Hidden Leadership: Courtney Duffy’s Impact on Agri-Business and Family Balance

Episode Description: 

In this insightful episode of Coffee in the Barn, hosts Morgan and Casey engage in an inspiring conversation with Courtney Duffy, a Sales Support Specialist at Double L, whose journey in the swine industry reflects the qualities of a true leader often operating behind the scenes. Despite the traditional image of leadership, Courtney's pivotal role in shaping both her company’s and her community's future makes her an unsung hero in agriculture. 

Courtney discusses her evolution from full-time sales to a part-time role, showcasing her ability to redefine success on her terms without sacrificing her career, family, or leadership contributions. While balancing motherhood and career demands, she has driven initiatives that reflect her quiet leadership, such as creating innovative solutions for both Double L and the swine industry during difficult times. 

Her advocacy for family-friendly workplace policies and lactation support for mothers in agriculture is a testament to her leadership. At World Pork Expo, Courtney was instrumental in establishing a dedicated lactation room, offering a much-needed space for mothers to balance their personal and professional lives—just one example of how she leads through action, not title. 

Key highlights include: 

1. Redefining Leadership in Agri-Business: Courtney proves that leadership isn't always about titles or public recognition. Her ability to influence her company's culture, drive innovation in product offerings, and empathize with customers during challenging times reveals her as a key figure in the industry's ongoing transformation. 
2. Innovating Through Adversity: Even as the swine industry faces financial struggles, Courtney and her team at Double L continue to innovate, bringing new products to market while keeping their customers' needs at the forefront. 
3. Family-First Leadership: By advocating for policies that support work-life balance, Courtney helps set new standards for how companies in agriculture can retain top talent—particularly women—by embracing family-first values. 

Courtney’s story reminds us that leadership can take many forms, and even without the spotlight, she continues to shape the industry and community around her. To learn more about the Double L Group please visit https://www.doublel.com. 

Transcript

Morgan
0:00:00
Welcome to this week's episode of Coffee in the Barn with Morgan and Casey. This week we have a special guest, Courtney Duffy, who works for Double L.

Courtney
0:00:09
Thanks Morgan and Casey, I am so excited to be here. I work for Double L, so we are a equipment company, manufacturing design company for swine, layer, and broiler facilities. We're also entering the dairy market this year to transition into a role called sales support specialist. I formerly was managing our swine sales division and have taken a step back and have deviated from what I thought my career path would be and now I'm working part-time as a sales support specialist.

Courtney
0:00:41
So very excited to be here today and share with you guys a little bit about how we got here.

Morgan
0:00:46
I think just to kind of start what this will kind of lead in further into our conversation later today, but what kind of led to you switching roles?

Courtney
0:00:56
Yeah, so motherhood took me by surprise. It is the best thing I've ever done with my life. I wouldn't change it for the world. My family means everything to me. And my husband works a, my husband's a veterinarian. He's a mixed practice veterinarian here in Monticello.

Courtney
0:01:13
And he's also on call a lot. And so working all those things kind of came together and me working a traveling sales role and his call schedule wasn't what we wanted to do. Could we have maybe made it work? Sure. It would have been really hard on the family and that's just not where our priorities are at in life right now. And so him and I kind of talked it out last year and at the end of last year we decided that I was going to transition to a part-time role.

Courtney
0:01:41
So what was really neat about it is that Double L made the opportunity for me happen. So they, I have a very close team and they knew that after I came back with my second, that I wasn't exactly happy. They could kind of see I was being pulled in lots of directions and very conflicted. And so they approached me and said, hey, what do you want to do? How do we make this work?

Courtney
0:02:06
You're too valuable to lose you. We want to see this, you know, be a place that it works for families and not just, you know, it works for people, you know, for a short time in their life. So with all those things that came together,

Courtney
0:02:20
it took us some time. It really did just finally transitioned at the end of July to part-time, but with working together, we were all able to pull it off. And now I essentially got to create my job, I got to create my hours,

Courtney
0:02:33
and I still get to live in both worlds. I get to be mom four days a week, and then I get a break and go get challenged and fight fires and help my sales team and help the office staff and really kind of end up being the,

Courtney
0:02:47
kind of like the go-between for everyone at the office and you know there's I get a bit of value in that way too. So it's been a really amazing kind of balance to still be you know being able to be more of a mom the way I want to be a mom but also still have a little bit of a career path and challenge and provide values in other ways as well.

