Catching up 12 months on from GenAngus
Part of the story that is the GenAngus Future Leaders Program is the work that has continued on for our alumni once they have graduated and moved on from their time in the program.
Supporting the program this year was returning 2023 alumni Lori Fogarty, Zeke Bennett and Pete McNamara, who ventured across the ditch to run an alumni session with the latest GenAngus cohort.
Taking the reins early on day one, Lori, Zeke and Pete put the latest group of GenAngus participants through their paces, getting them out of their comfort zones with a question-and-answer challenge, tasked with vox popping the local public. The task was a successful one, not only getting the group ‘comfortable with being uncomfortable’ but also breaking the ice for the participants, who were about to embark on spending the next few days in close confines.
Following the days sessions, the alumni joined the participants at the formal dinner function and partook in a panel session, mc’ed by course facilitator Milly Nolan.
During the panel session each panellist shared insights about what their time in the program meant for them, where they are as people and members of the industry now, the challenges they face and their aims for the future.
“I currently live in Goondiwindi in southeast Queensland,” said Lori. “I’m originally from a cattle station in the Northern Territory, and I am an agricultural teacher, so the students keep me occupied.
“They’re pretty full on, but I love my job. I love where I live, and I love my background. I’m so much different to so many people here. Everyone here is different, and we’re all in the same place, so that’s awesome.”
For Zeke, being in agriculture is just one of many hats he wears each day. “I have a cattle farm in Gippsland, Victoria, and I also own a landscaping company in Sydney,” he said. “I do one week in Sydney, three weeks in Victoria, and that’s what takes up my time.”
Coming back to GenAngus, Pete is the current Stud Manager at Gilmandyke Angus. “I currently manage a stud Angus herd at Orange, about three and a half hours west of Sydney,” he said. “I’m immersed in that business and everything else that we’ve got going on behind the scenes with our commercial herd and sheep flock as well.”
Reflecting on her twelve months since taking part in the program, Lori shared with the group where she is now and its comparison to where she was a year prior.
“Last year was a lot different for me,” she said. “I had broken my leg, which meant I had spent time out of work. I was on the tail end of five years of university.
“Then I came into this course, and I was at a completely different stage to everyone I was in the course with. I was the youngest person there, and I just felt like I was in a completely different stage. But just having those conversations we had at the course changed me a bit.
“Now I’m teaching, and I have a great job. I’m a lot happier. I’ve got a very supportive partner. My career, my whole outlook on life has changed. It’s partly because of this course, partly because I’ve finished university, and that I can now play sport. It’s been great and there is stuff that I’ve taken back from this course back into my own mentality, my own career and my life.”
Zeke shared with the group his vulnerabilities going into the program 12 months ago, and how his perspective changed over the course of the four days in Adelaide.
“When I came here 12 months ago, I came from a bit of a different background and I didn’t really feel like I belonged,” said Zeke. “When I got here within the first day, that was all gone. I found that everyone was very accepting.
“Some of the things I’ve really taken away from the course is I felt like I was somewhat on the right track with what I had decided I wanted to do.
“But after leaving, I stuck to that trajectory, and I just ran as quick as I could. In the last 12 months, we’ve taken on three more lease properties, bought some more good cattle, done a big embryo flush as well, which is quite big for us. This course was genuinely amazing, and I think it was very beneficial. I would say that I think back on it weekly, so, it’s definitely impacted my life.”
When looking at where he is situated now following a great deal of development in his place of work, Pete said, “There’s a good challenge on the horizon for myself and the business to continue to grow. In terms of people management, in the last two years, I was brought in to be part of the senior management team at Gilmandyke Angus. We employ 11 full-time employees across the properties, only two of which are younger employees than myself.”
“I found it quite difficult at the time, to try and not necessarily tell older employees what to do or how to do it, but just to earn that respect or be able to have that conversation with them to essentially get my point across and continue to grow the business and obviously get the day-to-day jobs done but continue to improve right across the board.”
He continued, “I feel like 12 months of growth and just relying on what I’ve been able to learn and bounce ideas off other people within the industry, particularly networks from this program, to strengthen myself or have more confidence in myself to be able to do that.”
