Trent Stiers is welding on the backside of a bucket, filling in gaps.
For many kids, riding along in the buddy seat of a tractor is just a fun childhood memory. However, for Trent Stiers, the vice president of the Williamsfield FFA Chapter in Illinois, those early rides with his grandpa sparked something much bigger: a passion for equipment, mechanics and the fast-paced world of modern farming. What began as curiosity soon grew into a full-scale Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) that now spans more than 1,000 hours and thousands of dollars in earnings.
Stiers’ journey officially began in 2022 when he joined his family’s operation, Strom Family Farms, as a repair and maintenance assistant. The goal wasn’t just to help out; it was to learn the trade from the ground up. Today, Stiers works nearly every day of the year, either after school or during full summer shifts, handling everything from small engines to 500-horsepower tractors.
“I’ve always wanted to be an operator and mechanic like my grandpa,” he explained. “I wanted to understand the machinery the same way he does.”
Stiers is changing the spreader paddles on the back end of the combine.
That drive has pushed him far. Over the past year, Stiers has taken on a new range of responsibilities, including keeping detailed repair and maintenance logs using Trello, the farm’s online recordkeeping system. He also expanded his skillset through a dual-credit welding course at Carl Sandburg College, where he’s learning new cuts, welds, and safety practices, knowledge he plans to use to earn a bigger role in the farm’s metal fabrication work.
Stiers is putting maintenance records into Trello.
Season to season, his job shifts with the needs of the operation. Spring means planting, and that means being on-call, ready at a moment’s notice to get a planter back up and running so the fieldwork never slows. Summer brings baling hay and handling unexpected breakdowns. By late August, he’s servicing every piece of harvest equipment to prepare for the marathon of fall.
Stiers is replacing a fertilizer line that goes to the in-furrow fertilization knife.
Once harvest arrives, he steps into one of the farm’s most important roles: primary grain cart operator, moving grain smoothly from combine to truck while also handling in-field fixes whenever something needs attention. Winter might sound like the “slow season,” but that’s when the real maintenance begins. Every machine gets a full inspection, and by February, both planters are completely serviced and reassembled for spring.
Stiers is putting the reel back onto the bean head.
Of course, the work isn’t always easy. Some challenges come simply from his age; he’s not yet old enough to earn a CDL or a sprayer license, even though his skill level is more than ready for those responsibilities.
Through every season and every task, one lesson has stood out the most: teamwork is the backbone of agriculture.
“A single person can’t handle all the acres alone. It takes a team willing to put in the extra hours,” Stiers said. “That’s what makes an operation succeed.”
His SAE hasn’t just been a chapter requirement; it’s become a preview of the life he wants. Stiers plans to continue advancing his mechanical skills and even hopes to work for another operation someday to broaden his experience. “You can only learn so much from one place,” he said.
From childhood curiosity to real-world expertise, this SAE is setting him up not just for a job, but for a lifelong career in the equipment and agricultural world he loves.
