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Home > Michelle's Blog > Previous Postings > 06/24/08
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Previous Postings |
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June 24, 2008:
Three Farming StoriesI have a customer and friend whose name is Jerry Jenkins. He is the General Manager from Ursa Farmers Coop in Ursa, Illinois. He was to do a presentation last week at my National User Conference in the Leadership track titled “Innovation at Ursa Farmers Coop”. While preparing this presentation, he sent an email to me to make sure he was on the right track. At the end of his email, he wrote, “Sorry if there were typos on this presentation. I can’t be Handsome, Sexy and Literate too.” This is typical Jerry – always the jokester…
I laughed at this and sent back appropriate responses, to which he wrote this back. “Michelle, It just so
happened that my wife walked in while I was sending that email to you and saw my last sentence – “…Handsome, Sexy and Literate too.” But she didn’t say anything until I pressed the send button. Of course after being married for 34 years, she flew over the handsome and sexy stuff and went directly to the “Literate too” and said, “Honey – it’s not Literate too – it’s literate also.”
He went onto say it reminded him of a few years back when him and his wife were shopping for Christmas, and if you’ve met Jerry, you’d know that is a funny picture in itself – Jerry shopping. Anyway, they walked past a Victoria’s Secret (which when Jerry sent it to me, he wrote Victories Secret – I’m thinking if it were a man’s store, that would be a good name). He told his wife, “I’ll buy you anything you want in here honey.” And after circling once, he had had enough – especially with the strong looks from the girls that worked there. He realized he did not belong in Victories Secret, so he passed by Theres on his way out and said, “pick something out and I’ll see you later.”
That night, naturally anxiously to see what his wife had purchased, Jerry waited while she showered. Jerry said, “She proudly displayed her new….yes you guessed it …Flannel Pajamas.” He said, “What the hell is that?” You said, “Anything I wanted.” Jerry remembered saying, “Yes, I guess I did.” And fell asleep while Theres read a good book.
I am telling you these two stories because I wanted you to get to know Jerry first, before I follow this up with what’s happening to Ursa Farmers Coop, located on the Mississippi today, in an email I received from Jerry last week – a few days before he was to be a presenter at my conference.
Dear Michelle,
I have a problem I need to share with you. The Mississippi river has risen to extreme danger levels. Only 1993 has the river reached these levels in our areas. When that occurred, it flooded nearly 40,000 acres in which both our river terminals were surrounded by water. We rode in by boat each day all summer. We actually pulled a flat deck barge into/up against our elevator, hired Hugh vacuums machines from Texas, which were flown in by Schinook Helicopter and placed on the barges.
We cut holes in the bottom of the concrete silos and sucked the grain out of the bins. We spent probably 6 months getting the grain out of those bins, cleaning up, rebuilding the equipment, electric system, etc. and completed most all that just before the river fell to the level that allowed you to drive a truck into the town and our elevator.
That year the levee broke at the 27 foot river mark. Normally the river level is 14 to 15 ft. Today, the river is expected to rise to 23 feet. If we get more rains, that level will only rise until levees break. This situation has been building all spring with wet conditions, but not until yesterday did the corps of engineers release the above mentioned threat. Today we began preparing to sandbag and are currently loading the remaining empty barges before the Lock and Dams are closed due to high water.
We have millions of bushels of grain at risk if the levee breaks as it did in 1993. The immediate risk - over 1 million bushels of corn and soybeans valued over 10 million dollars. Do we have insurance? Yes the only insurance you can get is National flood insurance, where the policies are maxed out at 1.5 million in stocks. Even I can do the math and it’s not good.
You cannot haul out 1 million bushels by truck in a few days, plus there is nowhere to haul it. Anyone with a market down here is river terminals and they all are facing the same situation. Everyone that experienced the flood of 1993 must be called on to lead that procedure. I happen to be one of those people that endured that flood, along with holding the position of General Manager and must accept this responsibility.
As you know I like to kid around, keep things light when possible, but I take my responsibilities very seriously. I cannot think of a time in my professional career I have felt the need to back out of a promise, yet I feel I have to on this occasion. If I left my station during this time and something went wrong, I simply would not be doing my job as a leader. I would feel like the captain of a ship that was about to get hit by a tidal wave and then asked to be airlifted out. That is not how I lead.
Michelle this is a very difficult thing for me. I consider you more than a business associate, you are my friend. I realize we have not spent much time together but the visits we've had only strengthens my thoughts regarding you and your management style although much younger, fresher, smarter than mine, are very similar....We both value people and see the strength in them.
Please accept my apology for missing your conference. My employee, Karen, will still be coming and I will brief her on how to cover my presentation. If I really am a good leader, she will be able to do it better than I could anyway.
Your friend,
Gerald JenkinsI shared this story with you today because it’s a very heart-touching story and last week during my opening presentation, I also told this, and was asked to share it with the “Michelle Blog Readers”. So I hope you enjoyed it. Touch back in a few days and I’ll share with you how my other customers responded to this story. It’s quite something!!
Keep Smiling!
Michelle