May 13, 2024

Women come Full Circle: WCFA initiative assists with career discovery process

By Martha Blum

At the first Women Changing the Face of Agriculture event in 2010, Haley Pfaffe met a lady working at Pioneer that became her mentor. This year, Pfaffe together with nine additional Corteva employees talked with students about their job responsibilities during the career fair portion of the event that reached over 650 students. (AgriNews photo)

DECATUR, Ill. — Haley Pfaffe has participated in the Women Changing the Face of Agriculture event several times, including the first one held in 2010.

As a junior at A-C Central High School, Pfaffe attended the WCFA event organized by the Illinois Agri-Women because she saw it as an opportunity to figure out her future plans.

“I grew up in a small town and I was very involved in FFA,” she recalled. “Science has always been a part of my background since my dad is a chemistry and physics teacher, so it was something I wanted to do.”

However, since Pfaffe didn’t grow up on a farm, she didn’t think there was a spot for her in agriculture because she didn’t have those experiences growing up.

“I went to the Pioneer booth because my grandpa sold Pioneer seed and I recognized that symbol,” she explained. “I thought that was a safe place.”

At the booth, one of the Pioneer representatives talked about her job that included working in the field and collecting data.

“She mentioned that she didn’t grow up on a farm and her college degree was in psychology,” Pfaffe said. “I thought I should be able to make this work too so we talked a little more and she became a mentor for me and helped me get some internships with Pioneer.”

After graduating from Western Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in agronomy and from the University of Illinois with a master’s degree, Pfaffe worked at Monsanto for several months before a position became available at Pioneer’s Macomb Research Center.

“My job with Monsanto was more lab focused and I really want to be outside,” Pfaffe said. “This job with Pioneer and now Corteva has allowed me to be outside.”

As the senior research associate, Pfaffe works on corn research and is part of the predictive agriculture group.

“We test up and coming technologies to help our research group,” she said. “We’re working with drones, robots and developing apps to help our research happen quicker and get products out to growers in a more timely manner.”

Pfaffe finds great value in the WCFA event and is one of several young ladies who is part of the Full Circle Initiative that was started for the 10th anniversary of WCFA to highlight participants that have used contacts from WCFA and Illinois Agri-Women to find jobs in agriculture.

“Finding that mentor at the Pioneer booth was huge and that’s why I’m such an advocate for it now as a professional coming back,” Pfaffe said at the event held this year at Richland Community College. “I want to see Corteva have a presence every year because I find such value in it.”

Last year, Pfaffe was the only representative from Corteva in the career fair portion of WCFA.

“This year, I pursued with the company early on to get a grant to sponsor WCFA, so this year Corteva is a gold level sponsor,” she said. “I brought along nine other women from the company and we had two booth spaces, so we’re on a good trajectory now and I hope this continues.”

Kelsey Litchfield

Kelsey Litchfield is also a Full Circle member who attended WCFA during her senior year of high school in 2013.

“It was at Southern Illinois University that year and I had already decided I was going to U of I to study ag communications,” she recalled.

“I went to WCFA knowing I wanted to learn more because you can go into any field with ag communications, so I wanted to get more specific on what I wanted to do,” she said.

WCFA helped Litchfield learn about the vast number of opportunities available in the agricultural industry.

“I remember thinking that I’ve made a really good choice to be in agriculture,” she said.

Litchfield graduated from the U of I with a degree in agricultural communications in 2017. As a U of I student, she was a member of Illini ACT and assisted with WCFA during the years it was held in Urbana-Champaign.

“We did social media for the event and photography, which was a really great opportunity,” she said. “I thank IAW for allowing ACT members get that hands-on experience that we’re always looking for outside of the classroom.”

This year, Litchfield served as a liaison between the WCFA planning committee and the ACT chapter.

“I really applaud the Illinois Agri-Women for evolving this event year after year to stay relevant to what’s going on in the ag industry and putting a face to the amazing work some of these women are doing,” she stressed.

Currently, Litchfield is the marketing manager for the Galesburg Area Chamber of Commerce. In addition she owns her own business, Kelsey Litchfield Creative.

“I do digital marketing, social media and website design for small business owners,” she explained. “I have also worked with Colleen Callahan’s consulting business and she was the one that got me started with my own business.”

For more information about the Illinois Agri-Women, go to www.illinoisagriwomen.org.