Donation From Alumnus, Wife, to Create Career Counseling Position

Huntley College of Agriculture News logo

A generous donation from an alumnus and his wife will help provide the Don B. Huntley College of Agriculture students explore careers and find jobs.

Richard Frencer (’67, agronomy) and his wife, Janis, have a vision of helping open students’ eyes to the many career opportunities related to agriculture. Richard Frencer came to Cal Poly Pomona with little background in agriculture. But his on-campus experience paved his career path as a longtime agricultural consultant and independent food production professional.

The Frencers have partnered with the Cal Poly Pomona Career Center to create the Frencer Agricultural Career Counselor position within the Huntley College. The position will be funded by both the Frencers and the Career Center. 

“We are grateful to the Frencers for helping to create this position, which increases our students’ ability to find and be hired in the agricultural field and achieve their professional goals,” said Lisa Kessler, Interim Dean of the Huntley College.

The agricultural industry also will benefit from this position by finding diverse, well-trained candidates with hands-on learning experience to fill open positions.

Specifically, the Frencer Agricultural Career Counselor will provide Huntley College students with:

  • advising and services to enhance their career and job search skills, including counseling students individually or in group settings on how to research the job market, develop networking opportunities, create effective resumes, and improve interviewing skills;
  • increasing internship and employment opportunities by developing and expanding the number of employers with internship and full-time employment for students and alumni;
  • employment resources, creating a database of internship opportunities and employment openings for students, alumni, and faculty to utilize;
  • enroll agriculture students in the Career Center’s university-wide job preparation software program called Handshake.

Richard Frencer is a longstanding supporter of Cal Poly Pomona and was honored as the Huntley College of Agriculture’s alumnus of the year in 2017.

The Huntley College will begin recruitment to fill this position in early January 2018.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]