Saying Yes to New Opportunities with Hayden Rowe

In this episode of See Yourself IN, host Casey Harrison talks with Hayden Rowe, a Purdue University graduate and Senior Business Analyst at Calumet. Hayden shares his career journey, from growing up in a blue-collar family in Indiana to working in renewable jet fuel energy and using data intelligence to create opportunities across various industries. Hayden shares how his upbringing and education led him to a versatile career that constantly offers new challenges. He offers important advice about taking opportunities, continually learning, and the importance of asking questions. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Embrace Opportunities: Be open to new roles and responsibilities even if they don’t align with your original career plans.
2. Transferable Skills Matter: Skills like problem-solving, collaboration, and data analysis can apply across multiple industries.
3. Continuous Learning: Whether leading training sessions or learning new tools, staying curious is key to professional growth.
4. Building Relationships: Creating strong relationships with coworkers can accelerate learning and career success.
5. Indiana’s Career Potential: Advanced industries in Indiana offer diverse and exciting opportunities for growth and innovation.

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. This episode features Hayden Rowe, a Purdue graduate who leveraged his interest in business to land a role at Calumet. Today, Hayden's working to support the country in renewable jet fuel energy, just to name one of his projects.

He's early on in his career path, and yet Hayden's already making strides by immersing himself completely simply by saying yes. Tune in now to hear his story. Hayden, welcome to the See Yourself IN podcast. 

Hayden Rowe: Thanks for having me. 

Casey Harrison: We're so excited that you're here today. We jump right into the episode. So let's start by talking a little bit.

You shared that you went to Purdue University but take us back to even before then. Are you from Indiana? 

Hayden Rowe: Yeah. So I was born and raised in Northeast Indiana near Fort Wayne, moved to West Lafayette for Purdue and then Northern Indiana after I graduated. And so my whole life's been here. 

Casey Harrison: You're a true Hoosier.

Hayden Rowe: Yeah. Wow. Careful. 

Casey Harrison: Okay. So let's go back to life in high school. High school is always a really interesting time where things are in transition. And a lot of times students are forced to think about life after graduation. Were you one of those students that had clarity on what you wanted to study in college?

Hayden Rowe: Yeah, I think so. I grew up in a pretty blue collar family. I'm a small blue collar family. I'm an only child, I'm an only grandchild on my mom's side. I only, I have four cousins on my dad's side. And between my cousins and I, we're the first generation to really get four year college degrees.

From there, obviously you grow up around a lot of people. Most of my family straight into the workforce out after high school. So a lot of really hardworking people. My dad actually, he worked second shift in a factory and it's towards the end of high school. So in the morning he was going to school and then he would get off high school and go and work second shift in a factory.

My mom worked, I think, three jobs at one point after she left high school and she's now worked her way from just like an entry level position to she's a partner at a wealth management firm in Fort Wayne. And so I was around these really hardworking people. I saw my mom in business and enjoyed that. I didn't want a client base, so I knew I didn't want to do exactly what she did, but I liked the business side.

I think if you asked her, she would still want me to be an engineer. I think she's always said that, but, I was really happy with the business. I liked it. Transitioned into that for, college. I did some class in high school like that as well. 

Casey Harrison: So what was it about Purdue University? 

Hayden Rowe: I had two of my cousins went to Purdue before me, and we used to go visit them and see them from time to time, and I grew up a Purdue sports fan, and I, I love sports still, so that was a huge factor for me, but I also, as I got going, in the back of my head, I knew Purdue was what I wanted.

I had a pretty short list of like colleges that I really was interested in, and as I went on visits, I realized that on top of I had a pretty short list of like colleges that I really was interested in, and as I went on visits, I realized that on top of liking the top little things about Purdue. I really liked the big school feel too.

And so I visited some smaller schools, one, in Indy and some different ones like that, but they just weren't for me. I liked that big school feel. And I think that really prepared me for not only school, but then also in the workforce of this big feel of you're on your own, right?

Like you're, if you can't find ways to get help on problems that you have or different things like that, it's all on you. So that's, it was a good intro for me. And I liked that. Even though I was going to major in business and I was not a science student by any means, I enjoyed that Purdue is such a STEM focused university.

And then I got some really, challenging early courses in like general ed that really helped my problem solving and like being able to think outside the box, going forward. 

Casey Harrison: It's interesting to hear someone who's driven by business wanting to embrace that creativity and innovation. I think that's really interesting. What is it that's keeping you in Indiana today? 

Hayden Rowe: My family's mostly still here. My wife's from the South Bend area, so her family's all here as well. But we really like the Indy area. Naturally, it's very easy for me to go back to Purdue, football weekends and basketball and things like that. So I'm definitely happy with that.

But I think we found, that Indy has a lot of opportunity for both of us. She's in a slightly different industry in pharmaceuticals. business, I'm a little more wide ranging and kind of work for whatever, but just a lot of opportunity. And we're really happy in the area we are. 

Casey Harrison: I love this. Okay. So let's get into your career path.

