Sheldon Rockey and his White Rock Specialties company produce some of the finest fingerling potatoes around. Now Sheldon Rockey, the potato farmer, is looking to grow something new: students interested in careers tied to agriculture and other related fields.

Rockey, well-known throughout the San Luis Valley and Colorado’s agricultural community, is the new project director for Adams State University’s USDA “Next Gen” grant that promises to help cover the cost of attending the school for students pursuing ag-related fields.

Adams State was awarded $4.6 million to be paid out over the next five years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help it steer students into the career at the USDA and other similar industries. Adams State offers degrees in agriculture, agribusiness, food studies and natural resources. Rockey will work to recruit students into those areas.

“It’s a great opportunity for Adams State, great opportunity for our community, and a great opportunity for our industries,” Rockey said.

His connections to Future Farmers of America (FFA) programs both in the San Luis Valley and around Colorado give him an edge on the student recruiting front. One of his pitches to get students enrolled: 60 percent of the workforce in USDA-related fields is 10 years away from retirement, opening the door for a needed workforce. His next pitch: Adams State will help pay the way to obtain a relevant degree as well as offer internships and career placement.

“It’s going to really provide them with a nice scholarship,” he said of the students he recruits. Already, he’s dishing money, providing scholarship support to current students enrolled at Adams State and now hitting the high school recruiting circuit to draw in more students.

His experience as a farmer and with both White Rock Specialties and his brother Brendon’s Rockey Farms gives the students he recruits another advantage – he has ties to industries that will potentially yield important internships and jobs.

“He was the perfect candidate,” said Zena Buser, professor of business at Adams State who is overseeing the grant-funded program. “He is connected in the community, the ag community as well as food studies as we’ve built that. He’s connected to our high schools as well as our employers. What we need him to do as a project director is essentially link our college students with work-based learning and experiences. He has the connections to do that.”

His plan is to go big on the recruitment front, meaning he’ll focus both on recruiting students from the San Luis Valley’s 14 school districts that have strong FFA programs as well as schools on the southeastern and eastern plains, students on the western slope, and students in urban Denver who have an interest in food studies, environmental science, agriculture, the business of agriculture and natural resources.

“It is exciting and interesting,” he said. 

For him it’s also a new frontier, one that takes him out of the potato fields and warehouses and into the world of academia and college-student recruiting.

To reach Sheldon Rockey and the Adams State “Next Gen: Sowing Seeds for Success” program, email srockey@adams.edu.