Morgan
0:03:06
Yeah that's awesome that you have a company that was able to kind of create this position for you and allow you to kind of do both of the things that you want to do. I think we're seeing more of that within the egg industry specifically as you know we're becoming more female dominated and more females are coming up within the industry and also you know asking the questions of how do we how can I pursue being a mom as well as pursue the career that I also want to do as well.

Courtney
0:03:41
It is hard. One of the things that I really struggled with coming to this point is, you know, we haven't really talked much about my history, but I do have an animal science degree from Iowa State. I fell in love with swine science there and happened to right out of the gate get an internship with Murphy Brown.

Courtney
0:04:00
And day one in Barn, I just fell in love. And I knew the swine industry is where I wanted to be. At that time though, in that point of your life, you're told you go to school, you get the degree, you go to work, you climb the ladder, you do these things. And there's no playbook, and there's no page in the book

Courtney
0:04:22
that says, hey, you might all of a sudden wake up one day and realize this dream that you've been chasing is not right, or it's not right right now. And so that took a little bit to come to terms with, I guess, would be, you know, what I would call it is, you know, I've been following this path. This is what I've been told is what success looks like. How does that change my identity? How does that change who I am in the future? And so there's just a lot of questions and stuff there too to kind of ask and come to terms with but

Courtney
0:04:53
Like you said luckily, you know I work for a really great company that was able to help me not choose one or the other I get a little little bit of both for this face of life, so

Morgan
0:05:03
As you were kind of working through

Morgan
0:05:05
The the challenge of trying to figure out motherhood and how you are able to have a career as well. Did you have any female mentors that you kind of bounce ideas off of or that kind of helped you navigate the waters a little

Courtney
0:05:21
bit? Surprisingly, no. I actually had male mentors, which really took me by surprise. And here's why I think I didn't have a lot of female mentors. I mean sure, there's women that said, hey if I could do it all again, I would spend more time with my kids. However, we live in a society today where both parents are working. I think it's less and less a trend of seeing, you know, women who have been taking professional roles and then stepping away. They're hard to find. However, working in this fine industry, I know several men, obviously,

Courtney
0:05:59
you know, especially in the sales arena and equipment space, it's predominantly male-dominated still. And multiple of them said, yeah, my wife stays home. And they told me kind of their family stories, how they've seen their wives succeed, how they've seen the benefit to how their household functions. And one of them actually, that's another fan company, is actually a competitor. But he kind of shared a little bit with me about how, you know, his wife did the same thing.

Courtney
0:06:28
She went to college, she then made this choice, and now, you know, I was staying home, and, you know, working through all that, and hearing that side of it from male counterparts was actually, I found more advice than that. And even since then, men have been more vocal

Courtney
0:06:44
in, you know, congratulating me on making this choice and moving in this direction, and really respecting the career path that I've chosen. So it's been kind of surprising that the advice or the support did not come from the female side, it actually came from the male side of the industry.

Morgan
0:07:02
Wow, that's very interesting to hear that. But it also tells you that, you know, and that was one thing that really drew me to the agriculture industry in general is just the family orientation that, you know, we all, not that we all live in the Midwest, but most of us, you know, are very centrally located in the Midwest, family oriented, you know, family comes first, and then like our job is second. And just the the values that a lot of the individuals that I work with, and it sounds like you work with that core values within the ag space as well as family that translate kind of both between both industries. Absolutely.

Casey
0:07:48
Well I have something off the topic but as I consider you a woman leader in the industry by everything I see that you put out and do, the swine industry today is going through some really tough times financially. How are you helping navigate that with your customers and your company and that balance that you see and bringing in I would say more the empathy side from the female to help through this challenging time?

Courtney
0:08:18
Yeah and that you kind of really hit it the nail on the head there with the empathy. We can't, everyone's experiencing it. You can't necessarily change it. You, we all have our own parameters that we have to operate within, but I do feel that being able to relate to customers,

Courtney
0:08:38
understand where they're coming from, acknowledging a lot of times of how hard it is and not letting that get you down too. It's very challenging to be a salesperson. And you're talking to people who this is their business, this is their livelihood.