You today are a senior business analyst at Calumet, but I'd like for you maybe to start by just positioning what Calumet does for those who may be unfamiliar. 

Hayden Rowe: We're a specialty oil company headquartered here in Indianapolis. We have about 200 employees in our Indianapolis office. We're publicly traded. I didn't know that before I started working. I didn't know what Calumet was to be completely transparent. We work in so many industries across so many different. Pretty much all the continent, maybe not Antarctica, I guess, but 

Casey Harrison: yeah, 

Hayden Rowe: we're all over the world. And so that's one of the things I like the most about it.

I think you get this opportunity to see a different thing each day. If you, really wanted to, you're not only making one product or only making a handful. We have so many different products from crayons to makeup to food based oils for a factory that's making some food on their assembly line. It's been really cool to learn about and just all those different businesses. It's been really interesting. 

Casey Harrison: Take us back because our listeners now are probably either in the midst of reimagining their career journey or just getting started. How did you leverage your degree from Purdue to actually find and land this role at Calumet?

Hayden Rowe: Kind of the perfect storm, , in a way. So my internship that I did before my senior year, I worked in an FP&A department, which I would have told you coming out of college was what I was going to do. I just thought the corporate finance and financial planning analysis was the route that I was going to go.

And I saw this, the job posting for, Calumet and it was, half of that. So I started as a junior financial analyst. I was half focused on FP& A and then I was half focused on, they were a company that just rolled out Power BI, which is Microsoft's business intelligence tool. And that was going to be the other half, , eventually.

And so I had actually in my internship worked with a business intelligence tool that wasn't Power BI, but it was a similar one. And I enjoyed it, but I, it's one of those things of where I never thought about at the time that it would help me, but, and then I went into that interview and having that experience was something that they really liked.

And I was, excited to have something a little different. I think in 2019, Hayden would have told you. He knew what he wanted to do, and I had no idea, right? And I had no idea what was going to happen. So it was really worked out well to go into a company that was rolling something out like that and quote unquote, get it on the ground floor of their business intelligence side.

Casey Harrison: I think you, you bring up a really important point, especially for people listening. It's okay to not know what you want to do. And it's okay to, know at a high level, I'm going to study business. I enjoy business, but I have no idea how I'm going to go apply that in the workforce. And I, what I really appreciate about you sharing your story is a lot of your journey has been informed by just saying yes and being open to new opportunities. And I think that's really important. 

Hayden Rowe: Yeah, I think that it's important. I think it's easier in business than on a lot of different fields, but. I didn't have a major that I felt tied me down to something. , I was able to say yes to, to something slightly different. I don't necessarily use my finance degree today, if you ask me. I'm sure there's, bits and pieces that come in handy and, help me understand things, but I'm not directly in, in corporate finance, which is exactly what I thought I would have been doing. So, yeah, saying yes to, to slightly different roles really worked out. 

Casey Harrison: and you're not alone. We recently had Amy Jo Jones on who had a life planned for herself that is nothing like her life today. And yet she's fulfilled here in Indiana doing some really cool work in ag biosciences. So you're not alone in that. Let's lean specifically into your role as a senior business analyst. A lot of times as we're searching for jobs or just looking at what types of jobs people have, we see these titles that sound really cool with no idea what they actually look like on the day to day or the type of portfolio that you're leading. So reveal for us, what is some of the work that you do? 

Hayden Rowe: Yeah. I don't think it could be more vague than business analyst. , so I, I work mostly with, so go back a step, but when I was in FP&A, I kind got initially handed those projects that were very simple as refreshing something or building a PowerPoint deck and doing that.

And then, I transitioned into business analyst about two years after I started full time. It started before that, but like I said, we use Power BI, which is Microsoft's intelligent tool. with that, we, really combine our main goal, we like to say is creating a single source of truth for data.

So we were a company, which I think a lot of companies are in this, where our executive leadership team would go into meetings and they would have four or five different people present and they would all have different numbers. So it's this search of okay, who's, is right, And so we've been tasked with creating that single source of truth.

And being able to show it across the company in one way, which, was really challenging at the start when I first started, I was, thrust into a role that worked out really well for me and that I was given the opportunity to lead these training sessions early on this new reporting structure.

Which I probably had no reason to be leading those sessions, but if there's ever a way to know if you know something, it's try to teach it. 

Casey Harrison: That's right. 

Hayden Rowe: Teams call of 30 people on how to use it. So that really helped me. For whatever reason, I think I had this I'm young, I need to keep my head down, be quiet, and prove that I can do this.

And that, got me out of that shell really quick and got me to, realize that it's more so creating relationships with these people that you're working with. And for us, it's understanding how they look at data. How we can help them look at it, maybe better, but also how we can take the correct data and show it to them in the way they're used to seeing.

And for a company that's in so many different industries, that's pretty challenging because you have, if you have five people, they all look at it a little differently and what they're used to. So we were able to build that and now we have reports that, that span more than just sales. We started in just sales now in finance and accounting and marketing and supply chain and all these different and different parts of the business. So it's been really cool to see it grow in just my five years. 

