Growing Careers in Ag Bioscience with Amy Jo Jones

In this episode of See Yourself IN, host Casey Harrison explores Indiana's advanced industries with guest Amy Jo Jones. Growing up on the first farm in Indiana to use robotic milking technology, Amy shares her journey from rural life to becoming the Director of People Development at Advanced Agrilytics. She discusses transferable skills, lifelong learning, and the importance of ag literacy. Amy provides insights into the ag bioscience industry, its impact, and how non-farm individuals can get involved. 

Key Takeaways

• Ag biosciences are essential to Indiana's economy: The industry has grown significantly in recent years, and there are many opportunities for people with diverse skills.
• Lifelong learning is crucial for success: Amy Jo emphasizes the importance of continuing to learn and adapt to the changing landscape of the ag biosciences industry.
• Networking is essential: Building relationships with people in the industry can help you learn about new opportunities and advance your career.
• Don't be afraid to try new things: Amy Jo encourages listeners to step outside of their comfort zone and explore different career paths.
• There are many opportunities for people with diverse backgrounds: The ag biosciences industry is becoming increasingly diverse, and there is a need for people with a variety of skills and perspectives.

For more resources on the jobs, companies, and opportunities in Indiana, visit
https://www.cicpindiana.com/syi/  

Transcript

Casey Harrison: Welcome to today's episode of See Yourself IN, where you'll learn about cool jobs, people, and companies in Indiana. You'll also hear about skills that will help you find success. And most importantly, we hope they inspire you to dream big. I'm Casey Harrison, your host. On today's show, we're going to dive into Indiana's advanced industries and why they're important.

We'll talk about the skills that are transferable across jobs and industries and determine some of the best ways to begin exploring these great opportunities. Today's episode features Amy Jo Jones, who grew up getting her hands dirty on the farm. Amy's family was the first in Indiana to utilize robotic milking technology on their farm, giving her a front row seat at the intersection of ag bioscience and technology.

She's a passionate advocate for lifelong learning, and she's going to share how she honed skills on this episode of See Yourself IN. 

Amy, welcome and thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited. Absolutely. We are too. There was a spoiler alert in your intro, but we'll, we'll come back to it.

You're a lifelong Hoosier. I am. I want you to take our listeners back and tell us a little bit about life growing up in Indiana and what's kept you here. 

Amy Jo Jones: Maybe not a lifelong Hoosier. I'll say I'm a lifelong Boilermaker. That's fair. I had to do that for all my Purdue fans, but yeah, Amy Jones. I grew up in Star City, Indiana, which is as little as it sounds.

It's about two hours north of Indianapolis in a really small community. I grew up on a dairy farm there, so Star City's population is about 200. Most recently, when I tell people where I'm from, they ask me if it's a Hallmark City. You know, like from a Hallmark movie. It hasn't happened yet, but you know, it could happen.

Stay tuned. Yeah, maybe a dairy farm. I don't know. But I grew up at a dairy farm and really enjoyed that, but knew I didn't want to do that for all of my life. So I had an opportunity, was always a Purdue fan, went to Purdue. I studied there, worked there for a while, and then I really wanted to do something different, but I really love the state of Indiana because of all the opportunities that it has, because of the cost of living.

It's exceptional here, which has allowed me to honestly be able to afford to travel to so many different places and experience new things that, gosh, I just really like Indiana for a living. 

Casey Harrison: We're going to go back and unpack all of that today, but I want to start with so growing up in such a small town and probably going to school with all of your neighbors, like everybody was together all the time.

Do you remember thinking about what you wanted life to look like after graduation? 

Amy Jo Jones: Honestly, it's funny you should mention that because when I was in high school, all I ever wanted to do was be a stay at home mom. Like, that's what I wanted. So folks listening, I happen to be 37 years old and single, never married.

So one of the questions at the end that I know will address is kind of that your, your definition of success can change. And so I really thought I would be on the farm and in rural Indiana and I enjoy going back. I certainly do, but currently live in downtown Indy, really enjoying it and. Not what I would have expected.

I think if I would have sat across the table from my 18 year old self, she would be like, we're, we're where? With who? Doing what? 

Casey Harrison: Really good. Well, and she'd probably be like, and you're really happy doing that? I think that's really cool to think back that way. Did you know that college was going to be your post graduation pathway?