Courtney
0:08:54
And I think I have a unique perspective of being a small business owner. My husband, I mentioned is a vet and we're owners there. And so I understand what it's like for these people, my customers to experience financial hardship and not necessarily know where it's going to go next.

Courtney
0:09:12
And so, some days it's just a listening ear. Other days, maybe we can help on the marketing front. Maybe we can actually do something from a business perspective to try to help infuse things. You know, I do think, I really do think that Double L, we've brought a ton of new products to market in the last few years, whether it's just in Spline or some of our other divisions. But we've really gotten some positive feedback on it. And one thing that I've heard is it's nice to get something new to talk about when everything's been so slow.

Courtney
0:09:46
You know, you get stuck with the same old, same old. Not a lot of companies want to bring things to market when it's slow like this because you're not going to see the ROI as quickly. But that's not something that we're as concerned about. We wanted to bring good products to the market. So, yeah, some days it's a listening ear and just being

Courtney
0:10:03
really empathetic. But there is some days that at least with what we have going on within us as a company, we're able to support them in other ways. Even if it's just fresh and new dialogue, it gives people a little bit more pep in their step instead of just saying, yep, it's hard out there. It's slow. I'm not sure what's going to happen. You know, we can at least try to focus the dialogue on the few cool things that are that are going on.

Morgan
0:10:26
This kind of relates to that. How do you set the boundaries of working part-time? You know, I don't know how many days a week you're working, but how do you not check emails or answer the phone when, you know, like if you only work Monday, Wednesday, Friday, on the days that you're not working,

Morgan
0:10:46
how have you set those boundaries with like your co-workers as well as like internally kind of like separating it?

Courtney
0:10:54
It honestly for me has not been that hard and there's a couple of reasons. One, you know, I've been on two different maternity leaves now. I've had two kids and our company practices some very, very strong boundaries. Like when you're on maternity leave, radio silence unless you reach out. It's a full like I delete email off my phone, everything I change my voicemail, customers know, like we have a hard cut off. But that's because we do really value the family time and so we make

Courtney
0:11:23
sure that we are never, like two other co-workers, you know crossing those boundaries. In this transitionary phase, you know, here's a nice thing. We have technology. If I take a 15-minute phone call on the day off because it is easy for me to do and just handle the customer, I'm gonna do that and I can log,

Courtney
0:11:47
punch in, punch out on my phone, log hours later. It's not a big deal. So I have transitioned to hourly, so that way if things have to flex here and there, it's not that big of a deal. We have now gone through enough of the transition

Courtney
0:12:00
that almost anything that's critical, it's not coming to me now. So it hasn't been that hard to bridge those boundaries. And the other thing is, is that honestly, when I'm home, I mean, my priority really is family. That's why I wanted to be in this position. It wasn't because I wanted to work more. So you know, I don't have a desire to check my emails,

Courtney
0:12:22
because all that it does is it creates stress in my life, then until I can actually get to work and deal with something. So it really, you know, between having a really great team that respects the boundaries, having the flexibility that if something does come up, I can, you know, actually just this morning I was picking green beans and somebody called and I was like, man, I got to take this call. And I took it while I'm picking green beans and just logged out.

Courtney
0:12:46
It's not a big deal. But yeah, and then I just really just love being with these kids. So it makes it easy. They make it easy most

Morgan
0:12:53
days. Oh that's awesome. Yeah I don't know so kind of a little history on how I met Courtney when I was at, so I just came back from maternity leave with my second, this was in 2022. Yeah yes and we had yes yep 2022 because you were just expecting your second like weeks after World War II.

Courtney
0:13:19
I had her eight days after World War II.

Morgan
0:13:22
Thankfully you're like close to Des Moines though so you like her.

Courtney
0:13:25
It was fine. I just packed the car seat with my suitcase. It's fine. Show bag, hospital bag, car seat.

Courtney
0:13:33
It's fine.

