Agricultural Economics, 1999

 
Matthew Waits graduated from OSU in 1999 with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural economics, an educational backdrop with which he credits his professional successes.

 

The Stillwater native is the CEO of SST Software, an industry leader in agricultural information management. He began his career at the company upon graduating from OSU as director of the SST Information Lab. Just two years later, he guided the organization’s development of an enterprise-level data management platform for site-specific farm management. Today, this platform is branded as agX and is the underlying infrastructure for data management for more than 100 million acres across 23 countries.

 

In 2012, Waits assumed his current role as CEO and opened agX for integration throughout the farming industry. Since that time, this crucial technology has seen rapid adoption by the top providers of precision agricultural products and services. Additionally, under Waits’ leadership, Stillwater-based SST Software has grown into a worldwide enterprise with 80 employees and branch offices in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Illinois, Iowa, Brazil, Australia and South Africa.

 

Waits is a lifetime member of the OSU Alumni Association, where he serves on the leadership council. An avid supporter of his alma mater, Waits is a Posse Club member, football suite owner and basketball season ticket holder. Further, through the SST Software Endowed Professorship, Waits helps provide scholarships to five OSU students annually.