Virtual Sharing Wisdom Event:
“Get Out of Your Rut“
Happened Live on Tuesday, March 14 at 12:00 p.m. CST (1:00 p.m. EST | 11:00 a.m. MST | 10:00 a.m. PST)
We all feel like we’re in a rut from time to time in our personal and professional lives. Ruts can happen in your personal relationships and career, but how you handle it is what matters. This session was created for you to advance your on and off farm personal and professional relationships by experiencing how others handled similar situations and learning new strategies in the process. During this virtual Sharing Wisdom event, we invite you to connect in the discussion with other members, hear tips and experiences from our speakers and attendees and achieve success by building healthy relationships.
We are so excited to welcome a variety of speakers to this year’s Sharing Wisdom. To kick off us off, Hank Wagner (Wagner Leadership Training) will open the session by discussing how to create a personal strategy to create a plan to get out of your personal or professional rut.
Next, you will have access to all 3 breakout rooms:
Advancing Your Career On Farm:
Are you currently working on a dairy farm and looking for opportunities to grow in your role? Are you not sure how to explore different opportunities that you could have on the farm? Are you looking to learn new skills along the way to help you become a stronger leader too? Or maybe you are looking to gain insight into how you can navigate relationships with your supervisors and co-workers to grow in your role? Join us to hear how Kate Kulp of Kulp Dairy Farm LLC took steps to do just that, what skills you need to develop, and how to advocate for yourself and your worth to advance in your role on the farm.
Speaker: Kate Kulp, Herd Manager/Partner, Kulp Family Dairy LLC
Moderator: Amy Dicke, DVM, Hilltop Farms Inc
Advancing Your Career in Sales:
How do you go about making a sale? Asking questions and listening. Showcasing your full potential. Standing out and telling your story. Overcoming objections. Now, when it comes to advancing your career in sales how do you maneuver that? How do you show up at a farm oriented and confident ready to make that great pitch, gain their trust, and leave knowing you have a new customer? Join us to hear how Bobbi Jo Brockmann, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, at ImmuCell Corporation utilized her knowledge as a field sales rep for dairy and beef producers to get where she is today and the skills that helped her along the way.
Speaker: Bobbi Jo Brockmann, Vice President Sales & Marketing, ImmuCell Corporation
Moderator: Julie Veldhuis, Director, Business Development, LF Bioenergy
Advancing Your Career Through Relationships:
How can you be more intentional about building strong professional relationships? How can you build relationships with industry partners, customers, and your co-workers to be help you become more successful? What skills can you employ to help you be a good leader or a good co-worker? Join us to hear how Bob Hagenow, Sales Manager/Business Unit Manager, at Vita Plus has built strong professional relationships over his 35-year+ career.
Speaker: Bob Hagenow, Sales Manager/Business Unit Manager, Vita Plus Corporation
Moderator: Bec Shaw, Global Content Marketing Manager, Zinpro
To close the virtual event, all participants join back together for a presentation by Angie Coleman (FCCS Consulting) on generational communication and how to work with people from multiple generations.
Meet the Speakers:
Opening Keynote Speaker: Hank Wagner, CEO, Wagner Farms and Wagner Leadership Training
Hank Wagner, along with his amazing wife Pam and two children Shawn and Laura, own and operate multiple businesses. One is a fifth-generation dairy farm where they produce enough milk to provide a glass of milk to over 165,000 people every day. Hank is also founder of Wagner Leadership Training and loves to help people understand how leadership impacts every area of our lives. Hank has been involved in many organizations and has held numerous leadership roles. He also writes articles for numerous publications and has authored two books, Teachable Moments and Simple Miracles. Hank is a frequent speaker across the United States and internationally. Hank believes that people are what is most important in life and is passionate about helping others be more aware of their potential for success, in every area of their lives.
Closing Keynote Speaker: Angie Coleman, Organizational Development Consultant, FCCS Consulting
Angie Coleman is an organizational development consultant with FCCS, where she leads the employee engagement survey practice, administers and consults on assessment instruments, and supports executive selection engagements with expert research. Prior to joining FCCS, she founded and managed a consulting firm focused on human capital strategies, organizational development, employee engagement, executive coaching and executive development. She also worked for YoPro Global, bringing western professional education and training techniques to underserved and underdeveloped countries. Angie earned a bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies, education and science from Graceland University and a bachelor’s degree in professional psychology from Bellevue University, where she is also pursuing a master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology. She is a certified coach with the International Coaching Federation and is certified in numerous assessment instruments and engagement survey tools, including the Gallup Q12, BP 10 and Strengths Finder.