Morgan
0:13:35
just came back from maternity leave with my second and previously in my previous sales role, I also would have been working in the swine industry before, but I was also pumping during world pork as most moms who are breastfeeding do, you know, you're traveling for work and you have to keep the milk coming for the little ones. So first year I was at world pork, there was no motherhood room or mothering room for me to pump in. And I think I was in the bathroom, I had to go to a completely different building and

Morgan
0:14:13
go to some back room that just didn't have anything but like a chair, carrying my cooler around with me everywhere, you know, trying to get ice from the concession stands, you know, some guys are like, oh, you've got beer in there? And I was like, yep, yep, you know, just keep walking. But so as I came back after my second, you had put together a, or Double L and you had put together a mothering room

Morgan
0:14:42
at World Pork Expo. And I had just learned about it, and I was like, this is awesome. I am so appreciative of it. You know, we had our own little cubicles I could go pump in. There was snacks, extra supplies for like disinfectant things that I needed, water. And I just had to find you,

Morgan
0:15:01
say thank you because that was one of the, it just put a smile on my face for the whole week. Cause you know, World Pork Expo at that time was, you know, three or four days and it's a long time to be away from your newborn. And so that's kind of how our path started, was me coming to find you and say thank you

Morgan
0:15:24
for putting this together. And I know that, you know, since then that was what,

Courtney
0:15:29
a three year sponsorship, I think you said? Yep, yep, we were doing it for three years. And it will go, I'm pretty sure, we'll make sure whether we're continuing it or so it's going to keep happening.

Casey
0:15:39
Yeah. I think. Did you initiate that, Courtney, or what was the story behind it? Because that was a need that I felt like needed to be met as well here in Morgan's first, you know, problems, right.

Casey
0:15:51
And others.

Courtney
0:15:52
So supporting women through breastfeeding and lactation is a passion of mine. And you're going to get a little bit of a long story, but I'll try to get to the point. But I had my first born, my son, in 2020. So I was a COVID mom. And there is this like weird vacuum of us people that came into parenthood with little to no support because things weren't available to us the same. And so I knew I wanted to breastfeed when I had him,

Courtney
0:16:27
but I knew nothing. I literally thought this would just happen on its own and had no clue that there's like a whole industry around it, right? So I just dove head first into educating myself and realized that, wow, this is something

Courtney
0:16:40
that I didn't realize that it's not being supported in so many different ways across our culture, in our workplaces, and just in general, like it is still something that we are readjusting to is supporting women through lactation and breastfeeding. And so my first year at World Pork with Double L, I was pumping and you have to walk up to the animal learning center and it was this like closet and there was a, there was at

Courtney
0:17:09
least it was, it seemed at the time the first year I was like, okay, not great, but there's a sink, there is a refrigerator, there's a bathroom there that you can use, and it was air conditioning. I was like, okay, that walk up the hill with all my stuff sucks, but at least it's air conditioning, and there was a chair. Well, we're not going to talk about the chair, but there was a chair there. And so the next year I come to WorldPort, and I just was reflecting on my experience. I was like, you know what, I want to do something for the

Courtney
0:17:40
women that have to use that room. And so I walked up a little care basket and had like a, I had a little note in it for moms. I had put like extra wipes and just general supplies that even a candy bar or two like, hey, you are working the sales floor all day and then you have to walk up here and usually 90 degree weather and pump and then race back. And this is probably the only break you're gonna get today because you're out of booth for probably 45 minutes every time you have to pump.

Courtney
0:18:10
And so you don't really get any other breaks because most companies, as is my personal expectation, is that you're at world court, you're not just milling about, right? So that year I went up, it was really just hard to find that

Courtney
0:18:24
they forgot to set up the room. And...

Courtney
0:18:30
So there was nothing, there was no signs, or there was, one, you didn't know where it was at. No. Two, there was no chair in the room. There was all sorts of signs and stuff in the way, like it was a supply storage closet

Courtney
0:18:44
that had not gotten cleaned out. So I cleaned it out kind of and made a space, put my little basket down. And then at the end of the show, I just really, it didn't sit well with me. It didn't sit well for me from where we should be as an industry, knowing how like, swine industry has so many females working in it today. And I wouldn't have realized how unique

Courtney
0:19:07
that was unless I had counterparts working in broiler and layer markets where it's not the same. And so it just was bizarre to me. We have so many people, so many women in this industry, and we're not creating a space for them that lets them be bold. You know, like it's not sending anyone up for success. So I talked to the event organizers, and luckily there was one individual within there, too, that also was very passionate in the same way that I am. And so she kind of made it her goal or her side project

Courtney
0:19:42
is to see something else come together. I also networked with several other women who I knew were very influential in the industry. And I tried to make it a mixed bag. So I had a few DBMs, people from pharmaceutical companies, other people within equipment companies,

Courtney
0:20:01
varying levels of job descriptions, sales reps, and had put together a short list, but it was still a list that's incented to the World Corps of Organizers that said, hey, we want to see something different. This is what it should look like.

