Hatching Humane Solutions in Poultry with Chloe Kleinheinz - Egg Innovations Episode 14

Stepping off the beaten path can lead to the most fascinating of destinations, a truth Chloe Kleinheinz knows all too well. From a moment of clarity in academia to her role steering the helm at Egg Innovations, Chloe's tale is one of passion, ethical advances, and the culinary delights of wild game. Join us as she unwraps the intricacies of fostering success through the bonds of trust with farmers and navigating the emotional landscapes wrought by avian influenza.

This episode weaves a narrative of progress amidst challenges, with Chloe spotlighting a humane leap forward in the egg industry. Imagine a world where the practice of culling male chicks is obsolete, thanks to pioneering technology that respects both animal welfare and the needs of smaller farms. We also take a solemn look at the toll of avian influenza, not only on the flocks but on the hearts of those who tend them, highlighting the pressing need for solutions to guard these communities.

Rounding off our discussion, we cast a light on the transformative power of mentorship and the crucible of personal growth in leadership. Chloe shares the profound impact of guiding figures in her life and the balancing act of mentoring those with more rings in their tree trunks. For the fledglings in the industry, she offers a pearl of wisdom: cherish the early chapters, for they are the foundation of tomorrow's expertise. Her story is a beacon for those navigating the rich tapestry of an agricultural career, illuminating the path with the collective wisdom she's gathered on her journey.

Hosted by Brandon Mulnix - Director of Commercial Accounts - Prism Controls
The Poultry Leadership Podcast is only possible because of its sponsor, Prism Controls
Find out more about them at www.prismcontrols.com

Transcript

Brandon Mulnix: 0:29

Welcome to the Poultry Leadership Podcast. I am so glad you are here with us today. Your growth as a leader is important to me and I am excited to have you be here with us today. On our show today I have one of our first listeners. Chloe Kleinheinz is a growing leader who reached out to me a while back and shared how the Poultry Leadership Podcast has helped her in her development as a farm manager for Ag Innovations. After hearing her story, I realized just how much she has to share with all of you, so I invited her on the show to share about her journey. Chloe, welcome to the show.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 1:10

Brandon, thanks for having me. I definitely appreciate the opportunity and it was so interesting to run across this podcast. I didn't realize that there were poultry industry podcasts and it's been a vital resource, especially over the last year. Over the last six months, growing into a director level role, it's really given me the opportunity to hear from other leaders that I've seen and heard from out in the industry and really humanize them and make them more approachable when I'm out at events. So I really appreciate what you do and I'm really excited to be here.

Brandon Mulnix: 1:39

Thank you, Chloe. Thank you for that feedback. It's why I do this. It's why I work late nights and sometimes early mornings and sometimes weekends to record these podcasts. So I appreciate that and it's definitely for our listeners. Chloe, can you share with the audience a little bit about who you are?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 1:57

Yeah, absolutely so. I'm Chloe. I'm the director of live operations for Egg Innovation, based out of Warsaw, Indiana. I grew up as the oldest of three sisters. Even though I grew up in the heart of broiler country in the beautiful Queen City, Gainesville, Georgia, I had no background in agriculture or chicken Outside of work. I love to hunt and I love to cook, and I fancy myself a little bit of a wild game chef. I love to cook beautiful meals for people and show people that just because their food is wild, it doesn't mean it has to taste wild.

Brandon Mulnix: 2:34

That is incredible. There's a lot of wild game that I've never experienced, so hopefully at some point I can maybe get a good recipe from you.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 2:44

Squirrel hot legs is best.