Amy Jo Jones: Yeah, so I would say definitely was interested in and going to college at a young age. My family is a family of Purdue Boilermakers. So my oldest brother has an ag engineering degree. My sister got an animal sciences degree. My brother went there for art education and graphic design. So I wouldn't recommend this, but Purdue is actually the only place that I applied to go to college.

It was also the only place that you could study agriculture at the time. So as I think about progress and, and honestly, in Indiana, like the progress of agricultural education from a university standpoint has, has really grown tremendously. 

Casey Harrison: And we're going to get into that a little bit now because you shared and we spoiled it again in the, in the intro today that your family was the first in Indiana to have this robotic technology on the farm. How did that come to be? 

Amy Jo Jones: really got to a moment where hiring folks and having them on hand, my dad will admit he is not a people manager. He's not great at managing people. So I can say that online because he'll agree to it. And we got to a point in our family where the milking system that we currently had was run down.

And so my dad has always been interested in early adopting of technology. So he and my mom toured several different robotic dairy farms in the country. We were 10th in the nation. So there weren't that many at the time. And we sat down as a family and really discussed what it would mean for us. It would put us in a financial hardship for a while, but it would increase our ability as a family to kind of keep it in the family.

And so, even today, my mom, dad, and brother are the full time employees, and then my sister and I are kind of Part time, part time help. I sometimes call it my National Guard duty because I go up about one week in a month and two weeks a year, but it's been a little bit more frequent and certainly not the same as our National Guard honoring our country and, and fighting for it. But that's kind of, it's a cadence. Similar notion, I'm feeding, you know, feeding the world. 

Casey Harrison: You are. Well, so, and for those of us who aren't that maybe familiar with the ag biosciences industry, like, let's talk a little bit about how maybe as a, as someone, young adult. That moment really helped you realize that, oh, this work, this farm is a lot bigger than me and it's a lot bigger than our family.

Amy Jo Jones: Yeah, for sure. So when I was in high school, not interested really in agriculture because the dairy, it's a hard work and it's time away from friends and I'd had to do chores before I could go have fun and we didn't have vacations and it just felt like a lot of work. And then when my family adopted the robotic technology, it really brought in this opportunity for ag literacy.

So people touring from. countries, various countries around the world. Almost all 50 states have been to our farm and having people ask questions like, I thought my milk came from the grocery store or like, I didn't know there really wasn't a chocolate milk cow. Like those things as agriculturalists, we frequently joke about, but it is true.

I mean, even most recently someone said like, I don't understand why farmers are harvesting their own corn. I just get mine from the grocery store. There was this whole level of, I think, And being in rural Indiana, I just thought most people knew where their food came from. That really opened my eyes to realizing, like, I do want to study agriculture.

And that's why I went in and didn't know anything about plants. So that's actually how I chose my major, which is not how I would recommend someone chooses their area of study, but it really went into landscape horticulture and design because it was an area of agriculture I knew nothing about and then moved into ag education as my master's. So got back into kind of people and teaching. 

Casey Harrison: Oh, man, that's incredible. There's so much to unpack there, but we're going to get to it. So before we go into your career journey and really talk about how you leverage your education to create a life path for you, I think it's important that our listeners know that Amy, you work in the ag biosciences industry here in Indiana, which really does have a tremendous footprint across the state from 2019 to 2021, which is a three year spanm Indiana's ag biosciences industry grew by 6 billion. And yet I know there are people listening saying, I have no idea what ag bioscience is. So maybe we'll start with, could you define what is ag bioscience as an industry? 

Amy Jo Jones: I would describe ag biosciences as life sciences. So as you think about life and food and clothing and even medicine, I think is an area that people don't often think of or associate with the ag biosciences, but we're thinking about nutrition. A lot of our pharmaceuticals are made from plant products. I mean, we have biochemistry corporations and organizations who are studying medicine, but it's all agriculture. And I think something else that people forget is forestry is a really large part of the agricultural industry in Indiana.

Specifically, we're really known for that. We've got popcorn, we've got ducks, you know, there's a lot of. different commodities that the state of Indiana supports in an agricultural function, but also as you just think about the biosciences, honestly, it's really anything with life, plants, animals, people, like, that's agriculture in the ag biosciences.