Courtney
0:20:16
Here's all the industry support that is asking for this. And one of the big criterias for me was having a location closer to the sales floor, that it wasn't just this long hike where you're sweating your butt off to get up there and taking all this time. So they got it down in the varied industries building. They, you know, like Morgan was saying, it

Courtney
0:20:40
has multiple rooms. This has another thing is most women, relative, honestly we're not that far off from dairy cows. Like you have to operate on a schedule and most of our schedules are the same. And so it was, you know, it's not uncommon to have, you know, multiple women needing the facilities at the same time. And so we also made sure that there was multiple pods.

Courtney
0:20:59
I think there's five, four or five pods. I can't remember. In the room, there's couches, just a refrigerator with water and supplies and an on-site bathroom and just a nice, close, quiet space for you to go in, do what you need to do, and then be able to return back and also be a more effective employee

Courtney
0:21:23
because you're not having this additional stress. One of my favorite things though about the room is that I've also seen a lot of the general public being able to utilize it. Actually, this year at WorldCore, I saw a mom struggling, she had a baby carrier with her,

Courtney
0:21:37
she was trying to do the whole discreet thing, like, and I could just see her frustration building, I was like, hey, I just walked out of the booth, I was like, hey, I wanted you to know there's a space for you, you don't have to use it if you don't want to, but if you want to, I'd be more than happy to help you over there and show you the space. And she walked in, and you could just see her, like, you know, like, she almost, like,

Courtney
0:21:57
was in tears being able to have a space that supported her. So it's not just about the exhibitors, it's also about the general public. And like Morgan said, it is sponsored by Double L, so we sponsored it the last two years, we have a contractor next year, we'll see what happens. I would absolutely love to see another company sponsor it, just from a standpoint of I would love to see other people support this, but I know like if they don't, that's okay, we will keep supporting it. And I shouldn't mention the reason why all of this kind of comes together for Double L is it really does stem from our ownership. He and his family, they are very strong supporters of women in breastfeeding and

Courtney
0:22:39
lactation and creating a space. They acknowledge that in their lives they have been fortunate and privileged to be able to have to be successful in that because of their jobs and their lifestyle. So our owner, Jonathan, feels very strongly about extending that privilege to people just beyond his family, to his workers, to, you know, and now even extending it to people, just attendees at World Pork that, you know, there should be a space for everyone to be successful.

Casey
0:23:09
I love it. And it's wow. And I didn't know anything about it and to give you a little bit of in our listeners a little bit of background of coffee in the barn in Morgan's been involved and on the committee of this so it started out with coffee and careers in animal science Well, that's a little long-winded so coffee in the barn And then it's really in most of my committee were women Or managers of women and they want to support women and it's kind of grown into this that we'd like to see someday if we get

Casey
0:23:40
enough listeners and sponsors and different things that the coffee in the barn portion of what we do is actually an opportunity as a nonprofit and we talked about at different events setting up spaces where we could provide childcare dive into that with the liability you have the sources and licensing and all that. It's probably not feasible But we're kind of compromising at least the last time I got the committee together That we'd like to have scholarships for if you need child care

Casey
0:24:11
So if you need to bring your mom and your child the same time, yeah travel costs a different events that you need to or want to go to for your career or Hey, I want to go back to work, but I can't afford child care. And that's kind of what people probably don't know about the sunspine group and Lilliana's story. So Dr. Lilliana Lulaska works for me. And how she started out was she defended in COVID. And so she couldn't get an OPT. Her husband had a

Casey
0:24:43
TN, TN 60 visa because he was from Mexico. She's from Honduras. She couldn't get the same visa. So she was not allowed to work. And so she volunteered for me from nine to two while her kid, her oldest daughter was in school. And when her son took naps and her other daughter, right? So she juggled around it because she wanted to be intellectually stimulated. card and she works not full time for me but I swear she does. But everything I do is to accommodate that for them. I didn't have that in my career. Thus my whole mindset was to maybe come out on my own. The downsizing COVID totally fast forwarded that for me as well. But I'm really not only trying to get people like you on here to talk about it. I'm trying to show people how to do it. So your story is amazing to share and we just wanted to thank you

