How do you know so much?

People ask me that from time to time, or tell me they would want me as one of their lifelines on a game show.

The short answer is that I didn’t learn it all in one place, and I haven’t stopped learning.

It came from school, work, raising livestock, reading, traveling, and people who were willing to share what they knew.

By age 12 I had my first checking account and loan and was leasing acreage. During my years in 4-H I owned more than 100 head of sheep and showed at seven fairs a year. I also showed a few hogs, beef cattle, dairy cattle, and horses. That was an early education in responsibility. There were animals to care for, money to manage, and work that needed doing.

College added another layer. I studied agricultural business, economics, accounting, finance, marketing, statistics, chemistry, mechanics, and communication. Looking back, it was quite a mix—soils, fertilizers, surveying, construction, and heavy equipment operation on one side; business law, personnel management, physiology, and art appreciation on the other. My senior project gave me extensive exposure to the world of agricultural appraisal.

Then came the working education.

My jobs ranged from frying chicken at KFC and grading papers in junior college to working in feed manufacturing. I went through operations training, warehouse supervision, quality assurance, second- and third-shift supervision, maintenance, and plant management in feed and pet food.

Eventually my responsibilities included manufacturing leadership and domestic and global grain operations and engineering. Later came continuous improvement work across the breadth of ADM’s processing divisions, then consulting, writing, and developing educational programs.

Those were not just different titles. They were different views of how a business works. Quality, maintenance, production, logistics, engineering, and management all have their own responsibilities, but they have to work together. Having worked on several sides of those relationships gave me a broader view.

At ADM my desk was on the trading floor. I was surrounded by people working in grain origination, truck, rail, barge, and vessel logistics, and grain merchandising on a global scale. That gave me a daily opportunity to learn about parts of the business beyond the facilities themselves.

I also sat in on Saturday morning strategic planning meetings as the lone operations guy in the room. I brought the operating perspective, but I was learning too—seeing how commercial decisions, transportation, and facility capabilities fit together.

My responsibilities also included negotiating labor agreements and other contracts and handling arbitration cases. That was another kind of education: working through disagreements, paying attention to the details, and taking responsibility for decisions.

I developed a detailed safety program for my division before we had a corporate program, and I introduced a new onboarding process for our operations management trainees. Those were opportunities to take what I had learned and put it into something other people could use.

Continuous improvement work took me into operations beyond feed and grain: flour mills, oils, soy products, cocoa and chocolate, railcar repair, packaging, warehousing, and other manufacturing operations. Some projects involved equipment and production. Others involved inventory, working capital, and accounts receivable. Each added something I could draw on the next time a question or problem came along.

Work and play took me to 46 states and 22 countries, exposing me to places and sights I had once only read about or seen on TV.

Seeing Halley’s Comet through an opening in the northern lights. Watching mist rise from the falls at Foz do Iguaçu. Seeing a ship appear to sail through the sand as it passed through the Suez Canal. Watching the wildebeest migration on the Serengeti plains from a hot-air balloon. Observing a giant clam feeding on the Great Barrier Reef.

Those and many other adventures gave me memories for a lifetime.

Outside work there were other kinds of learning: gardening, cooking, brewing beer, camping, boating, scuba diving, and community activities. I also like to read and keep up with national and world news. Geography, history, and the study of different cultures have always interested me. They give me more ways to understand the places I’ve visited and the people I’ve worked with.

Looking back, curiosity is probably the common thread.

I’ve also been blessed with an above-average memory. That has helped me hold on to things I’ve learned and draw on them years later. I pay attention to details, but I also like to step back and look at a problem from a different angle. Sometimes that means looking beyond the way something has always been done. And I’ve been willing to take ownership and make decisions. Knowing something is one thing. Taking responsibility for what you do with that knowledge is another.

But I certainly didn’t learn all of this on my own. I’ve always tried to surround myself with knowledgeable people who were willing to share what they knew and teach me. My education didn’t stop when I left school, and the person teaching me didn’t have to be standing at the front of a classroom. Not everything I learned came with a course number, a certificate, or a job title.

I still try to learn something new every day. Right now I’m working on educating myself about artificial intelligence and automation and how they can be applied in agriculture. That means being a student again—asking questions and connecting something new with the operations I already know.

So when someone asks, “How do you know so much?” my answer is really this: I’ve had a lot of opportunities to learn, and a lot of people willing to help me. School gave me a foundation. Work gave me responsibility. Travel and reading broadened my perspective.

Other people shared knowledge I wouldn’t have gained on my own.

I don’t know everything. But I’m interested in a lot of things, I have a lot of experience to draw from, and I’m still learning.

ARE YOU EXPANDING YOUR KNOWLEDGE DAILY? IF NOT TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO START.

Best

Grain Guy Fifty