If there's one word to best summarize the start of Jay Vroom's Illini experience, circa 1970, it's scale.
"Even though I’d spent time on campus as a high school student — attending state FFA conventions and other youth conferences and being through formal spring fraternity rush — being on campus with a class schedule was daunting from a simply geographic perspective," says the CropLife America CEO.
"What was the coping mechanism? Largely, friendly people and the fact that the ag campus and my fraternity homes were really more scale-alike to my smalltown high school experience back in Princeton, Illinois.
"That, coupled with a very healthy fear of failure, got me to a cap and gown — and a fabulous new wife, who’s still happily married to me — four years later.”
