buffer,
Uriel Aguilar Torres 14:21
and will sometimes it’s even, they don’t know that they’re missing out on those opportunities, because they’ve never witnessed it. Mm hmm. So they’re, it’s a well, this is the way we’ve done it. So it was the way it has to be done. I know here at work, we’re always trying to find new strategies to make things easier on our employees. And one of them was on digital marketing. And I told my bosses, the owner of the company, I said, Well, why don’t we implement this smart feature that we’ve never used? But it’s been around for almost 10 years? And he said, Well, I’ve never heard of it. So yeah, it’ll cut down on a lot of those costs. Or we can use use the those extra resources and move them somewhere else. And he said, Oh, well, no one’s ever told me that. So I just thought this is the way it had to be done. There’s all these different sectors of technology. And I guess for me, I knew people who worked in IT already for businesses. So it’s like, yeah, I want to work with that I want to help bring both hardware and software implementations into businesses. And when I joined FFA, that’s when I said, Okay, I don’t want to just do it for any business. I want to do it specifically for agribusinesses, because their community who needs those resources the most, or the underserved community.
Erin Borla 15:34
I love that. Tell me more about that. Tell me more about that decision process. Like what was that for you that was like, This is it. This is where this is what lit my fire right here.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 15:45
During state office, I went and visited Three Mile Canyon farms over in northeast Oregon. And I was taught we were talking to their IT manager there. And he was saying how all of their irrigation systems are completely managed by their computer. And they had like this huge, massive, like, I call like a control center. And I have a picture of it on my phone that took those just in shock, where there’s someone managing that system at all times. There’s not they don’t go out and check it. But the hardware in the systems tell them everything about that irrigation pipe or the sprinkler head. And I was like, Okay, this is the industry that I want to work in, for sure. I want to start a business. Because this is a Three Mile Canyon is not a small operation. It’s pretty big. And I said, but I want to work with smaller businesses, because I want to have that more of a personal touch.
Erin Borla 16:46
Yeah, well, and I think recognizing where where there can be improvements, enhancements, opportunities to support, those folks that you mentioned, are oftentimes underserved just because of where they are or where they’re located. It’s really great. I think, you know, this show in particular talks about rural space, and how we can better support rural and indigenous communities through through funding. So through all of your travels, and all of your time at school and all of your many years of life. Tell me about your experiences in rural and what you how you see additional support being able to be come in and help those spaces.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 17:29
Well, it’s a lot of the times for like my research paper that I did on rural broadband. Most of the funding comes privately. But it’s educating those communities on where they can get that funding from, because a lot of the times they’re looking locally or they go on their to their farm bureau, or the ODA or USDA here in Oregon, and say, a small community or small rural community or small agribusiness went to the USGS website and said, Oh, well, applications are closed now. They don’t know when ok. I’m never going to check it out again. Because that like for me, that’s just like, oh, well, that’s this opportunity is closed. Now. I’m not going to come back, oh, maybe a few months, few years. I’ll look into it again. I’d say educating those communities on like, Hey, these are all of the resources available to you right now. It’s kind of like scholarships for college. Yeah, it’s hard finding them, ones that you qualify for. And there’s 1000s of websites on the internet that say, here are all the scholarships, and you’re like, Well, okay, this one doesn’t apply to me, this one doesn’t apply to me, this one doesn’t apply to me. I don’t meet all the qualifications for this one. And it’s the same for funding rural Internet access or or tech and often. They don’t meet all of those requirements. So they’re like, Okay, I’m done. And you kind of like, say, Okay, well, I’m done searching for now, I’ll look later. I already have this little bit of funding here. So creating a well known place for Agribusiness can search for those resources that are available to them, and one that’s not just full of spam.
Erin Borla 19:19
How do we filter through the garbage to get to what we need?
Uriel Aguilar Torres 19:23
Personally I think the biggest need is that, that having that one secure and reliable resource available, saying hey, we’re gonna bridge this gap. Because for the Roundhouse Foundation, I was introduced to it through Betsy with Oregon FFA when they gave us a list of here, all the businesses and foundations that we’re going to visit with and we all did our individual research on as like, there’s a lot of cool things that the Roundhouse Foundation is doing. And it’s still like, I’m like, I had no idea this that you provided so many opportunities and resources for those rural communities. And I’m not the only one who has trouble finding those resources like that we’re hearing about resources like that.
