Lauren Sperry
Hometown: Evansville, WI
Major: Agricultural Business
Minor: Crop Science
Position Title: Credit Intern
Employer: ProPartners Financial
I have always shared a passion for agriculture. I grew up raising and showing pigs at the county fair and ran 32 acres of cropland during high school. Because of that, I knew I wanted to go into agriculture. I grew up in a rural town just south of Madison and so I knew I didn't want to go to college in the large city. I wanted to go somewhere that felt like home and UW-River Falls was the perfect fit for me.
I am currently the Credit Intern at ProPartners Financial in Lake Elmo, Minn. I process and underwrite crop input loans for farmers all over the United States. On a typical day, I will look through numerous loan applications, enter their information and financials into our system and then analyze the crop plan and financial statements to determine our risk and if we are willing to proceed lending the farmer a loan. We work directly with the dealers, so I have to contact them on a daily basis to get any necessary information.
My classes at UWRF certainly helped me prepare for my current internship. Coursework in agricultural economics taught me how to complete many of the tasks that I do in my internship, including evaluating customer's current ratios, owner's equity, working capital, loan to value and loan to net worth in order to determine the risk of any particular loan.
For any student looking for internships---don't give up! There are plenty of opportunities out there. I advise you to apply early; start looking in October at the UWRF Career Fair. I also suggest having more than one internship if you can manage it. I was also a Crop Scout Intern for the River County Cooperative in Bloomer the summer before my current internship. Participating in more than one internship really helped me to narrow my interest in potential future careers since agricultural business can be such a large and diverse industry. All in all, I highly recommend completing an internship while at UW-River Falls!