NDSU Adds Agribusiness Development Specialist

Glenn Muske has joined the North Dakota State University Extension Service as its rural and agribusiness enterprise development specialist.

He supports entrepreneurs and small-business owners through educational programming and informational efforts. He also works with communities to help them encourage and understand the entrepreneur.

His efforts include developing adult and youth entrepreneurship programs to help people with starting a business, basic marketing, networking, recordkeeping, tax issues, generating ideas, recognizing business opportunities, and value-added and food-based entrepreneurship.

Muske supports small-business owners in three ways:

• Through county Extension educators
• Providing assistance directly to small-business owners, entrepreneurs, community leaders and decision makers
• With his participation in the eXtension “Entrepreneurs and Their Communities” community of practice

eXtension is a Web-based information resource that provides reliable, research-based, field-tested information from NDSU and other land-grant universities throughout the U.S. Communities of practice are resource areas that focus on specific topics.

Muske is based at the NDSU Extension Center for Community Vitality in Bismarck, N.D.

“Glenn has a wealth of experience in entrepreneurship education programming,” says Kathleen Tweeten, director of the NDSU Extension Center for Community Vitality. “We’ve not had anyone to focus on this important and growing area for many years, so we are very excited to have him on board.”

Muske grew up on a farm near Berlin, N.D., and earned bachelor of science and master’s degrees in business from NDSU and a Ph.D. in family resource management from Iowa State University.

Prior to joining NDSU, he spent 15 years primarily in law firm administration in Bismarck and 14 years as a micro- and home-based business specialist for the Cooperative Extension Service at Oklahoma State University.

NDSU Agriculture Communication