Erin Borla 20:09
So, lastly, I know we’re just about a time I’d love to talk with you a little bit about you represented Oregon FFA you are really interested in supporting agricultural businesses. You live on the
I-5 corridor, which is a really oftentimes we don’t think of as agricultural space, how do we bridge in two minutes? How do we bridge the urban rural divide? You’re going to solve the solve the world today, the crisis.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 20:39
if we had a program between people who lived in urban areas, and rural areas, like for me, like I live in a town of 2000 people, I got to connect with an FFA member over in North Clackamas. And we still talking cuz he got he’s really into tech too, but also helping out his school’s land lab and just found it. Awesome how he was able to implement all these different technologies into the barn and greenhouse for to feed all the 1000s of pounds of feed over to their cattle. So creating a program. I don’t know FFA really was that program for me, but not everyone has that opportunity.
Erin Borla 21:17
Yeah, so building those opportunities for folks, whether they’re old like me, or fresh out fresh off the out of the school gate to be able to connect and know that there’s opportunity to work together. I think that’s really excellent. Other thoughts, you want to share my friend.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 21:36
Just thank you for giving me this opportunity and helping me with the research project and connecting me with those resources. Or those connections that you had. It was amazing. It helped me out. My teacher was surprised because she said, How are you getting so many resources that get just given to you?
Erin Borla 21:57
Oh, well, it’s always been so fun to talk to you. I mean, I remember when we first met, I was so blown away by like, I asked all of the state officers, I said, Okay, what’s your project? And I can’t even remember somebody had goats. Somebody had a dairy cow, somebody had beef cattle. And then you said I’m doing IT. And I was like, oh, I need I need more information. Tell me more about this. And I think it’s such a, it’s a love 4H. I love FFA. I love these youth development leadership programs. Because, you know, I’ve stood up I’ve had to stand in front of up to 4000 people and do presentations and public speaking. And I get stopped frequently. And they’re like, Oh, that was great. How did you learn how to do that? And it’s always 4H for me. And that you mentioned earlier, it’s like FFA, I wouldn’t be who I was without FFA programs like these are so impactful. Like
Uriel Aguilar Torres 22:48
recent example is I interviewed to be student government for Oregon Tech. And I got a phone call two weeks later, they said, based off of your experience and leadership and FFA. We want to offer you the position of student body president I said, Whoa, I wasn’t expecting that. But if it weren’t for those that year long experience I had with Oregon FFA state office, I wouldn’t have this opportunity for this upcoming school year.
Erin Borla 23:14
That’s amazing.
Erin Borla 23:15
Why did I not know that? That’s so cool. Congratulations. Oh, my gosh, oh, that’s really cool. Well, and I’m hopeful that that opportunities like that continue to show up. And I know how hard you work. And I know how dedicated you are to the work that you’re doing. And so thrilled to have folks like you as part of our future not only for rural communities, but for the world as a whole. I just I’m so impressed with with you. So thank you for spending time today.
Uriel Aguilar Torres 23:56
Thank you.
Erin Borla 23:57
I was so glad that Uriel reached out to discuss his most recent research paper about broadband. Not only that, he reached out and asked and leaned on that connection that he had built when he was in state office, but that he asked about something that he thought I might have information that could support his paper. So we talked about the work that Roundhouse has done was like, Oh my gosh, we can totally talk about broadband. We have a partnership with the USDA and a technical assistance provider to help support communities be able to access some project reconnect dollars. So I was able to get him connected to the state director and other partners that we work with and the communities on the ground. So there’s all sorts of work that’s happening, that he got to learn about and then be able to inform his work moving forward. You know, often in the world of agriculture, we hear that, that we know that there are so many different innovations that are happening. But when we think about the world of climate tech or the world of innovation, they don’t always think about agriculture or forestry or farming. And it’s really interesting because the more that we can elevate those things in that there happening in these other places, the more we can bring more dollars and more attention. We support a climate tech entrepreneur program through the foundation. And we always talk about, well what’s happening out in the field or what there was a great program down in Klamath, that supported young people developing a collar for cows, so they could graze in wide open spaces and be able to be tracked a little bit differently. Uriel talked about the dairy that had an automatic collar on their cows. So there’s all these different innovations that are happening, and how are they impacting the world of climate tech? How are we impacting green energy? Those are ways that we can get engaged and really start thinking differently. But most importantly, how do we bring young voices to the table? Philanthropy loves to be able to talk about community and bring community together. But how are we bringing those young folks in and encouraging their voices? There’s some great research out there that talks about youth service and the need to engage at a younger level in a way that makes them feel like they’re included in conversations for the long term. Thanks again, for listening to Funding Rural, we’ll have all sorts of information about FFA and other youth development programs, as well as a transcript from today’s episode at FundingRural.com
Transcribed by AI. Please excuse errors.