Casey Harrison: Let's also talk a little bit about, you shared when you were at Purdue, working for Purdue, you did some research that was really important and pivotal in the industry. So let's have you talk a little bit about your career trajectory after you finished your master's and then some of the work that you've been a part of.

Amy Jo Jones: Like I mentioned, grew up on a dairy farm, bachelor's in the horticulture, master's in ag education. So my story goes, I like plants more than animals and people more than plants, most days. So after getting my, my master's in education, I worked for the 4 H Youth Development Program for two years. So I worked for the Cooperative Extension Service and then had the chance to go back to campus as a plant sciences recruitment and outreach coordinator.

So focused in plant sciences because we knew that there was going to be a talent shortage in that area of agriculture. So getting maybe non traditional, non farm youth interested in the ag biosciences. And then I served as an assistant director for the entire College of Agriculture as their undergraduate student recruiter for two years.

And through my seven plus years in recruitment, I would survey the freshman class coming in and talk to them about resources, why they chose their major, and kind of helped me, it helped inform me for future recruitment years, but also just gave me a really great data. And 100 percent of the majors, there were 31 at the time at Purdue, 100 percent of them, the reason they went into agriculture was to make a difference.

And I think that's something with our industry like you can make an impact really in whatever way small or large that you want to. 

Casey Harrison: Today, Amy, you work as the Director of People Development at Advanced Agrilytics. So how did you make the decision to leave that role at Purdue and what attracted you to Advanced Agrilytics?

Amy Jo Jones: So I had been at Purdue almost 10 years and I had actually thought about getting my PhD. With the academic system, if you want to move up, you've really got to get more education. That's part of its kind of functioning structure. And I kind of had this moment where I realized I should take the advice that I've been giving students for the last 10 years of getting out of my comfort zone and trying something different.

And so I actually, I give myself micro goals every year. And so in 2020, I had put interview three people who I thought had interesting jobs, not like change jobs, just start looking at what's out there. And I had interviewed a lady on LinkedIn. I'm a huge LinkedIn networking so I'd send her a note just saying like, Hey, can I talk to you and about your job?

And she worked in L&D and we chatted and she said, gosh, you sound like previous me, younger me. And I said, well, what would you tell younger you? And she said, go to a scale up because in a scale up for one year of a scale up, it's like three and a larger organization. So you'll learn really quickly, get adapted into industry and have a lot of different skill sets.

And I would say that has been my journey with advanced agrolytics. I've been here. I've been here. three and a half years, uh, started in training as a training lead, have moved into like a director role now. So director of people development. 

Casey Harrison: So what does a director of people development do at a company that's focused on agriculture and metrics and analytics?

Amy Jo Jones: It's a really fun job. So actually, most recently last week, we just hosted our interns. So we have 36 interns at Advanced Agrilytics because what we're really trying to do is collect data, meaningful data, to be able to make our algorithms more robust, to build our software, to help us build better prescriptions and recommendations for our growers. So intern program is a huge part of it, as well as orientation programming, goal setting. Any company events, learning events, or otherwise, even social, my team tends to host. 

Casey Harrison: Oh, I love that. Sounds so fun. So maybe micro and then zooming out to macro a little bit. I mean, for people listening who maybe weren't on a farm in their childhood, but are hearing things that are really interesting to them, how would you recommend they start getting connected to the ag biosciences industry or even learning more about what all that encompasses in Indiana?

Amy Jo Jones: If you're in Indianapolis area, I think the agronomist is a great connection and CICP great connections to start doing networking. I know Agrinovus does a conference called Quadrant every quarter. It's a great time to just network and learn new things. I think the other maybe perception about agriculture and ag biosciences is people think like they they can't get in if they didn't grow up on a farm and truly the industry is so diverse.

There is no way there's someone who knows everything about everything. I actually, I'm taking care of my sister's property this week and she has chickens and I know nothing about chickens. It's terrifying. I'm not a chicken lady. I am a plant lady, full stop. And so just start asking questions. Honestly, if you go to like your local farm bureau, you can get connected.

Ag literacy is a huge part of it.We were just talking about the Indiana State Fair. Like, go to the fair, ask questions. Folks in the Ag Biosciences body are really interested in educating others and making those connections. 

