LSU agribusiness program honoring late Gilster-Mary Lee president now accepting applications

Don Welge, the late president of Gilster-Mary Lee, had a vision. He wanted to start a new kind of agricultural program at his alma mater of Louisiana State University.

“He had this concept of teaching food beyond the farm, meaning not just the growing of the crops and all the sciences that are involved and the economics of all that, but beyond that to the food processors, to food distribution,” said Tom Welge, Don Welge's son and current Gilster-Mary Lee president. “Even through retailing and marketing, so really every part of the cycle in food production.”

Four years after Don Welge’s death, his idea has become a reality with the creation of the LSU Food Beyond the Farm Graduate Certificate in Agribusiness, now taking applications for its inaugural class. The entirely online program directly prepares students for careers in the agribusiness industry.

It costs $10,344 and requires taking 12 credit hours. Students can choose from four of seven three-credit-hour courses from the university’s College of Agriculture and E.J. Ourso College of Business. These focus on supply-chain management, food safety management, food manufacturing, food processing, managerial statistics, financial accounting and marketing management.

Over the last decade of his life, Don Welge thought LSU’s College of Agriculture needed to expand its offerings and broaden the appeal of agricultural education to a larger group of potential students. He was unsuccessful in starting a degree covering such material.

“Louisiana State is a big state university, there’s a lot of politics, and academia sometimes doesn’t move very fast,” his son said.

After his death, some friends of Don Welge approached the Welge family and together they launched another campaign as a memorial to him. They gathered around 50 letters of support from various food industry executives.

“... I happened to be introduced to the Dean of the College of Business at LSU,” Tom Welge said. “He really liked the idea and he helped us create a collaboration between the College of Business and the College of Agriculture so we could have a joint program that had courses in food production ... as well as those courses that relate to supply chains and markets and those sorts of things.”

The program shifted from a degree to an online graduate certificate and will be offered year after year. The younger Welge said it will help people gain a better appreciation of how complex and important food security and the food supply chain is, as well as how it needs passionate individuals to maintain it.

“Coming out of COVID, I think we all realized we can't take our food supply chain for granted, so I think there’s a real need to educate people that are interested in being in the food industry and give them the skills to keep the food supply chain resilient and strong in the future,” he said.

Tom Welge said the program is not limited to just current LSU students or alumni. Any interested individual with a bachelor’s degree and a minimum 3.0 GPA from an accredited university can apply.

“This is something a (Southeast Missouri State University) graduate could apply for at any point in their career,” he said.

Applications for the program may be found on the LSU website — www.lsu.edu — and are due by Monday, June 24.

Don Welge was a 1957 graduate of LSU, majoring in agricultural economics. He was inducted into the university’s Alumni Hall of Distinction in 2012.

Gilster-Mary Lee is Perry County's second largest employer. The company is headquartered across the Mississippi River in Chester, Illinois.

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