21 minute read
Alumni Council Update
Get to Know Alumni Council Liaisons and New Leaders
BY ABBY TAYLOR-SILVA (45), CALF EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT
OUR ALUMNI COUNCIL (AC) IS VITAL TO THE CALIFORNIA AGRICULTURAL LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION (CALF). IT PROVIDES CRITICAL FEEDBACK TO OUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND STAFF TEAM ABOUT THE LIFELONG LEARNING INTERESTS OF OUR ALUMNI, KEEPS OUR ALUMNI CONNECTED WITH ONE ANOTHER AND FACILITATES CRITICAL RECRUITMENT EVENTS WHICH GUIDE AND WELCOME THE NEXT GENERATION OF FELLOWS. CRUCIAL TO THE AC ARE THE LIAISONS WHO KEEP INFORMATION AND COLLABORATION FLOWING. WE HIGHLIGHT SIX OF THOSE LIAISONS IN THIS ISSUE OF HORIZONS AND INTRODUCE YOU TO THE AC’S NEW CHAIR AND VICE CHAIR.
Manpreet Bains (43)
Alumni Council Education Team Liaison Partner, Manseena Orchards, Four Leaf Farms and Far Horizon Insurance Sacramento
Manpreet Bains joined the CALF Education Team as the Alumni Council liaison in early 2021, where she plans to focus on improving communication between the Alumni Council and the Ed Team in an effort to build trust, transparency and collaboration through the amplification of all stakeholder voices.
Bains and her sister, Sureena Thiara, created Manseena Orchards when they took over operations of their parents’ farm where they grow walnuts and prunes. She is also in a partnership with her parents and sister in Far Horizon Crop Insurance, a family business her parents established in 1986 when the crop insurance program was just beginning to roll out for specialty crops in California. She is also a partner in Four Leaf Farms, a new partnership, among both family and friends, where they grow almonds and walnuts.
Days are quite varied for Bains due to work, volunteer activities and personal life, but the constants in her days include reading through a few newspapers and starting the New York Times Spelling Bee in the morning, which she tries to finish every night with a perfect score. Depending on the season and day, she travels to Yuba City to her family’s office, where she regularly sees her sister and her parents, who are in their 80s, but still in the office every day.
“While the four of us together don’t always make for the most productive work environment, we do have a good time and I am grateful that as a family we have all committed to meeting each other where we are in order
to maintain a healthy work/family balance,” said Bains. “My parents deserve a great deal of credit for starting succession planning early so that we all had the time and space to grow into our roles. They are certainly still involved—but they have done an amazing job stepping aside and making room for us.”
Bains shared that her friendships from the program are the most important things that she carries with her from Ag Leadership, even communicating daily with some of them. She also takes our mission “we grow leaders who make a difference” seriously. She noted that the program opened the door for her to participate on boards and commissions at the local and state levels and she sees those responsibilities as a privilege, and borrows a phrase from Hamilton, saying “To be in the room where things happen, I feel it is incumbent upon me to acknowledge who is not in the room, to examine what difference we are trying to make and for who.” This, for Bains, opens up the opportunity to think beyond intent and concentrate on impact.
Going through the program, Bains learned that her personality is such that she is most satisfied if she is in a near constant state of learning and processing, but understands that is not how everyone else engages in knowledge. While she genuinely enjoys learning from other people who can make her aware of her blindspots, she knows that for some, this is not a comfortable place to be. So, in her daily interactions she is mindful of that and tries to simply consider where their point of view came from in an effort to plant a seed of curiosity.
As the Ed Team liaison, Bains knows that working with the team to keep our program and organization relevant is critical and she hopes to hear from our AC on needs related to continued leadership learning. She shares that while as fellows we all walk away from our program inspired, encouraged and motivated to make change, we also go back to deeply entrenched systems that are not always amenable to change. Bains believes that a way to combat this challenge is to create a support system for alumni to turn to when they are in the trenches and it feels uncomfortable to be the outlier. In addition, she thinks it is incumbent upon the Ed Team liaisons to capture what CALP/CALF is doing in respect to learning so she can share that information with the AC so they can convey to the alumni the goings on at that level. Developing this two-way communication from alumni to foundation and foundation to alumni will allow for useful feedback, build trust and ensure that our program remains authentic and transparent.
