WorkWise: Professional opportunities in industry's sleeping giant

Robert Powell is a city slicker from New York City. He worked in industries as diverse as entertainment, hospitality, fast food and telecommunications before arriving in Decatur, Ill., where he'd been recruited to interview at Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM). He sensed something amiss. The abundant brown corn in the fields made him ask himself, "What's wrong with these people? Don't they know how to farm?" He adds jocularly, "The only corn I knew was yellow, wrapped in green. Now, when I pass the corn and it's drying, I see money."