Meats Laboratory Manager
P.R.O.P.S. subcommittee members Kelsey DeFord, Catherine Beaver, and Andrew Nolley spoke with Corey to learn more about their experience at A-State.
Corey, what is one thing that you wish that you could teach, or wish everyone knew, about your role on campus?
We actually have a full processing facility on campus and that we do on campus deliveries to university offices of our products. So yeah, a lot of people don’t realize that we offer that service. You can order products on our marketplace website and then we get those orders made-up and deliver them around campus.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
“Leave things better than you found it.”
If you could travel anywhere, where would it be?
One of my favorite places to travel is Puerto Rico, where my wife is from. We love the tropically weather, especially right now because it is so cold.
Before retiring, what would you like to do?
Well, that’s a long way out but before retiring I would like to:
Continue to build our program up, by adding new additions such as our new high-speed snack stick line that will be operational very soon. We have partnered with Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry to make snack sticks that go into the local school backpack program. We actually just received some grant funding that is helping us expand this line and provide students with more hands-on practical experience.
The last couple of years we have put a lot of things in motion to advance our program. My long-term goal is to get all these different parts of our disciplinary area up and fully operational, so that we can continue to benefit students for a very long time through hands-on learning.
I didn’t know that was a program here, so you’re educating me as well.
We have a class that we teach here called Meat Science and Processing through the Animal Science program. Then we also utilize student workers in our facility and student volunteers as well.
Can you describe yourself in one sentence?
I’m an outgoing person, I enjoy my family and friends, I enjoy my job. I’m a father and a husband, those are two important things in my life.
What is it that you like most about A-State?
The people I get to work with, it’s more of a closer community than other career paths/institutions. I enjoy being able to work closely with my coworkers you know, because everyone’s willing to jump in and lend a helping hand and help each other. Also, I enjoy seeing the students excel in our numerous hands on opportunities provided by the meat lab. That’s a really rewarding experience.