She encourages alumni to reach out to her however they feel comfortable, always promising to keep the conversations confidential, unless otherwise agreed upon. She notes that our curriculum has seen a lot of changes and those changes will continue to happen, a topic that can create uncertainty for some. If she can create better understanding through dialogue to ensure that our alumni do not feel left behind or left out, then she will consider her impact in this new role a success.
Sandy Fiack
Class 29 Liaison Agriculture Industry Association Specialist, Zenith Insurance Company Glenn
As the liaison for Class 29, Sandy Fiack always makes sure her updates are both informative and entertaining for her fellow classmates. She loves the messages she gets back and enjoys keeping those connections alive.
Fiack’s husband farms rice and walnuts and they have three young kids. When she is not on the road for an ag association meeting, conference or farm show, she works from home. The Fiacks are early risers and usually have kids bathed and dressed, breakfast completed, homework done, kitchen cleaned, animals fed and lunches packed by 7:30 a.m.! Since the pandemic began, she finds herself on the computer, talking on the phone or attending virtual meetings. However busy she gets, she tries to make time for a daily nature walk and fresh air and to make healthy meals for her family.
Sandy says the connections made with other graduates from the Ag Leadership fellowship is something that stays with her every day. The connections happen all the time—whether seeing one of her classmates post a family picture on Facebook, running into someone hundreds of miles away from home at a gas station, getting a birthday call or text or bumping into (or virtually seeing) someone at a meeting. All of these moments bring joy and meaning to her life and work. She says the fellowship with classmates and alumni is like having a tightly connected family with similar goals and lifelong friendships.
In the program she learned to consider problems and solutions from alternative perspectives. She notes that many people feel justified in their opinion and it is important they feel heard. Also, the skills gained as a presiding fellow really resonated with her and she still focuses on thinking through questions for speakers, ways to engage the audience, sending thank you notes, making everyone feel comfortable and keeping things running smoothly as valuable lifelong skills.
She remembers that her class spent nearly a whole day together sitting on a small airplane waiting to go to the Gobi Desert, when they had to cancel their plans because of a wind and sand storm. Instead of their original plans, they rode in a bus off the main highway in Mongolia for an impromptu stop at a small camp of nomads outside of Ulaanbaatar. They invited the class into a “gher” (a traditional round tent-like dwelling) to share some traditional food (cheese curds and donut holes) and showed them their Mongul ponies and cashmere goats. She recalls their astonishment at the number of goats one of the fellows shared they had on their commercial farm, and being amazed at the dried grass they fed them bundled together with string—very different than the bales of alfalfa hay produced at Creighton Farm in Kern County. She says that although their spirits had been crushed, they went from sheer disappointment to having one of the most memorable experiences of their international seminar!
Fiack’s favorite part of being class liaison is that it keeps her connected continued on page 6 with people. The role helps her to make it a priority to regularly reach out, reconnect and stay updated about what is happening in everyone’s lives.
Danny Merkley
Class 19 Liaison Director, Water Resources, California Farm Bureau Federation Sacramento
As liaison for Class 19, Danny Merkley keeps his fellow classmates up-to-date on events and news from the foundation. In his role with the California Farm Bureau, Merkley spends much of his time reading, analyzing, listening and talking to members, legislators and regulators. As the water lobbyist for an organization as large and diverse as the California Farm Bureau, he is constantly balancing the priorities of their diverse membership, which can be particularly challenging as it relates to water issues. He monitors daily the activities of the California Legislature and regulatory agencies, so it is key that he knows what legislation has been introduced, amended, scheduled for a committee hearing or a floor vote. He notes that it is especially challenging to stay abreast of what regulatory agencies and their staff are coming up with as he works to advocate before the Legislature and regulatory agencies on behalf of California’s farmers and ranchers.