Brandon Mulnix: 2:46

Squirrel hot legs that's very interesting. I never really heard that there's hot wings, but hot legs work too, that's exactly what it is. Unless you find a flying squirrel somewhere, then maybe they have wings. How did you ever get into the poultry industry?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 3:00

Yeah, I started. I graduated high school in 2014 and I enrolled at UGA no found Poultry Science 1101. Like, how hard can that class possibly be? And so I signed up for it.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 3:32

And the first lecture so early on in the drop ad and a lot of people talk about, especially women. You'll hear them talk about how either they met their husband or they tried on their wedding gown and they just knew they had this moment where it was just they were overcome with this emotion and they just knew that they were the one or what. I've never really had that moment, but sitting in that lecture, without having any background in poultry or in agriculture, never having stepped foot in a chicken house, I had this overwhelming sense and the thought passed through my head that this is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life. And I walked out of that lecture and sat down at lunch and changed my major and I never looked back. It's the best decision I've ever made.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 4:24

I found that this was the perfect fit in terms of a career and I absolutely love it. I love the people. I love that. Every day is a different adventure. You never know when you come into work, especially in live production what that day is going to hold, and I love that it's an authentic career. Growing up in Metro Atlanta, everything seems very superficial and I love that I get to be a part of feeding people and making sure that everybody has food on their table.

Brandon Mulnix: 4:54

That's an incredible story, and so what is your role now?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 4:59

So I'm the Director of Life Operations for Egg Innovations. So we've got about 60 family farms spread out across the Midwest and into the Southeast. So my role is I coach our live operations team. So our service people, our pullet managers, our pullet crews and I serve as the go-between for our family producers and the company.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 5:23

My day can look very different from one day to the next, but it really offers me the opportunity not only to work with the birds and be in the houses and managing health scenarios and really working in a bird management atmosphere, but it also gives me the opportunity to manage people and to liaise with people. I love that. I do have a team that I coach, but the majority of the folks that I consider to be on my team so our producers they don't report to me and so it is a very collaborative effort and it's really a wonderful team to be a part of and this is my first experience being a part of a producer group. My background is in inline commodity conventional production, so I've got some cage-free experience, but this is my first experience with outside access, organic, free-range pastured birds, so it's been a huge learning curve. I oversee our day-to-day operations and increasing capacity for organizations.

Brandon Mulnix: 6:26

That sounds like a lot, and one of the things you mentioned in there that I find so challenging is when you're coaching or leading folks that don't always report to you. You don't have that employer-employee relationship, and so that's really fascinating how you're able to do that. That's cool.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 6:51

Yeah, I think with and I would say, most of us in this business who work with contract producers.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 7:00

Of course, you're going to have the ones that they're going to be stubborn and they're going to do it their way, but my method has always to just been to win the hearts of the producers and be their biggest cheerleader and know that I've got their back and that I'm there to support them. And things tend to go pretty well to know that I'm. I'm there as a sounding board for them and I'm there to help them, not to beat them down. That's what's worked for me and it's made way for a lot of really fantastic relationships. We have a very diverse group of producers, so we're about 50 percent of our producer group is either Amish or horse and buggy Mennonite, so that was a demographic that I had not worked with at all before. So it's been really eye-opening, especially as a female leader, getting to collaborate with these different communities and be a part of this community that I'd had no experience with before, and I've learned so many different ways of doing things within the process of producing eggs that you would only learn from somebody within an Amish community.

Brandon Mulnix: 8:11

So it's been an awesome experience. I can only imagine how much experience some of your producers have, and to be young, a leader, a woman, all going into having that relationship that you have with them that's got to be a big challenge. How do you feel you overcame that?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 8:28

Yeah. So I would say initially there's irregardless of whether it's with contract producers or the demographics you're dealing with or in any atmosphere, especially as a young person there's going to be a hump in the beginning of trying to earn that respect and for me I know everybody has their own way of doing things I've learned that respect your collaboration rather than fear Just always being there. They call at 1130 at night and they just need a sounding board answering the phone If they're really genuinely concerned about something and it's. It may be inconvenient to me on a weekend or in the evening just going out to their farm to check, just even though I may know, just based on my experience, that it's nothing building that trust by in my head. I may know that what they're seeing isn't AI. It builds trust that I went out there anyway to put their mind at ease.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 9:28

For me that's what's worked best and it has been challenging over. It's not like I've been in this business 40 years, but in the years that I have been working in this industry, working with different types of people, different demographics. It's definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach. You definitely have to be adaptable and you have to be flexible in your ways of coaching people and leading people and getting everybody united under one objective, I guess, is the best way to put it.

