Still true to agriculture
By Steve Fairchild

Awarded an MFA Foundation Scholarship in 1989, Susan Rhode now works outside of agriculture but is still an advocate for the industry

Talk to Susan Rhode for a few minutes about agriculture or architecture and you get the feeling she knows what she’s talking about. They’re quite separate disciplines, of course, but Rhode has insight to both. She speaks confidently about agriculture because that’s her background. A farm girl from Stet, Mo., Rhode showed cattle throughout her formative years and used an MFA Foundation scholarship to pursue agriculture in college, graduating in 1993 with a degree in agricultural journalism. She spent the first part of her career at Osborne and Barr, a public relations firm, where she represented animal health accounts and followed that with a long stint in communications for the American Angus Association.

Rhode speaks confidently of architecture because these days she is editor for a magazine called Designer, which is published by HNTB, a major engineering, architecture and planning firm with offices across the United States. Rhode started working with HNTB 3 years ago, making the move out of the agriculture industry to trim the amount of travel she had to endure and to focus on her young family. Now she commutes from her home in Gower, Mo., to downtown Kansas City to work.

Still an advocate
Rhode’s career is representative of what many young ag professionals face in today’s business climate. Consolidation on the farm means fewer people return to the family farm. And consolidation in industry means there are fewer truly agricultural positions to fill. Job seekers discover they must look outside of agriculture or be willing to move to places where ag jobs are on offer. While some who leave agriculture feel a pang of nostalgia for what they’ve left behind, or worse, that they’ve forfeited a sort of allegiance to farming, Rhode doesn’t see it that way.

Through her career at the Angus Association, Rhode learned how to professionally communicate and move in PR circles. She says those are skills that transfer.

“I moved from agriculture to engineering, architecture and planning, and, wow, what a change it was,” she said. “I had to learn a lot about the infrastructure business, but when you make the move like I did, one thing doesn’t change: You still communicate.

“People in agriculture tell you that you won’t meet better people anywhere. But no matter where you go, I think you will find good people. Taking time to hear from them is the thing. No matter where you go or what you do, people are the key to success. I try to learn everything I can from the people around me.”

And the people around Rhode discover that while she is learning, she is teaching.

“There are people who have given me a hard time about leaving agriculture,” she said. “But I tell them that I now have [urban] friends who get a good lesson about agriculture much more often than they would if I wasn’t there.”

Rhode said that people who have grown up on farms but not gone into agriculture can be among the industry’s best ambassadors. She pointed to programs like the Angus Association’s Junior Angus Association. The group’s membership is larger than the number of kids who will be able to return to the farm or find a job in agriculture, which could be said for FFA as well. But these organizations still turn out youth that are well trained to achieve in the world and can tell the story of agriculture to people who probably wouldn’t otherwise hear it.

“Not all farm kids can go into farming these days,” said Rhode. “So we teach them the morals, roots and values and let them take agriculture into the world.”

Never really left
When Rhode’s co-workers ask where she’s commuting from, she tells them it’s north of Smithville, Mo. And they reply with an incredulous “Really?” as if she’s driving down from Canada every day. But Rhode and her husband Jeff made a conscious decision to live in a smaller town back when she was working in St. Joseph at the Angus Association.

“I grew up in Stet, for heaven’s sake,” she joked, explaining why the family likes Gower, population 1249, for its manageable distance to both Kansas City and St. Joseph.

So in a sense, Rhode hasn’t left agriculture or the rural world. In fact, her husband Jeff is from a farm in Illinois and still part owner of an Angus herd there. And her sons, Isaac, 4, and Gavin, 2, have taken to being cattlemen themselves.

“Isaac got his first cow when he was 1 and now he has a bull and three cows,” said Rhode. Gavin isn’t far behind. “We bought these animals from Missouri Angus breeders. The goal is to keep turning that money over and grow the herd so it can be savings for college,” she said. But for her, the ties to livestock go deeper than evening chores, college money, or the ribbons and trophies from her show days.

“Really, it’s securing us a family experience,” Rhode said of the time spent acquiring and helping care for her children’s livestock. “And that goes farther than just Jeff and me; it goes to our parents. We all want our kids to share our love for the beef industry,” she said.

From there to here
It’s a Today’s Farmer tradition to ask former MFA Foundation scholarship winners to offer advice for today’s youth.

Rhode offered an anecdote that’s true anytime you get a group of like-minded youth together.

“When I was in Ag Econ 50, a big introductory class, I looked around and saw that these folks would be my future co-workers,” she said.

“So today I’d tell kids that they’ve got to get involved. Anyone can get an education, but getting involved helps set you apart. In college, your life starts now. And what you do from college forward is shaping what you’re going to be,” she said.

Those are sound words from a professional communicator who made her way up in agriculture—and true words for someone who has a day job in the city but agriculture in her heart.

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