Casey Harrison: Oh, I love this. It gives me honestly like an illustration of a spider web. Where you're in the middle making sure that all the teams have the right data. But when you're talking about products that include, as you mentioned, like lipstick, crayons, jet fuel, there's a lot of diversity in those products and the data that you're reporting to internal teams. I have to imagine that collaboration is a skill you use daily. 

Hayden Rowe: Yeah, it's been really cool just because I started not to continue going back to the same thing because I started so heavily in sales I've built such good relationships with our sales team And that was really cool because like I said I was a year into the job maybe and I was leading a meeting that had everyone from sellers to the directors of those teams and building those relationships with them to where now it's like teams Message and it's hey I can't figure this out at all and I can be that like go to person for so many people. Now, our team is still about four, it's four people now, it was three when I started, but now I'm the, I am the longest tenured in Power BI at the company, so it's been really cool to be that go to person this early in my career that can answer questions and know what's going on.

Casey Harrison: I appreciate your story for so many reasons. One, the work that Calumet is doing is really cross sectional in our advanced industries. manufacturing and logistics, technology, workforce development. innovation. I feel like what you're talking about, the data intelligence that you're talking about sits at the center of that.

But the second piece that I think is just really important to call to the forefront is that you don't necessarily have to have this specific degree in order to find a role and build a career path at Calumet. 

Hayden Rowe: I don't think I knew what Power BI was coming out of, I had an idea what business intelligence tools were at whole, but I didn't have a class on Power BI.

I didn't have a class on these tools that are, were becoming the norm. here in Indy, we obviously have Salesforce, who owns Tableau, which is a direct competitor of Power BI. They're, obviously growing in the area and I'm sure, most companies are, taking advantage of them now.

So it's one of those things that like, you, you can't have a, maybe somewhere you can have a degree in it, but not anywhere I've heard that you can have a, a degree. I know they're growing slightly and I think some schools are offering like data and analytics so you get a little idea. But, just having this open mind of I'm interested in this, give it a shot.

Casey Harrison: What makes you so passionate about the work that you're doing right now? 

Hayden Rowe: I think it stems from just not ever really feeling like I'm in like a rut of doing the same thing. Like we have the opportunity to touch so many parts of the business like I've been talking about. I don't have to worry about going in tomorrow and doing the exact same thing I did today, or, so it keeps you interested just because tomorrow I could be working on something I've never heard of.

 And working with people that I haven't met and then figuring out what they need and it's, such a, problem solving base, but also then like I get a really nice mix too of Hey, I'm going to go work in a meeting and then I'm going to go sit at my desk alone and try to figure this out for half the day.

So I get, a nice, I think everything's just split up really well, whether it's what I'm working on or, how I'm working on it. 

Casey Harrison: what I think I hear you saying too, is you're continually learning. which is just so important in building a career that you love. Unfortunately, we're running out of time today.

These episodes go way too fast. But before we leave, we like to close every episode by having our guests share three things that you've learned on your career journey that might be really important for people listening to take heed of while they're either, again, starting theirs or in the midst of reimagining theirs.

would you share yours? 

Hayden Rowe: Right now, I'm reading a book about the first 150 years of Purdue. Okay. And the history of that. And I was thinking about these while I was reading it the other night and There was a section where Purdue's fifth president, Winthrop Stone, he was talking to a group of high school students in 1900 in Anderson, and he said that he felt that the second half of the 19th century, which was the main part of his life, would be considered the greatest ever for scientific and industrial innovation.

And while maybe he's right, it's interesting to think about that he was talking to a group of teenagers that very possibly lived to sit down one day and watch on their television a man walk on the moon, right? . And I think that's really, something to think about. Because I think I got in on the, the ground floor of Power BI, right?

But I think that it's, really important to think that, There's always like another ground floor, like you're not, you didn't miss out on anything. You might've missed out on something, but it's not something that you can't replace with something else, which I think leads into my second one, which is if you think something's interesting and you think you have an opportunity there and you're able to take it, just go for it.

I'm lucky at 27 years old to not have a ton of responsibilities outside of myself. So I have the luxury of taking those chances a little easier and I get that's not, everybody's situation. if you see that opportunity, you think it's interesting, I think you should really take that leap.

And then my third one, it's a little cliche, it was worded to me differently recently by one of my, managers, just don't be afraid to ask questions. I was talking to her and she said that when you're in a meeting. People are much more willing and happy to just stop and explain something to you than to get to the end of the meeting and you had no idea what they were talking about. You weren't following it at all. And you're not able to contribute at that point either. just be open to asking those questions. That's how you get to the point where you can actually understand what they're talking about. And I think that's really important. 

Casey Harrison: Those are fantastic pieces of advice.

Hayden, thank you so much for joining us today. How can people connect with Calumet and maybe you? 

Hayden Rowe: Both on LinkedIn. 

Casey Harrison: LinkedIn runs the world, doesn't it? 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.