Merkley is reminded of his Ag Leadership experience daily, as he recalls the importance of hearing, understanding and working with others. This is especially true when their thinking or perspective is so different than yours that your first instinct is to push back because they must be wrong. He says that listening skills and understanding someone’s perspective, even or especially, when it is very different than yours is something that he learned in the program that he tries to help others work through in his actions.
He says that Class 19 felt a strong bond that still lasts today. Despite day-to-day lives being insanely busy, whether it be jobs, businesses or family, they work to remain connected. He notes that Class 19 was special because they had a tremendous balance between women and men, more women than any other class before them, and ages that ranged from 20s to 50s.
Merkley enjoys being a class liaison because it helps him to connect with his classmates from more than 30 years ago. Helping to keep them connected makes him feel good and keeps him in the role.
Julie Morris
Class 33 Liaison Founder and Co-Owner, T.O. Cattle Company San Juan Bautista
As the Class 33 liaison, Julie Morris serves as the bridge for her class and the foundation, ensuring everyone is kept up-to-date on the latest news. She and her family manage rangelands on the Central Coast and produce Morris Grassfed Beef, which they directmarket throughout California.
For Morris, every day is different. Depending on the season, she is either packing boxes for shipping, working in the office on administrative duties, balancing accounting and/or marketing tasks, planning events or preparing their on-ranch Airbnb for guests. She and her husband work as a team. Joe does most of the field operations with the cattle and horses, as well as working with butchers to process their beef. She handles everything else.
“It’s Joe’s job to get the beef to our delivery spots, and it’s my job to get the customers there,” said Morris.
Morris says Ag Leadership was a game-changer for her. She has a degree in journalism from San Diego State University and worked as a journalist for the first 10 years she lived in San Benito County. After their children were born, she stayed home with them for a few years and began transitioning to being more involved on the ranch. When their youngest child started school, Morris decided not to return to journalism and instead focused solely on their business. People had been telling her husband for years that he should apply to Ag Leadership but he always thought he was too busy. When she looked into the program, she said, “Well, if you’re not going to apply, I am!”
For their family, it was perfect timing. Jack, their youngest, had started school and Julie was ready to devote more time to working on the ranch. Ag Leadership helped her jump into the industry and introduced her to many wonderful people and mentors.
Julie notes that Class 33 was very diverse, with members who worked in agriculture, for the EPA and the UFW. Even though they came with varied viewpoints, their discussions were always respectful and they formed strong friendships. The program’s daily influence on her is in remembering that we all have more in common than we realize and we can work together to achieve outcomes that benefit everyone.
“It’s our job, as agriculture leaders, to be involved in our communities and to build those bridges between rural and urban populations,” said Morris.
A lecture by Leon Panetta has stayed with Morris through the years. She remembers him saying that to get things done, you have to work in the “gray areas”—nothing is black and white. Watching the divisive politics of the last four years, she has tried to remember that. As much as she may disagree with someone, she comes back to the “gray area” and tries to focus on what they can agree upon. We all want safe, healthy and thriving communities. How do we work toward those outcomes? She says informing people with balanced and factual information is one of the most important things ag leaders can do because wellinformed people are able to make better decisions.
For Julie, being class liaison is a great way to stay connected. Since Ag Leadership was such an influential and positive two years of her life, she likes to remain supportive of the program. She remembers that when she and her classmates were accepted into the program, they all promised to give back. Helping her class stay involved and nudging them to contribute every year is her way of doing that.
Sal Parra (46)
Alumni Council Education Team Liaison Farm Manager, Burford Ranch Partner, Coyula Farms San Joaquin
Sal Parra serves as one of the Alumni Council’s liaisons to the Ed Team, made up of representatives of the foundation’s partner universities. As a liaison, he brings ideas and feedback from the alumni to the ed team, as they consider opportunities to build upon the curriculum’s foundational principles and learning objectives.
Parra’s daily life keeps him on the road frequently. As a farm manager, he checks on a geographically scattered 12,000 acres made up of 11 crops and also keeps up on his family farm’s 1,000 acres of almonds, pistachios, alfalfa hay and wheat.
