Summary
Overview
Work History
Education
Skills
Timeline
Generic

Payton B. Sonka

Hartwick,IA

Summary

Proactive and goal-oriented professional with excellent time management and problem-solving skills. Known for reliability and adaptability, with swift capacity to learn and apply new skills. Committed to leveraging these qualities to drive team success and contribute to organizational growth.

Overview

14
14
years of professional experience

Work History

Academic Assistant II

Grinnell College
01.2023 - Current
  • Support and assist faculty and staff in the Humanities departments.
  • Serve as office manager to guide onboarding and training new employees to the team and work with new hires as a mentor in other offices
  • Create and organize course work in Blackboard/Canvas.
  • Update and design new elements on the Grinnell College website with various website design tools (i.e Drupal, WordPress, Adobe)
  • Update faculty lists
  • Add events happening in the departments and research opportunities offered to students.
  • Create new pages for student-ran organizations within each Humanities department, i.e., Sociology, Anthropology
  • Designing posters for events and integrating them into the proper departmental news pages
  • Book travel accommodation for seminar speakers and candidate searches
  • Create detailed itineraries for guests of the college.
  • Serve as a communication liaison on and off campus.
  • Keep detailed record of college credit card transactions.
  • Track spending of faculty budgets and department budgets
  • Work as a liaison with IT in utilizing electronic resources to facilitate classroom technology.
  • Serves as an information resource for visitors.
  • Coordinate all aspects of meetings, projects, events, and conferences.
  • Reserving rooms and ordering catering
  • Transportation needs and housing accommodations.
  • Updating calendars for attendees
  • Creating task lists in To Do, Whiteboard, and Loop for group projects.
  • Record meetings and dictate notes.
  • Creating project plans to best organize group projects and to keep the faculty up to date on progress
  • Was the program coordinator for the Health Professionals Advisory Committee (HPAC)(2023-2025)
  • Schedule and advertise student information sessions-in-person and virtual.
  • Coordinate with IT on updates and design of Salesforce application site for students
  • Update presentations and posters with the most current data from medical schools and application sites.
  • Facilitate the committee letter writing process by running meetings to evaluate applicants, coordinate a collection of faculty/staff comments throughout the college, assign letter writers/readers, proofread and submit completed letters of recommendation to appropriate medical schools
  • Communicate with applicants throughout the letter writing process.
  • Manage confidential student material
  • Obtain a diverse skill set to be available to assist other team members in times of need or short staffed.
  • Supervisor for all student workers within any science department-26 students in total for Fall 24 semester
  • Approve timecards and be the point of contact for the students’ questions
  • Assigning the correct department codes to payroll for each student timecard submission
  • Organized academic events such as guest lectures and workshops, fostering a dynamic learning environment.
  • Assisted with recruitment efforts by conducting campus tours and participating in informational sessions about the university's programs.

Farm Hand

Family Farm
04.2011 - Current
  • Raise and bred small herd of show pigs
  • Raised and showed pigs for 16 years (4-H and FFA)
  • Assisted in the construction or repair of fences, barns, sheds, or other infrastructure necessary for successful farm operation.
  • Ensured proper animal care by administering medications, vaccinations, or treatments as prescribed by veterinarians.
  • Assisted in birth of livestock, enhancing farm's productivity and animal well-being with skilled support.

Animal Technician III

Exemplar Genetics
06.2021 - 01.2023
  • Assist in research studies for clients.
  • Perform in assisted surgeries, cesareans, embryo transfer and telemetry implantation.
  • Perform weekly inventory on 15-30 on-going studies and genotypes.
  • Communicate with clients daily on progress of studies and future studies.
  • Assess animal welfare and detect illness in large groups.
  • Neonatal pig care
  • Swine breeding and ultrasound detection
  • Maintain a higher level of quality of swine and facility quality.
  • Extensive data recording to cliental project outline.
  • Maintaining and improving safety and health management systems.
  • Manage scheduling of client arrivals and swine dispatch.
  • Approve product invoices and record product inventory.
  • Approve shipping requests to clients.
  • Record natural breeding events and schedule out ultrasound dates to confirm pregnancy.

Summer Production Intern

The Hanor Company of Wisconsin
05.2020 - 08.2020
  • Liaison for the veterinary team in assuring health specific tasks are performed correctly by barn staff.
  • Assisted production managers in scheduling truck arrivals.
  • Shadowed service technicians in various barn phases
  • Breeding and gestation
  • Farrowing
  • Nursery
  • Finisher
  • Assisted company auditor in assessing sites and pig quality.
  • Worked alongside company nutritionist in collecting data on BinMaster Lasers
  • Collected feed bin weights from BinMaster Lasers
  • Compared weights to Edge Control Scale and feed consumption rates.
  • Presented data findings to management team.

Crop Scout

Bayer
06.2019 - 08.2019
  • Identified and counted male tasseling rows.
  • Identified and counted female silking rows.
  • Sorted bags of seed corn into appropriate bays.
  • Shadowed different production lines of the seed corn plant.

Farrowing Technician

VMC Management
05.2018 - 08.2018
  • Assisted in split suckling experimental trial.
  • Weighed weaned pigs after Tonicity trial.
  • Assisted 40 sows and gilts farrowing daily
  • Daily wellbeing checks on all sows and gilts.
  • Entered all farrowing information into barn Excel charts.

Education

Bachelor of Science - Animal Science

Iowa State University
Ames, IA
05.2021

Skills

  • Proficiency in Microsoft Office and Adobe Acrobat
  • Excel, Word, Publisher, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Teams
  • Ability to prioritize multiple tasks to deliver a high degree of accuracy with frequent interruptions
  • Accurate composition, editing, and proofreading skills
  • Willingness to learn new proficiencies to accommodate evolving technology
  • Ability to communicate effectively (via email, in-person, or virtual meeting) with a variety of personalities in a very diverse work setting
  • Detailed record keeping (daily barn checks, vaccination schedules, water treatments, inventory, medication log, farrowing)
  • Experience in using differential scales to calibrate and compare weights
  • Trained in fostering piglets, castration, and artificial insemination breeding
  • Extensive experience in vaccinating pigs at various stages of development
  • Lab management
  • Organization and prioritization
  • Collaborative teamwork

Timeline

Academic Assistant II

Grinnell College
01.2023 - Current

Animal Technician III

Exemplar Genetics
06.2021 - 01.2023

Summer Production Intern

The Hanor Company of Wisconsin
05.2020 - 08.2020

Crop Scout

Bayer
06.2019 - 08.2019

Farrowing Technician

VMC Management
05.2018 - 08.2018

Farm Hand

Family Farm
04.2011 - Current

Bachelor of Science - Animal Science

Iowa State University

Similar Profiles

CREATE PROFILE