OFI 503: When The Rains Came, A Business Was Built | FFA SAE Edition | Conner Watts | Slaton High School FFA

SHOW NOTES

INTRODUCING CONNER WATTS!

Today I get to interview another student who is in the business that I refer to as the “millionaire maker”.  Conner Watts is not only the founder and owner of “Conner’s Lawn Care & Landscaping” but he is a finalist for the National Star in Agribusiness at this year’s National FFA Convention.

Conner started his business as a way to make some extra money and then it started raining in West Texas.  It rained and rained, and it caused the lawns to grow…a lot.  Pretty soon he had a growing business with lots of referrals and an ever increasing client list.

This lit a fire with Conner, and he realized what he wanted to do with his life…..operate his own landscaping business.  Conner continued to grow the business and hired employees.  He then branched out to other communities and started servicing clients in other cities.  He is now the main landscape company in two of those communities.  He has also partnered with a nursery who contracted with another company to provide lawn care services.  When that individual decided to retire, Conner gladly picked up where he left off.

Conner is studying agribusiness as well as plant and soil sciences at Texas Tech. University.  Everything he is doing in school is designed around building this business from learning more about business to becoming more of an expert in soils and plant health.

Good luck this October Conner!

SUPERVISED AGRICULTURAL EXPERIENCE: Landscaping Agribusiness

HIGH SCHOOL: Slaton High School; Slaton, Texas

MASCOT: Tigers

FFA ADVISOR: Casey Jones

CONTACT INFORMATION FOR CONNER WATTS:

Click on the picture below to be taken to the Slaton High School Ag. Department’s website:

Conner’s FFA Advisor’s Email Address: ctjones@slatonisd.net

Slaton High School Telephone Number: 806-828-6591

FFA LINKS:

National FFA Organization

Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE’s)

Support FFA 

Donate to FFA – One way that FFA students are able to start small businesses is through an FFA grant of $1,000.  In 2014, 141 FFA students received these grants.  With your donations, more students can get this head start – pay it forward.

REASONS TO DONATE TO FFA:

• Only 2% of Americans grow and raise most of the food and livestock consumed by the other 98% as well as the rest of the world.  FFA is providing the needed education, training and resources to Americans that will carry that torch forward and insure that America continues to have inexpensive, quality food.
• Rural Communities will rely on entrepreneurship in the future for population growth and job creation.  The FFA is a major catalyst to that entrepreneurial growth.
• Farmers, ranchers and those working in agriculture give the rest of America incredible amounts of freedom because the search for food is as simple as going to the grocery store:

“Because American farmers are able to provide for so many of us, they give more and more of us the freedom to pursue goals and livelihoods beyond growing the food we need to survive.”

U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack 

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