His responsibilities are familiar to most farmers: irrigation, fertility, pest control and management of equipment and labor. When he isn’t on the road, he is working from his home office, managing regulatory documents and company budgets and finances. At home, he loves to spend time with his wife, Ramona, and 9-year-old daughter, Linda. He shared they had recently created a “fun jar” where they add different activities they can all do together every evening after dinner. They mix the jar and draw a strip. They have sung karaoke, made art with materials from their yard and taken bike rides.
Parra credits the program with teaching him to love and respect all humans. He knows his decisions and actions play a big role in people’s livelihoods, so he always tries to lead with love for his fellow brothers and sisters.
“The program really helped me grow as an individual by becoming more assertive and recognizing my role as a leader,” said Parra. “I use that assertiveness every day to positively impact our company as well as my own family.”
Regularly, Parra tries to instill the principal of open-mindedness in those around him. Whether it be at work or with family, he recognizes that it is a quality that helped him as he went through the program and continues to help him every day with problemsolving, which is something he encourages others to experience.
Parra recognizes that in his role as a liaison to the Ed Team, it is important to provide relevant and current information and feedback in both directions. This is important to him because it helps the Ag Leadership Program to continue to evolve in order to stay relevant in an ever-changing world, while staying true to its foundational core of leadership from the inside out.
He has found that the best interactions come from meaningful conversations with alumni. At times, those conversations can initiate with a text. While he finds it best to connect via a phone call as much as possible, he encourages alumni to reach out through whichever form they are most comfortable.
ALUMNI COUNCIL UPDATE Bill Van Skike (32)
Alumni Council Board Liaison Foreign Asset Manager, Wegis & Young Bakersfield
For the past three years, Bill Van Skike has served on the Ag Leadership Foundation’s board, and for a decade he’s been a leader on the Alumni Council, shepherding that committee through various changes and updates. In his daily life, Van Skike spends time working on various endeavors related to energy and production agriculture in the United States and a few African nations, specifically in Algeria and as a director to Plexus Mozambique and a consultant to Plexus Uganda. His role in these countries is to help growers improve their practices to better sustain their operations, the majority of which are subsistence farms. With his support, the goal is to help them sustain cash crops, provide jobs in their communities and build healthier lifestyle choices. As an energy consultant for A-C Electric Company, he provides guidance related to commercial and industrial solar projects in California and is also looking into solar projects in various African countries, which will assist farms in running water wells and machinery to make their farms more productive.
Van Skike loves experiencing other cultures and helping people learn to help themselves when they are malnourished, underfed and under pressure to do more with less.
“California agriculture isn’t just the commodities we produce and technology we create, it’s the dissemination of that knowledge around the world—and that’s exciting,” said Van Skike.
From his Ag Leadership fellowship, Van Skike learned the importance of being present when having a conversation, be it virtual or in-person. When he’s in another country, he works hard to listen and hear from the other person’s perspective, treating people and their cultures with respect. This opens up meaningful dialogues and allows him to encourage significant change that helps his partners in these regions. He has learned the importance of stepping into an understanding of the view, perspective and life of the other person in order to get to a meaningful impact for both. This focus on communications, slowing down to make sure the words are heard as intended (especially when interpreters are involved) so that he’s conscious of continuously checking in to make sure there’s understanding both ways during the conversation, has been a critical tool he learned from the program.
Van Skike’s continued engagement in the AC stems from his love of the foundation, and the enjoyment he gets from working with other alumni to bring great new candidates into the program and promoting and encouraging continuous, lifelong learning among alumni. He’s relied on regional directors to provide the pulse and also to disseminate information back to the regions.
He notes that it is important that alumni feel they’ve been heard and understood. He takes that responsibility very seriously and likes to connect in whichever methods they prefer, be it text, e-mail or phone. As a member of the strategic planning steering committee, Van Skike is delighted to keep engaged in Ag Leadership, saying he can’t wait to see what we do in the next 50 years!
Steve Dodge (49)
Chair, Alumni Council Co-Founder and CEO, Acuity Agriculture San Francisco and Ventura
This February, Steve Dodge was elected to lead the AC as its chair. In that role, he will lead the AC during and post strategic planning while shepherding the council through next steps related to meeting the alumni engagement goals in that plan.
