BUILD Dairy is funded by donations from forward thinking dairy producers (checkoff program) and dairy food industry companies and organizations in the western region with the intent of building human capital consisting of university graduates with a high level of technical and scientific skills and a broad knowledge and interest in dairy foods. This can provide stability, growth and innovation within the dairy foods industry in the western region. These donations will be leveraged through their alignment with university interests in undergraduate and graduate student research.
Industry sponsors participate in collaboration through those meetings and receive periodic updates on current students and their programs and on status of graduated students. This builds strong and lasting relationships between industry, students and educators.
To support the BUILD Dairy program:
- Contact the Western Dairy Center at kimberly.rasmussen@usu.edu or Dairy West at ebastian@dairywest.com to sponsor student research and learning about dairy technology
- Participate in semi-annual and annual meetings
- Participate in monthly BUILD Dairy Webex meetings
Sponsors receive periodic updates on students' progression through programs, access to graduated student database, access to historical research reports and participate in monthly and collaborative meetings.
"BUILD Dairy is a great way for academic and industry to collaborate together. Future employees are developed in the Build Dairy program through academic course work, graduate research projects, internships and interactions with industry partners. We have several employees that work for Glanbia that came through the BUILD Dairy program and recognize the successful efforts in training and providing highly qualified individuals that are ready to develop careers in the dairy industry."
Loren Ward, Glanbia Nutritionals