Courtney
0:25:45
for that. That if we all come together great things can happen. Yeah and you you're so right that so I also serve as the board president for our daycare. I'm that involved, mom. But you're right, child care, that's probably my second passion project, is child care is incredibly tricky. And child care today is suffering the effects of all this inflation. And whether it's food costs, labor costs, all these operating expenses have just gone

Courtney
0:26:21
through the roof for daycare. But people can't afford to pay more for child care. And, you know, I actually, I did the math, and in our area, child care, like the average household income is like $68,000. And if you had two kids at our center,

Courtney
0:26:39
which is still a fairly low cost compared to where a lot of places are at, but if you had two children there, it'd be about 30%, I believe it was, of your income would go to child care alone. And that's hard. I mean, that's a hard...

Courtney
0:26:53
At that point, you are probably making decisions on who works, who doesn't work. You know, what money do we have extra to go around? Being able to... I've heard a lot of stories of people just talking about being able to find child care that meets their schedules. Like you said, hey, I'm a new mom. I'm not quite comfortable leaving my baby yet,

Courtney
0:27:14
but I really wanna go to this event. Like, you know, I've heard of a lot of parents that make the choice of dad and baby come with. Then at least, you know, mom gets to see baby a lot and they are, they're taking on this extra financial burden, but they're trying to, we're trying to satisfy

Courtney
0:27:30
all these things at the same time. And it really just is challenging to overcome. So it's really cool to hear that you guys are interested in figuring out ways that, you know, whether it's ASB or some other program, you know, other event that you're trying to figure out ways, you know, how do we support women

Courtney
0:27:50
through this motherhood phase? Because it is, these early years are short lived, but you got to take advantage of them now. You know, they're definitely numbered. So how do you balance it all in the meantime. Because yeah, like you said, the support hasn't been there, but I think if we're going to continue to see the women in the workforce and

Courtney
0:28:09
these amazing women in the workforce, you know, we got to figure some of those

Casey
0:28:13
things out. Yeah, and I'd give another great example was, you know, I had my dream job or dream company I worked for. I love, I still call AV Vista. My family my family and my friends still there and ultimate respect and you know they supported me really well from having a preemie baby in the hospital my husband didn't threaten to take my computer away I wasn't so you know they were very supportive flexible coming back and then I came back to work and my boss Craig

Casey
0:28:48
Wyatt said well actually you did better than I ever anticipated. He was thinking of me in working on maybe a different role where I didn't have to travel as much and I got to the point where I didn't feel like I could serve my customers and my company in the right way so and my family right and I made the choice of at the time going to a company with a lot less travel and didn't want to give it up a hundred percent but I thought I

Casey
0:29:16
made the right decision for everyone and that was really tough where I loved to hear like if I could have worked a year part-time like you right if that would have been an option would my would have things change would I still be there and I don't know and yeah I think people are actually seeing that as options now and my company and I have to laugh you know DSM because the board had to make cuts and my team was eliminated but DSM has been one of my best customers ever since

Casey
0:29:51
and I'm just the flexibility of being a consultant or jack-of-all-trades contractor or whatever you want to call me helps, right? And I just see, I think that is the next step to the future for our industry in advocating for that. And not only in our sales roles or technical service roles, but even in the barns. And I hear a lot of producers doing some really cool things to even make women on the slot level have that flexibility they need to be moms. Yeah, I mean, Courtney, I know I saw you, I think I saw you at Minnesota Park this last... Yeah, so what about, yep. Back in February, but I don't know if you've

Morgan
0:30:34
heard, but we're expecting number three. Yay! Actually, in like eight weeks. Oh, yay! So I will be, it will be interesting to see how we navigate, you know, trade show season starts. So how we're going to, how we're going to coordinate all of that. And thankfully my husband has a good paternity leave through the military. And so I'm trying to coordinate like, okay, how are you and the kids going to come with

Morgan
0:31:07
me to whatever trade shows I'm at? And then maybe his mom will come too. So it's like not just him and the three kids. And you know like it's just like the things that you are already having to think about before you're even pregnant. I mean or you just find out and I was like okay

Morgan
0:31:27
you know I'm due October maternity leave then I come back and then it's trade show season it's like okay how am I going to navigate all of this. So hopefully I have a little bit more insight after I've handled it all or what not to do but yeah so we'll see how it all goes but yeah I'm very fortunate to have a good team and support system as well at home and professionally. And I think that's the

