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| Kate Danner (left) Illinois Crop Farmer, Kerry Dull Indiana Farmer, and me at EWA 2014 |
First Off, I would like to thank Farm Journal, Top Producer, Monsanto's Americas Farmers, Paradowski (and I am sure that I am forgetting someone) for an amazing opportunity to participate as a Panelist at the Executive Women in Agriculture Conference this last weekend in Chicago, IL. It was an amazing experience and I feel very fortunate and so blessed to be in a room of such intelligent, hard-working, phenomenal women.
I flew in on Wednesday night and got settled at the Palmer Hilton Hotel in downtown Chicago (where the Dallas Cowboys were also staying for their game against the Bears). I met up with Jeanne Bernick, Editor of Top Producer Farm Journal Media, and the other two incredible panelists, Kate Danner and Kerry Dull. Jeanne escorted us out to dinner so we were able to talk and really know each other's story before we stepped on stage the next morning. Thank you so much Jeanne for being such an awesome hostess and graciously accommodating us while we were there!
So the next morning, Jeanne was the host of the event and did an introduction to all the women attending, and then brought up one of the Keynote Speakers: Julie Borlaug of the Norman E. Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture. What a phenomenal, extremely classy, forward-thinking business woman! The level of experience and education that she brings to Agriculture and women in general is unprecedented. She did a life-changing speech about Global Agriculture, GMO's, issues in the world, how to be a women in a male-dominated field, that I was frantically taking notes so that I could just soak up all of her knowledge in the short one hour that she spoke.
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| Julie Borlaug and I at the EWA after the morning session
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So after Julie Borlaug blew the room away, Jeanne introduced the three panelists under the title of 'Successful Women in Agriculture'. Now let me say, I had no idea what topic I was going to be speaking on before I went (I was just told to tell my story) and I sure didn't know that I would be under the 'Success' category until I got the official itinerary about a week before the event, so it was a completely humbling experience to be sitting up there. There were so many amazing women in the room that I didn't really understand why I was the one sitting up at the table. But, Jeanne let us tell a quick introduction of ourselves, our family, and our farming operation. She did a fantastic job of mediating with various questions to us that pertained to our field. At our dairy, we do a lot of tours, employee training, working with family members, succession planning, balancing kids with farm life, so that is the subjects that I touched on and spoke about. Kate has a great story about going out and getting her triple-major degree then bringing her skills back to her 4th Generation Farm to work with her father. She is very active in politics and serving on various boards that in the last year she has been to the White House 7 times! Kerry's story his so many facets to it that she one extremely busy lady! She was a school teacher but they 'branched' off (pun intended) in the Christmas Tree business to supplement the farm's income. From there, they have gotten into a 'Bed and Breakfast', Weddings on their farm, and various other niche markets that really takes a huge level of management and intelligence on their farm to run all the separate enterprises! What incredibly gifted women they are!
After Jeanne asked us a variety of questions, she then opened it up to questions from the audience. This was such a fun time because you really got to hear from the audience on what specifically did they want to know more about. I touched on working with family and that our farm went through a transition in our family a few years ago. A lot of women wanted to talk about this in particular and they asked a lot of questions! I can definitely see that the Farm Family is definitely going through a shift right now. There are a lot of sons/daughters (with their spouses) that are wanting to come back to the farm, and the older generation is trying to accommodate to them coming back, but they have a lot.of questions on how to maneuver that transition. I basically referred them to a woman that impacted my life when it came to the farm family. Jolene Brown is a Family Consultant that wrote the book "Sometimes You Just Need a 2 X 4". About 3 years ago we threw the family in the car and drove down to Bowman, ND to hear her speak on the subject of 'How to Run You Family Farm Business Like A Business'. She really was the springboard that had us implement a lot of our business strategies in our farm such as: Codes of Conduct, Employee Handbooks, getting a Mission Statement, Performance Reviews, etc. So I told all the women, "Get a team together of people that you trust to help you run your business. Get Financial Consultants, Estate Planners, Accountants, Lawyers, Nutritionists, Veterinarians, etc and leverage their knowledge and implement it into your business". I didn't really realize how many farm-family businesses were struggling with this, but for the next two days I had a huge amount of women come up to me and talk to me about their stories and issues, so this is something we definitely needed to address.
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| Here is me speaking on the panel |
So after the panel, for the rest of the day and the next, we got to hear a variety of subjects from a variety of experts in their field. The break-out sessions where very informative, the key-note speakers were spectacular, and we even got to do a live taping of U.S. Farm Report with Tyne Morgan:
One of my favorites was Colette Carlson, of 'Speak Your Truth' who did an amazing break-out session in the morning that was standing-room only. Then during the lunch she really talked to women on how to speak directly, balancing your life, and still take care of yourself. I was taking so many notes from her because she really hit on some key issues! She made us ponder, evaluate, and even cry from laughing so hard with her demonstration on how women have to be extreme multi-taskers:
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| Collete Carlson showing a visual demonstration how much a woman has to multi-task in one day. It was Awesome! |
But with all the whirlwind of meeting people and filling our brains with new information that we went through, we still found time to go out, meet new people, network, and build those connections with fellow women in agriculture that is so utterly important. Go out there and build your support system, go meet like-minded women that you can ask questions and get mentorship from, go get your knowledge from conferences! So women, if you didn't go to the EWA2014, I would highly recommend it for next year, because hopefully, I will see you there!!!
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| Hanging out with other Farm Moms after the session |
But perhaps, maybe the best thing about going to the conference, is coming home to your beautiful family waiting for you at the airport, roses in hand, to smother you with kisses because they missed you so much.
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| Daddy picked out the Poinsettia, my oldest- white rose, my daughter- pink rose with white glitter, my middle son-red rose with blue glitter, and my baby- yellow and pink rose |
