Institute breeds potato industry's future leaders

MOSES LAKE - Potato industry leaders are not born. They are grown.

An increasingly global marketplace demands more business and political savvy from the industry's future leaders. They gain the skills from the Potato Industry Leadership Institute (PILI).

PILI is a joint venture of the National Potato Council (NPC) and the U.S. Potato Board (USPB) designed to educate and motivate growers to better the industry by taking on leadership roles in state and national organizations.

The 10-day program teaches participants about industry-wide issues. Each class is made up of 20 people who visit a growing region to participate in discussions on key industry issues, then travel to Washington, D.C., to brush up on public policy and learn the ins and outs of lobbying.

Twenty-eight-year-old Grant Morris attended the conference last year after his boss, Ed Schneider of Schneider Farms in Pasco, encouraged him to go.

He has learned more about the potato industry from the 10-day program than anywhere else, other than actually working on the farm, he said.

"I'd recommend it to anybody," he said. "It's a great experience and you learn a lot."

The program aims to get younger people involved in the leadership of the potato industry, because while their involvement in state and national issues may be limited now, five to 10 years down the road, they'll be the ones taking action with groups like the NPC and USPB, said Morris.

"This is a way to get people involved in the industry and kind of open up their eyes to what it takes to compete nationally, globally," he said.

He estimated that the average age of people in his class was 27 or 28, although a few older people have participated.

One of them is Lon Baley, who owns Baley Trotman Farms and Cascade Seed in Malin, Ore. He went through the PILI course when he was 49. Taking the time to go through the program was worth his time, he said.

"You're meeting people from all over the United States that you may not have the opportunity to meet without this," he said.

Baley made many friends by the end of the program and still stays in touch with about 15 of his 20 classmates, he said. That kind of networking allows alumni of the program to get help or advice when they need it.

"I get calls occasionally about a piece of machinery, or a new chemical, or what land prices are doing here compared to back East, and where we're getting our seed from and who's doing what, why, when and where," he said.

People from all over the country congregating in one spot allows them to share a variety of perspectives, he said.

"It's really nice to get the different perspectives," he said. "And a lot of times there's people involved in maybe a processing plant that aren't farmers or they have participants that work for a chemical company or a soil fertility company."

Rex Calloway, 53, owns Calloway Northwest LLC, a diversified crop farm in Quincy. He agreed that networking is one of the best aspects of the institute.

When demand for potatoes went down a bit, the supply of seed potatoes went down with it. Now that demand for potatoes is picking back up, the supply of seed potatoes hasn't quite caught up, which makes it somewhat difficult to buy them, said Calloway. But he met seed growers through PILI.

"Whenever seed gets a little tight, it was just a matter of making a couple phone calls to some guys that I had really gotten to know, but I had never really previously bought seed from," he said.

Even if they didn't have seed potatoes available, they gave him leads on where to find them, he said.

The institute does more than just build relationships. It teaches potato growers a wide range of skills outside the scope of farm work, like business dinner etiquette, interacting with the media, or lobbying in the nation's capitol.

For Baley, the institute has even touched multiple generations within in his own family.

"My daughter went through this program the year before last, and I was the co-chairman of the international committee on the U.S. Potato Board, so I actually got to attend the Washington, D.C., part with her," he said. "I've been pretty involved with two classes of that and it's just amazing to me the involvement, the concentration, the participation that you get out of the 20 people that are in that class. Everybody's committed to learn something and it's definitely a different perspective that the young kids give compared to us old guys."

It's all part of a shift in the way people communicate, said Calloway.

"Younger people, they kind of bring their own way of thinking about things," he said. "The world is changing. How we communicate is changing. Younger people are more into social media things, such as Facebook and whatever, and those are valuable tools to communicate. I think it's kind of the younger generation that's going to take that step forward, more so than the older generations ... We need the guidance from the older people, but I think the young people have a lot to offer also, in their own way."

Morris agrees that the younger participants actually have opportunities to be teachers rather than pupils, noting that the industry is trying to use new media to reach out - something his generation understands better than anyone.

At this year's National Potato Expo, the U.S. Potato Board released an iPhone application, he said.

"It seems like that's something that someone in their late 40s or 50s - they know it's out there, but that's not the first thing that pops in their mind," he said. "You talk to someone that's my age or even younger, and that's the first thing that pops in their mind: if you want to communicate with somebody, the first thing you go to is Twitter and Facebook and apps on iPhones and Droids. That's the first thing you think of, so it brings a new point of view, and I think it helps the industry understand more of the next generation coming up and what it's going to take to market to them, or the issues they're going to face."

At the end of each year's class, the participants select one of their classmates to serve as the "Grower-Leader" for next year's class.

The Grower-Leader serves as a mentor and assists the NPC and USPB staff throughout the program.

Morris returns to this year's PILI as the Grower-Leader, a role he's eager to fill.

"It's a real honor to be chosen by your peers to go back," said Morris. "And I feel very fortunate. I'm looking forward to going back."

He anticipates learning more the second time around than he did the first time. Being unfamiliar with a lot of the issues discussed the first time around put him on his heels, he said.

"The second time, I think you can kind of calm down and really take stuff in," he said. "The focus isn't all on you this time."

Calloway was the 2011 PILI Grower-Leader.

"Being the Grower-Leader, you had just recently been through the class, and so you were kind of basically just their guide, just their mentor," he said. "The class kind of takes on their own identity ... You don't want to steer them too much, you just want them to develop on their own. ... They're together for about 10 days and you know they don't know each other, but they're in a tight knit group and they kind of get to know each other and they grow together. So you kind of stand in the background and give them help when they need it, and back off and just let them do their thing.

"The class that I led, they were a wonderful, tremendous group. They were pretty young, but they bonded together very rapidly, and they grew together and they worked together and they helped each other and it was just a great experience to see, kind of from the sidelines watching in.

"We just need people and I think the leadership institute is a great way to help you get involved, and to encourage you. And I think it gives ... some of the people that have been in the industry for a long time, they're eventually going to step back and you need people to fill their shoes. And so I think it highlights some young people, and that way they can encourage us to stay involved, and keep pushing us forward."