C Magazine - Winter 2018

C People

Cynthia Clanton 2018-02-01 15:29:29

Walk the Talk

Brittany and Travis Long, Bowdon, N.D., joined other young cooperative leaders at the 2017 CHS New Leaders Forum in early December.

Cooperative roots run deep in central North Dakota. Travis Long can remember his grandmother teaching classes at the local co-op when he was a youngster. “It seems like our family has always been involved with cooperatives.”

Now Travis is beginning his own cooperative leadership career as the newest member of the Fessenden (N.D.) Coop Association board of directors, elected in April 2017.

Why commit to service as a local co-op director? “I wanted to learn more about how the cooperative makes money,” he explains. “There has been a lot of growth and expansion, and patrons were asking questions. It didn’t seem right to make comments about the cooperative’s direction without knowing why those things were going on.”

Travis farms near Bowdon, N.D., with his brother, Devin. They rely on Fessenden Coop for seed, fertilizer and other agronomy inputs. They also run 200 Red Angus cows on native pasture. Travis’ wife, Brittany, works off the farm as a county public health nurse administrator and is working on a graduate degree.

Travis and Brittany Long are raising their daughters to be proud of their agricultural tradition. But tradition alone won’t keep ag — or cooperatives — strong.

“If you want to make change, you have to be involved,” Brittany says. “We’re trying to get other young producers on boards. The cooperative system needs them to take on leadership roles.”

The Longs and 110 other emerging leaders from 11 states attended the 2017 CHS New Leaders Forum, held in early December in conjunction with the 2017 CHS Annual Meeting. Averaging 32 years of age, nearly half represented farming operations of more than 2,000 acres.

They spent a full day at the forum, networking with other future leaders, practicing strategies for effective leadership and communication, and gathering information on CHS and related businesses. The group then attended CHS annual meeting sessions before heading home to their farms, ranches and local cooperatives with new connections and a deeper sense of the value of being part of the cooperative system.

LEARN MORE: Get more information on the CHS New Leaders Forum at chsinc.com/new-leaders.

Published by CHS Inc. View All Articles.

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