The Minnesota Department of Agriculture and the University of Minnesota Crookston hosted a presentation on stress and change in agriculture by Dennis Hoiberg, a dynamic speaker on November 28.
Mark Jirik, Director of Northern Crops Institute, coordinated Dennis’s visit, with support from Dave Torgerson at Minnesota Wheat Growers. Hoiberg has more than 35 years’ experience in regional and rural communities helping them cope with change – at the personal, family, business and community level.
Jirik was tremendously excited about this opportunity: “About 10 years ago, when working for Cargill in Australia, I was asked to present to our buyers about current commodity markets and our outlook (which weren’t good.) Immediately after me was a speaker talking about ‘resiliency and wellbeing’ – an idea that I literally rolled my eyes at. “Australia at the time was at the end of a long drought, and our buyers were dealing on a daily basis with farmers who were under enormous stress. That stress was being transferred to our employees. My perceptions were shattered in Dennis’s first minutes. He provided real life, common sense approaches to dealing with hardships and suffering in a very orderly way that challenged many of my assumptions. In that half-day workshop, I was converted from a skeptic to an outright believer in the power of mental resiliency and wellbeing.”
Dennis has worked with the grains industry in Australia, local and global leaders, and agribusiness and banking companies that serve remote, regional, and rural communities throughout Australia and New Zealand. He recognizes all the struggles farmers and agribusinesses in the Midwest are facing.
Dennis Hoiberg is an organizational consultant with more than 30 years’ experience working with individuals, teams, and businesses to achieve personal satisfaction, excellence, and high performance. His main area of consulting expertise and interest includes assisting people to thrive through change, applying his lessons and experience in a practical and pragmatic style – one of his main acknowledged strengths.
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