Robert Jenkins (’14)

The first accomplishment I’m most proud of is the experience I gained as General Counsel for Ag-Pro, a John Deere dealership that does over $1.8 billion a year. I was 30 years old when they offered me that position. I didn’t fully appreciate what it would do for me at the time, but those four years grew me in ways most attorneys never get the chance to be grown. It changed how I see myself and what I’m capable of. I got to compete on the world stage.

The second is leaving the Ag-Pro job to come home and take over my family’s farm. I’m the sixth generation and it was time. As hard as it was to walk away from something I had worked so hard for, it was the right call. I farm row crops and run cattle now alongside my law practice and this past year we set new yield records on the farm for both corn and peanuts. That meant a lot to me.

The third is the work I’ve done helping farmers file for Hurricane Helene disaster payments. I’ve helped a lot of people in my area get money they needed and didn’t know how to get. It’s an underserved area of the law in a rural part of the state and being able to combine what I know about farming with what I know about the law to actually help people has been the most rewarding thing I’ve done in my career.