By: Sabrina Burkiewicz, External Communications Manager, GROWMARK
When Keith Hamilton, location manager at the Gateway FS Baldwin Agronomy plant in Red Bud, Illinois, hired two women to run his chem shed and dispatch operation, he knew he was bucking tradition, but he knew they had the characteristics and work ethic to be successful on the job.
Convincing the farmers who they service that they could do the job was something else entirely.
“The farmers are wide-eyed when they see me roll out on a forklift. They try and tell me how to drive it, but I know what I’m doing,” Lexi Luebkemann said.
Lexi, the crop protection warehouse manager at Baldwin Agronomy, went to Lakeland College for ag production and management. She’d had one job before this one but when she felt ready to transition to the next leg of her career, Keith reached out at the right time and encouraged her to apply for the position he had open.
“Keith had faith in me and he was a great mentor during my first year. During the second year, he put a lot of trust in me and that made me feel good,” she said.
Taylor Wendle who studied agronomy, crop, soil, and environmental management at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, had worked a couple of years at a local crop production facility right out of school before being hired by Keith as a manager trainee. She said she’s definitely felt out of place, as a woman, at different points in her career.
“I have felt out of place at times in my previous role and as a new person I was always asking questions, but once I got my bearings, I started to gain confidence in myself,” Taylor said.
Taylor said she’s always known she can do anything anyone else can, despite her gender, and that’s empowered her to try for any job she felt she’d be a good fit for. “It doesn’t matter that I’m a woman because I can do anything anybody else can. My best advice is to do what you think is best for you and don’t worry about what anyone else thinks,” she said.
Taylor said she has also raised some eyebrows as a woman running a forklift. “As a woman you are grossly underestimated and just starting behind everyone else,” she said. “The farmers are so used to working with men that it does take a little while to prove yourself and gain their trust.”
Keith said he’s proud to have two women running his chem shed and even prouder that they’re running a large chem shed with five sprayers covering 120,000 acres with two salesmen. “These young women are knocking it out of the park and showing everybody, our customers, and the GROWMARK System, that thinking outside of the box can lead to big benefits.”
Keith’s advice to anybody hiring in the ag industry? “You should give someone a chance who you may not think can do the job and I bet the surprise the heck out of ya,” he said.