Courtney
0:31:55
thing that really changes it is do you have the team that's willing to help you make it work because it is a stress and it is a lot of juggling. And even still, we do wanna have a third, hopefully that's sometime next year. But even all of a sudden in this capacity, well, that means I'm an hourly, I lost my benefits,

Courtney
0:32:17
I transitioned to his, but I have to pick up disability on my own. What does that mean to go without pay? What does a future maternity leave look like? How are they going to function now? Because it is a, you know, my team,

Courtney
0:32:31
they got very excited that I was transitioning into this role because they're like, you know how to do all the things. You know how to work with all the customers. So if they're stuck, you know, not stuck, but you know, they're doing back to back to back

Courtney
0:32:43
customer calls all day, and hey, I need you to estimate this project or quote this thing out for me, or can you call so-and-so and ask if we're clear to ship something. You know, my team has full faith in me because they know I've done

Courtney
0:32:55
it all and they can trust me to do it. And so, you know, there's a lot of this of like, OK, just because you figured it out for one, like you said, OK, you got a third. It can be very well different the next go around. And so how do you how do you navigate that with each child? And again, knowing that it's a relatively short phase of life when you look at the, you know, the grand scheme of things of

Courtney
0:33:18
how do you navigate through this phase. And I've had a lot of people ask me, you know, how long do you think you're going to be part-time? And I said, I don't know. I could see, you know, five years be done, you know, get through this little kid phase and everyone's in elementary school and be done. Or I could see it being something that our family exists with, you know, for a while. Because like I said, you know, another thing that family is important to us, but community is also very important to us. And I, like I said, I am on our daycare board, but I've been able to use some of my time as well and

Courtney
0:33:52
give back to the community. And that's something we'll want to keep doing is being able to have somebody in our house who will be able to volunteer for things and give back. Because it's not lost on us that what we have in life is based on this, here in Monticello and the greater Jones County, we're very fortunate that people come and support our business.

Courtney
0:34:11
And so we wanna support the community back too. So yeah, that's a really long way of saying though that it's always changing. You just, you don't really know what the right solution is until you're into it. And just, if you have the right team

Courtney
0:34:23
and the right support system, you can survive it. It's kind of survival and hopefully you can thrive in it too.

Morgan
0:34:33
Yeah, and that's one of the conversations that my husband and I have had too is, and even, you know, I have younger siblings. My sister is somewhat in the ag industry, but more on the research side, but you know, she wants to have kids eventually.

Morgan
0:34:49
And she's like, how do I, how do I, you know, I went to college, I'm doing this job that I love. How do I balance being a mom and, and the career that I enjoy? And one of, one of I guess, kind of the epiphanies that I had is, you know, you can take a step back and not work at all, while your kids are, you know, zero to five until everyone's in school or whatnot.

Morgan
0:35:16
But I had to take a step back and look, what would I miss out on within the industry as well as the leadership opportunities, the skills that I would miss out on if I completely stepped away for that five-year period. Then it would be a lot harder to get back into the industry after being gone for that period of time because so much can change within that five year time span.

Morgan
0:35:49
And so, you know, being able to find a company where if you have the opportunity to take a step back and manage everything that you need to manage at that phase in life, and then just kind of like work yourself back in is really valuable.

Courtney
0:36:05
Yeah, and that's really where I mean what you're describing is exactly where all the things I was feeling and I so Morgan and I did technically cross paths prior to this life to that I did do a little bit of time as a recruiter. remember a conversation I had with a woman who was working in ag and she had stepped away for five years and she struggled to get back into industry and you know talking to her she was still very sharp but it was what you kind of described of you know you're not in industry what did you miss at that rate you know I could go with somebody else who's fresh out of college you're coming

Courtney
0:36:47
out of internships you know there's all these reasons that people were

Courtney
0:36:53
passing her over.

