Industry partnerships for graduate education provide opportunities that benefit students’ future careers, a means to meet industry needs for employees with advanced research and technical expertise, and a method to train adequate numbers of scientists for academia and industry, especially given escalating costs of graduate education. The OSU Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP; with M. L. Day as PI) and Select Sires Inc. (SSI) have had a cooperative training partnership program to train graduate students in bovine reproduction, with an emphasis in male reproduction, since 2010. The partnership was the result of recognition by the PI and SSI that the number of students trained in male reproduction was limiting and that needs for scientists with this expertise in industry and academia were unlikely to be fulfilled. This partnership provides a platform to leverage resources of OSU and SSI to study male reproduction. Inherent to all partnerships, especially given that the training affects the student’s career, having a thoughtful agreement is crucial to protect interests of all parties. Hence, the resources of OSP were instrumental to develop this program. Key aspects of the agreement give guidance as to intellectual property, inventions, patents, publication of results, and so on. Costs of the graduate stipend and tuition are equally shared by SSI and the Animal Sciences department. Consensus between the PI and SSI scientists is necessary for admission into the program. One member of the student’s advisory committee must be from SSI and the specific research hypotheses are determined by consensus to ensure needs of the student, PI, and SSI are met, and to affirm the research is comprehensive and high quality. Supply and travel costs for research are paid by SSI and matched “in-kind” by OSU. An important aspect of the agreement, for the student’s protection, is that they are not obligated to be employed by SSI upon graduation. Two graduate degrees, with a third in progress, have resulted from this program. This model of university–industry collaboration has been very effective in producing young scientists to meet emerging needs in the area of male reproduction.