Dr.

John Bonner, former CEO/EVP of the Council for Agricultural Science and
Technology (CAST), now sits on the advisory board for the North Central STEM Hub
to share his experiences in agribusiness. Sixty years after his first extension
experience (he joined 4-H in 1955), Bonner joined the NC STEM Hub with the intent
of expanding the hubs audience and making the STEM audience aware of all the
resources that the STEM Hub and Iowa State University has to offer. He is
especially interested in including Stem activities as they relate to agriculture.
Throughout his career, Bonner has been the kind of employee who formulates
questions and seeks answers. As a NC STEM advisor-- he gets to play a different
role. He is now an individual who helps provide information, aid and resources to
educators and community leaders who seek to create scale-ups and extension
programs. He accomplishes this by networking with other science, technology,
engineering and math organizations and being the business representative for the
NC Stem Advisory Board. Although this job is much different then what hes used to,
he mentions that his favorite part of the job is getting the chance to help young
individuals and change their lives by offering them opportunities that they didnt even
know existed.
Serving as sort of a liaison, Bonner is able to advocate on behalf of both the 4-H and
the Governors STEM Advisory Council. One of his long-term goals for his position
is, to get more educators and leaders to say, I want to get this [grant] to make this
[scale-up] happen because itll challenge kids to want to create change thus leading
them to produce things such as the computer and fax machineboth of which were
invented and finalized by Iowa State students. These are ideas that help
individuals, industry and agriculture to be more productive.
The Governs STEM Advisory Council helps fund six STEM Hubs all across Iowa.
The NC STEM Hub, located on Iowa State Universitys campus, partners with Iowa
State student organizations and any other K-12 school located in the region. Their
job is to help educate teachers, create awareness in their communities and even
recognize leaders who are making a difference in STEM education.
According to Bonner, educators and community leaders understand that these
programs allow students to ask questions at a young age and find a passion to
uncover the solutions to these problems. But the challenge is that sometimes
families dont fully understand the importance of learning to question and thats the
challenge.
As a NC Stem advisory board member, Bonner hopes to not only create awareness
to families and communities but to promote the importance that is STEM and the
passion that is needed to work within these fields. The main thing about STEM is
that nothing stands aloneeverything intertwines, says Bonner, The world needs
STEM and STEM serves the world.