Area of Study

Agriculture and Business Management
Learn how to manage your business for profit and sustainability.
Customized learning plan to grow your business or ag operation.
The Agriculture and Business Management (ABM) program is designed to provide individualized instruction for aspiring or current business owners and ag producers. ABM helps develop and expand businesses to increase production and profitability. As technology changes, it is necessary to enhance skills to communicate with accountants, lenders, and other business professionals. Our program focuses on business resiliency in the ever-changing marketplace. Instruction is delivered through online lectures, on-site instructional visits at your place of business, and through cooperative education.

Skills you will learn:

  • Organize your records
  • Learn computerized accounting (ex. QuickBooks)
  • Management based on facts/data
  • Create a business plan
  • Develop leadership skills
  • Build confidence in business communication skills
  • Defining your target market
  • Analyze pricing decisions
  • Building and managing a budget
  • Analysis of finances and trends
  • Planning for the future (succession)
  • Creating a marketing plan

Kelsi Blake, owner of Top Hand Trailers in Fort Morgan works with instructor Leah Thomas to update her financial statement in QuickBooks.

MCC and our family have a great relationship. We are the second generation to participate in the ABM program. It’s not a textbook of good ideas. It’s real numbers, real questions, with real answers. We have become more efficient, more detailed, and more profitable”

Chad Malcolm

Malcolm Legacy Farm

View the catalog for courses and program requirements.

Starting

  • Rural Business Entrepreneurship
  • Leadership & Human Resources
  • Web Productivity and Utilization

Managing

  • Records & Business Planning
  • Financial Analysis
  • Marketing Plan Development
  • Advanced Business Management

Growing

  • Commodity Marketing
  • Financial Analysis
  • Integrated Management

Records & Business Planning

Financial Analysis

Commodity Marketing

Market Plan Development

Web Productivity & Utilization

Advanced Business Management

Integrated Management

Rural Business Entrepreneurship

Leadership/Human Resources Management

Meet the Faculty

MCC staff member Jay Stretcher

Faculty

Jay Stretcher

Jay began teaching the Agriculture and Business Management Certificates in the fall of 2001.  Prior to joining Morgan Community College, Jay worked at Consumer Credit Counseling for ten years helping people work through financial difficulty.  Jay received a Bachelor of Science in Business from Fort Hays State University in 1989.

Jay lives in Elbert County near the town of Simla with his wife and is a father and grandfather.   He is on the the Simla Volunteer Fire Department.