Use your moxie to serve, help people

NORMAL, Ill. — A person with moxie has courage, determination and energy.

“Moxie is not about ego or arrogance — it’s about determination,” said Colleen Callahan, founder and owner of Colleen Callahan Consultancy.

“It’s about being able to withstand the storm and still be able to do what you believe is the right thing to do and what needs to be done,” said Callahan during the keynote presentation at the Generations of Women in Agriculture Across America event, a project of Illinois Agri-Women.

Callahan’s moxie started to develop long before she became the first woman agribusiness director at WMBD Radio and Television in Peoria.

“It started when I was giving my grade school declamation speech at the county contest,” she said.

The young student enjoyed writing and public speaking.

“I knew that declamation content cold, but I was so nervous that I raced through the speech and fell three seconds short of the required time to qualify,” Callahan recalled.

“No one beat me that day — I beat myself,” she said. “That never happened again and I got a little moxie with that experience.”

Callahan was raised on a purebred Hampshire hog farm near Milford and her dad traveled throughout the United States to judge livestock competitions.

“I liked judging, and on the very last contest when I was on the judging team, my dad was one of the officials,” Callahan said. “When I got to the hog class, I wondered how my dad had placed them.”

“I had already marked my card, but at the very last minute I erased it and changed it,” she said. “If I had left the placing the way I had originally marked it, I would have been the high individual and my team would have won the contest. But I didn’t, I wasn’t and we weren’t.”

Another experience for Callahan, where she didn’t get what she wanted, but she learned from it and gained some moxie.

After working 30 years in farm broadcasting, Callahan decided to leave her position and start her own communication business. One day she received a phone call from the chief of staff for the U.S. secretary of agriculture, Ann Veneman.

“I was asked to accompany the secretary of agriculture to the Middle East during the Gulf War,” she said. “I hardly knew how to react. It was such an honor to be considered.”

Initially, Callahan declined the offer, since she already had a prior commitment with her communications company.

“But the truth is I was scared and I had never been in a war zone,” she noted.

“I told my husband about the interesting call I got and that night I learned more about his Marine Corps combat experiences that I didn’t know prior to that because he did not talk about it,” she said.

“So, I emailed the chief of staff about 3 o’clock in the morning and said if the offer is still available, I accept,” she reminisced. “That was on a Wednesday and we left on Friday.”

Once Callahan and the three other civilians boarded Air Force Two, they were given three books on the countries they were going to visit.

“From the moment we got on the plane, it was complete immersion in reading those books about the culture that I would be experiencing,” she explained.

“I studied what I needed to know, when I needed to know it and it was a life-changing experience,” she said. “And it led to another experience when I was asked to run for Congress, which was not on my day planner.”

The person who had won the primary decided not to run for the office a few weeks later and the county chairman asked Callahan if she was interested.

“I grew up in a politically active family, but I always said I would never run for office,” she added.

Callahan decided to run for Congress in the 18th District. However, the voters did not select her as the winning candidate.

“I did not achieve the goal, but I did not lose,” she stressed.

“It was an incredible experience and I have no regrets,” she said. “I could never have imagined that after that experience I would be asked to be the Illinois state director of USDA Rural Development, but I accepted that position.”

“Someone along the line saw something in me that I didn’t recognize that I could be the person to lead that agency,” she said. “It is probably the best job I ever had because every day I was helping people throughout rural Illinois.”

Callahan was also the first woman to lead the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

“I am not a hunter, but what really matters is that you can lead people who are the experts,” she said. “I learned that being a leader is not much different than being a parent — you have to be firm, fair and consistent.”

“But none of that works very well if you do not follow the three Cs — communicate, collaborate and connect,” Callahan said.

“I am so convinced of those three Cs, that I now have a certificate hanging on the wall in my office from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, that says ‘communicate, collaborate and connect’ belongs to Collenn Callahan Consultancy,” she said. “It is foundational for everything that we do.”