Dodge generally starts his day with an hourlong open-water swim in the San Francisco Bay, followed by a walk in Golden Gate Park with his fiancé and dog, before getting a jump on his work day. As CEO of Acuity Agriculture, which builds ranch monitoring systems for farmers - including soil moisture sensors, inline irrigation and climate sensors - he spends time checking in with team members and reaching out to partners, investors and different customers every day.
When he reflects on the program’s impact on his life, he shares that reading “Leadership and Self-Deception” made a large impression. He leans on its teachings every day, and remembers not to judge a person based on their reaction to something, or how they hold themselves. He learned to always be thoughtful for every situation you find yourself in, and to slow down and think before you act and speak.
“People have a number of things affecting them that influence their daily actions and ‘Leadership and Self-Deception’ does a great job of breaking down how to connect and be productive when it’s hard,” said Dodge.
Dodge also appreciated Grace Flannery’s presentation on power and the power cycle—helping him understand more about how power is derived. He has now incorporated those learnings into education and team building with his sales representatives.
“Understanding where your power comes from helps you to become a better leader and problem solver,” said Dodge.
Becoming a member of the AC in 2020 opened Dodge’s eyes to all the facets of his region and its expansive agricultural crops. He enjoys getting perspective from people who were in earlier classes, and has learned a lot about the history of Sonoma and Napa agriculture by connecting with those alumni.
In his new role as AC chair, Dodge is looking forward to bringing positive energy to the team and helping to facilitate awareness and execution of the vision of the program. Dodge loves to get behind a solid team and push their ideas forward, helping them come to fruition. He is excited about the team we’ve created, both on the AC and the staff. Alumni are welcome to contact him at any time to share ideas and ask questions.
Heather Mulholland (44)
Vice Chair, Alumni Council Chief Operating Officer, Mulholland Citrus Orange Cove
Heather Mulholland was elected in February to serve on the AC as its vice chair. In that role, she will support the chair, as well as the regional directors, in their efforts to engage alumni throughout the state.
As the chief operating officer of Mulholland Citrus, her days are constantly filled with new challenges and excitement. She starts each morning loading up her dogs, who join her in the office, and taking her daughter to preschool. At work her role is broad—spending time both in the field and the office. She practices servant leadership with her team and through service on industry and community boards and committees, including Ag Leadership, Western Growers and the Boys & Girls Club. She also enjoys a fun family life with lots of time spent in the mountains, enjoying the outdoors, paddle boarding, skiing with her daughter and more.
Mulholland is forever grateful for her Ag Leadership experience, saying she would not be in the place she is today without the lessons learned in the program.
“I grew immensely as a person through the experience,” said Mulholland. “The tools gained in Ag Leadership help me to be self-reflective, cognizant of my emotional intelligence and flexible in navigating change. The program also fostered a strong dedication to servant leadership and a passion for lifelong learning that touches all aspects of my life.”
Mulholland is especially grateful for the friendships made with classmates who have become some of her closest friends and most trusted advisors. She knows she can always look to them for honest feedback. She carries with her the lesson, which she gained from the program, of seeking to understand before seeking to be understood. She tries to practice that daily in her personal and professional life. This awareness resonated with her so much that she and her husband incorporated the principle into their wedding vows.
Mulholland joined the AC as Region 6 director in 2019, and she was delighted to work with the very passionate and involved alumni in that region. She notes that many in the alumni network have mentored her, and she has learned from their leadership styles and paths. She appreciates, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, that there is great connectivity with the regional directors via monthly Zoom calls. In her new role as vice chair, she is looking forward to furthering connections with alumni and is excited to work with the CALF staff and regional directors to serve the alumni community. “The energy that Steve Dodge brings in his role as Alumni Council chair, combined with the dedication and talents of the members of the Alumni Council, make me confident that the connectivity within our alumni community will continue to strengthen,” said Mulholland.
She encourages alumni to reach out to her any time, via phone, text or e-mail.
Find contact information for Alumni Council leadership at AgLeaders.org