On reflection of the program and what they were able to take from the days they spent at GenAngus, the alumni all had some gems of wisdom for the 2024 cohort.
“I’d say the networking,” said Zeke when asked about the biggest take homes for himself. “I didn’t really have a network before I came here, and on a day-to-day basis when things are happening or you need to ask someone, I now have not just one, but multiple people that I can call, which is really nice.”
He continued, “When I’m calling these people, a lot of who I met here, it’s really nice to be able to call them and there’s no judgement. It’s just such a supportive community. It doesn’t matter how big or small or how long you’ve been in it.”
For Lori, one anecdote stood out from her GenAngus experience, “One night after all of the speeches, Scott Wright and I had a brief conversation about Scott wanting to have a tour around Central Australia. I remembered that and I contacted Scott at the start of this year and said, if you still want to do it, I’ll organise everything. You book the car, let’s go.
“Even though it’s taking the time out of my 12 weeks of school holidays, we’ve got three days, jam-packed, touring of premium desert country in Central Australia. It’s just little things like that in making the most of your opportunities and I can’t wait for it because I’m going places that I’ve never been before, and it’ll be great.”
When looking at their futures within the industry 12 months on from GenAngus, each of the alumni are going through the building blocks to reach their personal goals.
“My biggest challenge probably comes with the parts that I’m most happy with,” said Pete. “But I feel like I almost challenge myself to do better at those things that I was happy about. I think whilst it doesn’t necessarily sound like a big challenge, I’ll probably be quite harder myself to continue to improve and push myself to be better.”
In terms of how is looking to improve himself in the workplace, he continued, “I think being accepting of problems and issues that our employees face outside of work and work hours goes a long way with respect and earning it back.
“Alternatively, I’ve tried to be a bit harder on myself about levelling a work-life balance and to try and somewhat step away and just take a little bit of time to myself and focus on something for me, whether that’s been a physical activity or just catching up with mates that I don’t often get to see.”
“My goals change every single day,” said Lori. “I’ve got so many ideas, but obviously, being an ag teacher, my passion is with future generations and that opportunity that I believe is quite lacking for young people getting into agriculture, or for people that are in agriculture and them taking those steps forward as school-age kids, not really getting the most out of what’s there.”
“My goal is to create programs in any situation that I can to make agriculture accessible for kids that don’t have that opportunity, for those not from farming areas or who have never had that privilege of growing up on property around farming themselves,” she said. “My ability to achieve it has changed but speaking to so many people in the education industry and in agriculture, there’s so much untapped potential for that.
“Before I got accepted into last year’s GenAngus, I didn’t really know anything about it,” Lori shared.
“I was relatively new to Angus Australia, and prior to GenAngus had only been to the LiveEX Conference with the Angus Foundation before. Before that, my situation where I grew up, you didn’t really get involved in these sorts of things because it wasn’t really accessible.
“Coming into this, I had no clue what was about to happen. Then coming out of it, there’s so many things that I took back from the program. For example, I still tell Mum and Dad about what Simon Quilty spoke about.”
Highlighting the relevance of what she learnt from the program and the transferable skills she developed, Lori also touched on that being involved in your agricultural leadership journey may not necessarily be on-farm, “I also think about the 1% things a lot. I’m not on my family farm and I can’t really make the most out of it as a lot of you can that are on farms.
“But I took many different things from the program and the networks and friendships that I’ve made, so I encourage you make the most of them. You’re in the room with some of the most interesting, intelligent people in Australia and New Zealand.”
Zeke had some concluding words for the group in the room that night, but also for people who will be taking part in GenAngus in the future, “You were obviously selected to be here, and I think it’s a really great opportunity that you’ve been given so just take full advantage of it. Learn as much as you can. Ask questions. Don’t feel worried to look silly. I don’t think there’s really any silly questions. One other big thing is to make yourself vulnerable.
“It’s genuinely changed my life, and I’m so grateful that I was selected to be here. I recommend it to a lot of other people.”
Feature Image: Joe Dewar with 2023 GenAngus Leaders Zeke Bennet, Pete McNamara and Lori Fogarty
– Cheyne Twist, Senior Marketing and Communications Officer
