This April marks 8 years since Aleta Botts became KCARD’s Executive Director. We finally talked her into answering some questions.
Q: What is the best part about being KCARD’s Executive Director?
A: Being KCARD’s Executive Director may be the best job in Kentucky agriculture. I get to work with a fantastic team of people, have a great Board of Directors, and spend my days talking to farmers and KCARD partners about how we can help them and how we can do our work better. After 8 years in this role, I still wake up loving these aspects of the job.
Q: As the Executive Director, how do you balance working with clients and managing staff?
A: Let’s be honest -- sometimes I don’t! Staff sometimes have to hunt me down to have a conversation, but I have been fortunate to be able to hire and work with outstanding team members. They are committed to the KCARD vision of helping farmers and agricultural businesses any way they can, so many times they figure out the answers before I even know the questions. They also use each other as resources, something we really encourage. I have a saying: If you have written one business plan, you have written exactly one business plan. Getting to work with people who have worked with hundreds of businesses is really what KCARD staff bring to any table. That collective knowledge of our team means that while you might work mainly with one KCARD staffer, that person’s work is supported by a team of people that they can draw upon to get answers and provide advice.
Q: What was your previous job experience and how has it influenced you in your role as Executive Director of KCARD?
A: I worked for 10 years on agricultural and rural development policy on Capitol Hill in Washington DC. While that job seems a world away from leading KCARD, it’s closer than you might imagine. In the policy world, you have lots of complex issues that you need to be able to boil down so that everyone in the room can understand them and you have to find ways forward among lots of differing opinions. Doing business development, you face that same challenge. I also got to work with insanely smart people in a team setting, which prepared me to work with the KCARD team, who are crazy smart.
I have worked in the private sector, taught at the University of Kentucky, and done research work in Russia and Ukraine while receiving two degrees in Agricultural Economics at the University of Kentucky. I grew up on a tobacco and cattle farm in Menifee County that transitioned out of tobacco production as I was entering high school and more into vegetable production. Every job I have had added a skill or experience that helps me today.
Q: What is the hardest conversation to have with clients?
A: Family transitions are tough. Think about it: You have built up a farm over decades, you are nearing the age when you do not want to work it all the time, but your kids have different ideas of what should happen on the farm than you do. At the same time, is there any more worthy conversation to have? This is truly where the work matters – if you can help a farm family navigate tough issues like this, then you have done good work.
Q: Has KCARD’s role changed over the years, or is the mission the same?
A: Yes and yes. The mission of KCARD is the same: help farmers and agricultural businesses with their business needs. But how those business needs have changed! Sure, we still have seasonal cash flow problems, inherent risk from weather and markets, and the usual challenges of running family businesses, but in just the last year the clients KCARD works with faced down thorny questions like how to set up online shopping carts for the first time, how to market beef to new customers for the first time, and how to keep the new COVID customers coming back. Every day at KCARD is a new question.
Q: Why do you think KCARD has been so successful?
A: I think we see business development in the right light – helping businesses navigate challenges by walking with them through the challenge. We do not profess to know all the answers. We respect where the business owners and managers are, and we let their goals guide all the discussions.
Q: Simple pleasure/guilty pleasure?
Simple pleasure is biting into a hot tomato picked off the vine. Guilty pleasure is anything that Little Debbie makes.
To learn more about KCARD and its services, contact us at 859-550-3972 or via email at kcard@kcard.info.