Starting college a year before he finished high school got Allen Butchbaker off to a sensational start.

At 19, he’s completed a 144-hour internship with Lyons Industries for his Southwestern Michigan College associate degree in business, which he expects to earn a semester early in December.

On top of that, the 2014 Marcellus High School graduate, who will continue at Western Michigan University to a spring 2018 bachelor’s degree in finance with a real estate minor, has another foot up on contemporaries.

Butchbaker obtained his real estate license a month out of high school and has been under contract since last July with Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, the multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha.

“I want to own my own real estate business someday,” Butchbaker said. “I sell real estate with my dad to test the waters. We have rental houses as well. It’s good residual income” buttressing their primary livelihood, farming.

The family’s hog farm produces crops currently.

“We mainly sell farms,” Butchbaker said, “but there was a house on one we sold.”

“As an independent contractor, I could pick anyone,” he said. “Berkshire Hathaway was emerging in the market and doing really well. I’m not sure I’ll be selling real estate specifically, but investing and flipping real estate I think would be really fun. I’ll probably have to go to Kalamazoo to flip houses.”

The lifelong Marcellus resident selected SMC after receiving two scholarships for Early College and academic performance.

“I really liked SMC,” he said. “The price was right and it’s 20 minutes from my house.”

“I finished Lyons a couple of weeks ago, so I’m getting back in the swing of things” on the farm and in his real estate work, he said. “Summer is when a lot of real estate sells. I also have one class, business communications, so I can stay on track to graduate this fall.”

At Lyons, “I did accounts receivable and accounts payable. It was an HR (human resources) internship. I’m not an HR major, so I also went over to accounting. I helped HR by inputting employee application data into their data base so they can pull it up faster on a computer. I worked on the floor one day, essentially shopping for boxes they need to pack product in their warehouse until it’s shipped out.”

Business Department Chair Joanne Strebeck suggested Lyons to Butchbaker.

Butchbaker logged six-hour days at the Dowagiac manufacturer of kitchen and bath products for do-it-yourself, wholesale and recreational vehicle markets.

In high school Butchbaker played soccer, basketball and track.

Butchbaker, namesake of his grandfather, the former Cass County drain commissioner, is the youngest of Bruce and Jane (Goodenough) Butchbaker’s three children.

His father is a former county commissioner. His mother, who studied accounting at SMC, serves on the Marcellus Community Schools Board of Education.

Butchbaker’s sister and brother-in-law graduated from SMC and continued at Bethel College. His father and brother attended Michigan State University.

In fact, Bruce Butchbaker obtained the two-year agricultural technology certificate MSU brings to SMC this fall.

On the Goodenough side, his other grandfather, Riley, chaired the Board of Commissioners, and his aunt, Cathy, daughter of longtime Dowagiac City Clerk James Snow, also served as a county commissioner.

Given the familial propensity for public service, while the teen doesn’t yet profess any political aspirations, he doesn’t rule them out, either.

 

About Southwestern Michigan College

Southwestern Michigan College is a public, residential and commuter, community college, founded in 1964. The college averages in the top 10 percent nationally for student academic success based upon the National Community College Benchmark Project. Southwestern Michigan College strives to be the college of first choice, to provide the programs and services to meet the needs of students, and to serve our community. The college is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the American Association of Community Colleges.