Breakout Session: Advancing Your Career On Farm
Speaker: Kate Kulp, Herd Manager/Partner, Kulp Family Dairy LLC
Kate Kulp is the herd manager and a partner at Kulp Family Dairy LLC in Martinsburg, Pennsylvania. After graduating in 2020 with an associate degree in business from Penn State Altoona, she returned to her family farm. Kate spent the first 18 months learning operations and shadowing various employees before moving into a management/owner role. Kate now works to oversee 3,000 milking cows and around 30 employees.
Moderator: Amy Dicke, DVM, Hilltop Farms Inc
Amy Dicke is an experienced dairy producer in Southwest Ohio. She farms with her husband and son, which makes five generations of family that have been dedicated to the dairy industry. Amy’s passions are family, which she and her husband feel fortunate to have raised five children, being part of an industry that produces a product providing essential benefits to others, and good stewardship of their land and livestock. Her educational background includes a BS in Dairy Science and a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine from The Ohio State University. Amy spent close to four decades practicing veterinary medicine, initially in a private mixed animal practice followed by a corporate technical services/scientific communication role with The Iams Company. Her last five years have been exclusively dedicated to their dairy, during which robotic milking technology was installed. Amy’s primary responsibilities are managing the husbandry of the young stock, providing herd preventative, sick and emergency health care, performing the majority of the artificial insemination, and handling the accounting and livestock records for the farm.
Breakout Session: Advancing Your Career in Sales
Speaker: Bobbi Jo Brockmann, Vice President Sales & Marketing, ImmuCell Corporation
An entrepreneurial mindset, farm-kid work ethic, and respect for the power of a team have led to Bobbi Jo Brockmann’s more than 15 years of sales & marketing leadership in both the nutrition and pharmaceutical segments of animal agriculture. Bobbi is accomplished in reinventing brands and developing strategies that increase product acceptance while truly serving others. She is currently the Vice President of Sales & Marketing for ImmuCell Corporation. But much like the book by Robert Fulghum titled “All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten” she will insist that all she really needs to know about business, she learned as a field sales rep calling on dairy and beef producers. She is adaptable, leads with passion, believes in the impossible, and her enthusiasm is contagious.
Moderator: Julie Veldhuis, Director, Business Development, LF Bioenergy
Julie Veldhuis grew up in Southern California to parents who were second generation dairy farmers. Her grandparents immigrated here from Holland and she has had the opportunity to dairy in CA, NM, ID and WI. After graduating high school, Julie went to a travel agency school; she knew then that she wanted to see the world. As a second opportunity, she attended a trade school to learn computer operations as she is an IT geek at heart. While a dairy farmer in Idaho, she served five years on the United Dairyman of Idaho board and three years on the National Dairy Board. In 2012, she relocated to WI where she spent the next eight years loving everyone and everything it had to offer. Julie also served one year on the Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin board of directors. Fast forward to March of 2022, she accepted a position with LF Bioenergy and helps the company partner with dairy farmers to build renewable natural gas projects while helping them meet their sustainability goals. She now resides in ID where she can be close to her children and grandson. Her greatest accomplishments are her four exceptional children. When Julie is not working, you will find her on the golf course or in an airport making new friends.
Breakout Session: Advancing Your Career Through Relationships
Speaker: Bob Hagenow, Sales Manager/Business Unit Manager, Vita Plus Corporation
Bob Hagenow has been an employee owner at Vita Plus Corporation for over 35 years. Vita Plus is a regional feed company based in Madison marketing livestock feeds and programs largely in the Midwest. During this time, he has held numerous roles including territory manager, sales manager and regional business manager. Prior to Vita Plus, Bob worked for 2 years at the National Brown Swiss Association in Beloit, Wisconsin serving as a field representative. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and hails from a dairy farm from Northeast Wisconsin. Bob currently lives in Poynette, Wisconsin with his wife, Lisa. They have two daughters attending the University of Minnesota both majoring in Agriculture. Bob has spent his career attempting to build healthy, productive and long-lasting relationships with industry partners, customers and fellow employees with the intent of helping them become successful.
Moderator: Bec Shaw, Global Content Marketing Manager, Zinpro
Growing up in Central Pennsylvania, Rebecca Shaw started working on her grandparents’ dairy farm and raising show animals at home. She earned a major in Agribusiness Management and a minor in International Ag at Penn State. Rebecca works for the Cargill dairy marketing team. She is a Class 10 graduate of YDLI, a Class 11 Advisory Board Member, a 4-H Dairy Bowl Coach, a guest contributor for Progressive Dairy and received the Penn State Dairy Science Club Outstanding Young Alumna Award in 2019 for her work within the industry.
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