Courtney
0:36:54
And so that did stick with me too. And personally, you know, I am, I'm smart, I'll say it, I believe that I'm a smart person and I want to continue to challenge my brain in different ways. And I that's, you know, part of it too, is I didn't want to be out completely. But to be able to step back and manage it all for now, that's pretty cool. And I also think that, like you said,

Courtney
0:37:16
the skillset side is, in some ways too, I get to share my skills beyond my work now and beyond my team, is I get to use some skills within daycare board, within other committees, be able to, in small towns, people need that. They need professionals to be able to sit on their boards

Courtney
0:37:34
because otherwise you don't get enough skill set to infuse to keep things thriving. So that's also kind of like, got to keep it going a little bit.

Casey
0:37:43
Well, and I would say I never set out that way for my company to be that but I hope it continues to be like that to where Liliana wants to work nine to two. I can't afford to live without her. I consider her my partner. But I also try to put boundaries in to say nope she's not working nope she's not working right and it's sometimes hard but we make it work and you know I even have some people like your small business how can you afford

Casey
0:38:15
to give vacation let alone four weeks paternity leave and they said I can't come on to a public stage and say we need this if I'm not one to support this. And I think that's just really, you know, it's taken at bottom down leadership. But I love to hear your owners and your leadership at your company, supporting not just you, but others. And I think that's really cool to hear. And we need to get it out there, right? We need to say this is the new norm we have working parents and it's not just women some men want that flexibility too and they feel like they can't have that they

Casey
0:38:57
can't miss their work call or whatever afternoon at work to go to a school play and then I see so many parents on computers and phones at the game I could have been that one but I was like no I need to be present and live in the moment and it's just how can we breed that culture that work will wait and there's a lot of times after 8 o'clock I'm on the computer because my life with my son is from about 3 to 8 o'clock at night and then if I need to

Casey
0:39:33
wrap something up I do that so I finally got to the point, I don't feel guilty when I leave early, so I have time.

Courtney
0:39:41
And I think in our society today, we do, we have this pressure that everything needs to be addressed right now. It's this instant gratification culture, and that does, it makes it hard to say, no, this is going to wait a few minutes. And but drawing those boundaries is super healthy because everyone's happier. The happier you are, the more you're gonna work hard. And that's what I think that we've seen too is,

Courtney
0:40:10
you know, the three days that I'm in office, like our marketing gal has noted, she's like, I don't even talk to you Tuesdays. Like, if I'm gonna talk to you, it's gonna be like a Wednesday afternoon, because you come in and you just hammer it all out

Courtney
0:40:23
and get it done. And then you're out of there. It's like yeah because I would have a short amount of time to do it and those hours that I'm there I'm way more productive just because it's that's my you know designated time to be focused on that. And I do think you mentioned you know seeing men. I've had the privilege to watch one of my co-workers become a father this year and watching him go

Courtney
0:40:46
through it you know men don't talk about it enough, about how hard it is to be the traveling dad with a newborn at home. He's lucky, he acknowledges that it's really great to work from home the days that he is home because then he gets to see his child throughout the day, get a bottle here or there, or put her down for a nap.

Courtney
0:41:09
But it does extend beyond the women because it is, you know, we are turning to be a culture where we're reputting family first instead of workforce. And it does take company support and other people drawing boundaries to be able to achieve that.

Courtney
0:41:31
But the research is there that if you put family first, the future is a lot better for kids, get healthier, more connected kids if you have a present, you know, parent unit.

Casey
0:41:40
Well, I think there's still a lot to learn in workforce efficiency. You know, us Americans, we're wired differently than the rest of the world who take months of vacation off. And they seem to function quite well. But I think there's still a lot of, I call it the middle, mid to middle management losing their jobs like high paid earners. It's going to be interesting to see what shakes out in the next five years in society, but I'm excited to see ag leading the way. Family first.

Courtney
0:42:32
Family first. I like that. Well, I would say that, well, the choose one is hard, but I always like to lean on if you see something wrong, be the one to fix it. Don't assume someone else is going to make change. If you want to see change in the world, you got to be the change.

Courtney
0:42:54
That's why I tackled the things that I did for World Pork. There's the same reason why I'm on committees is that I want to see change. I want to see growth and opportunity for people and future generations. So you can't sit back and let that happen.

Courtney
0:43:09
It's stressful. It's hard. It's a lot of extra commitments, but I think it's really worth it. So if you want to see change, be the change.

Casey
0:43:16
Wow. That's awesome.

Casey
0:43:17
Well, until everybody, make sure you stay caffeinated. Thanks, Courtney. Thanks, Courtney.

Courtney
0:43:21
Thanks guys.