Casey Harrison: And what if you're in the industry and you're trying to leverage the full expanse of the industry, I mean, good places to build networking relationships, what are some of the recommendations you might have?

Amy Jo Jones: Again, AgriNovus is good. I would say, honestly, like using the university system is good too. Cooperative Extension has a lot of connections as well. There's several different agribusiness councils that you can get involved in both like generally and there's also a women's specific. There's a few different women in agriculture conferences that are helpful as well.

And I would just honestly, LinkedIn is a great source for me too. Just like this is not promotion from LinkedIn, but really love getting connected to those types of groups as well, I would suggest. 

Casey Harrison: What I love about your story is that you're so knowledgeable in the ag biosciences field, of course, but I think you also talk about doing work that's people centric.

And I think that's maybe not what comes to mind when people think about agriculture or horticulture or forestry. And so what would you say to people listening that maybe have skill sets that are not in ag biosciences about the opportunity that they still may have in this industry? 

Amy Jo Jones: My first response is we need you.

I think that is a huge part of ag biosciences is the need to continue to diversify and adjust. We know that the industry is advancing pretty rapidly. I mean, the, the idea of robotic milking systems 20 some years ago, it was 2003 that we installed those and things are just continuing to progress in technology.

I think about Advanced Agrilytics and our software system and using things like aerial imagery, like the industry as a whole is moving and needs to move fast because of the growing population. And really the, the pressure to do things more environmentally sustainably, smarter, more efficient, like all of those things require a different workforce.

And so we need people who are interested in those things. We do need peoply people because agriculture is people too. So how do we get people plugged in into where they fit in? But definitely my first response is we need you. 

Casey Harrison: So plug in. I mean, I think that goes back to that 6 billion increase over three years as an industry here in Indiana. I mean, I think that means there's a lot of opportunity. You just have to connect with it. What are, what makes you so passionate about this industry, this work, what you're doing? 

Amy Jo Jones: I would go back to honestly, the students say it best all of that, that data that came in. It's just an opportunity to make a difference.

And I think that's probably part of the reason I also enjoy the people side of it. Think about my Purdue days and connecting with a student. I mean, I would come down to Indy all the time to try to recruit students who are interested in sciences to help them understand like agriculture is science. And getting to experience their stories and see where they go, it's so fulfilling.

So even now as a Director of People Development, still getting to do that, I actually, they were a student, but now they're a full time employee. So in their intro, they were like, Oh yeah, Amy met me when I was in eighth grade. I'm like, that's not possible. I'm 25 years old. I don't know. I'm never aging.

Really getting to go along the journey. And that's the other thing I would say with ag biosciences is it's a slow process. small industry, hopefully getting bigger with more workforce, but it's a smaller industry. So you really get to connect with people and see their journeys as well as the industry's journey 

Casey Harrison: that has to be so fulfilling.

Amy Jo Jones: Yeah, it's worth waking up for. 

Casey Harrison: Oh, I'm sure. Before we go at the end of each episode of see yourself in, we ask our guests to share three lessons that you've learned on your career journey that could be really helpful for people listening as they either start or navigate theirs. So I will turn the mic over to you for your three recommendations.

Amy Jo Jones: The first one I would say is don't be afraid to be yourself. I think that oftentimes it can be uncomfortable to just be yourself in spaces. So get comfortable with who you are. And then kind of spaced with that is get to know people who are different than you. I think that's the only way all of us learn is to be willing to meet others where they're at and learn from them.

So it's almost like love yourself. Love your neighbor. The third thing I would recommend is trying new things. So I kind of have a life mantra called Camp Try New Things. It's why my sister convinced me to be able to take care of her property this week. It's like, Hey, be a chicken lady. Try new things, Amy Jo.

And I'm like, okay, but never be afraid to try something different because you have, you have no idea what you're capable of. I think we, we oftentimes think and put ourselves into a box of this is who I am. This is what I work in. Think differently and it will really improve your life. 

Casey Harrison: Fantastic advice. Amy, thank you so much for joining us today. 

Amy Jo Jones: Thanks for having me. 

Casey Harrison: We're so glad that you were able to join us today to learn about Indiana's advanced industries and how you can start or enhance your career journey. Until next time, we hope that you'll be able to see yourself in the unlimited opportunities in Indiana.