Brandon Mulnix: 10:01

And you've got 60 family farms that you do this for, which is a lot of different personalities and a lot of different dynamics that go into it. How does Ag Innovations help you and tell me a little bit more about them? I hadn't heard much about them until I got to hear your story.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 10:21

Ag Innovations was originally founded back in 1999 by Dr John Bronkwell. Our mission is chickens people planet and we consider ourselves to be the industry leader in animal welfare and in regenerative agriculture. I have an incredible support network here of mentorship. I've got a great sounding board within leadership that if I've got. If I have any sort of problem or challenge or opportunity, I have people that I can go to, that I know have my back and they're behind me. So that's been a really big help in this. And then I've also been blessed to have an incredible team working with me. My service people are I'm a little bit biased, but I would say probably some of the best in the business. So it's really here at EI, it is the people. This is one of those companies that when they say it's like family, it really is like family and that really helps. And then I think also having people here with a very high level of knowledge and just birds in general.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 11:28

Having that technical knowledge gives me a leg up. Also, if I genuinely don't know, then I have people within our sphere that I can go to that likely have the answers or know who do. So that's how I've worked around that. But in terms of what we do here at AgInnovation, so we are a producer group, so we don't have any in-line houses. All of our birds have access to the outdoors every single day. So, depending on our different production systems, all of our farms have between five and 50 acres that the birds have access to across the amount of farms that thousands of acres of range land that our birds are pastured on year round throughout the US, our different production systems. So we have two five acre farms that are considered outside access. Really, those barns are not what we would. They're not our ideal type setup. But one of the things I love about Ag Innovations is, even though those barns are not ideal to our business model, we keep them because we're not gonna make our growers go find another home because they don't have the acreage. That really speaks to me about the type of company that this is in, that even though we would prefer for all of our firms to be 10 acres or over. Those growers are going to have a home with us as long as they want a home with us, and that's one of the things that really drew me to this company. And then we have what the majority of our farms are is a 10-acre farm, so this is going to be free range. So when you're looking at egg cartons, in terms of our terminology, this is going to be your free range bird and none of these terms actually have anything to do with organic. So that's a completely different set of terminology. And then we have some 50-acre farms, mostly in the closer to the southeast, that are going to be pastured farms. So if you see pastured on a carton of eggs, those birds are going to be raised on a much larger area of rangeland. And then we do have a subset of farms within those different acreages that participate in regenerative agriculture.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 13:37

So those birds are rotationally grazed on pasture throughout the year so that we can make sure that we're doing our best to be stewards of the environment, making sure that the soil is healthy, we're not overgrazing pasture, but while doing that, we still have areas set aside for the birds to participate in their natural behaviors, like dust bathing. It's funny. You wouldn't think a chicken would be that destructive to a pasture, but you put 20,000 of them outside and they can tear pasture up pretty quick, looking for bugs and worms and finding a spot to take a dust bath. So all of our birds have the ability to display their natural behaviors every day and they're so funny. You can watch, especially as the sun starts to go down, they start jumping around and they stretch the wings and they run around the pasture and even the birds that choose not to go outside.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 14:25

So it is typical that a lot of your less dominant birds will not go outside every day. So what we do for them is we actually try to bring some of the outside inside. So we make sure that even inside the house we give them access to green forage year round. So we bring hay inside the barns for them, which has immense benefit just outside of the ethics of it. It's one of the best tools to prevent feather pecking that I've found. So we really do put an emphasis on creating the best life for the bird that we possibly can.

Brandon Mulnix: 15:00

That is a lot of great information To learn more about free range and organic it just it warms my heart to see these other opportunities and to know that there's options out there for customers that are different than conventional or cage-free Pretty exciting. I just recently came across a New York Times article that mentions Egg Innovations and talks about ova sexing. What is that?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 15:29

Yeah, so just recently, egg Innovations became the first company to publicly announce that we will be opting into inovosexing, so that means that in the future, we will be purchasing chicks that were sexed while they were still in the egg.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 15:49

The purpose of inovosexing is to end male culling egg. The purpose of Innovo Sexing is to end male culling. Male culling is a challenge that the egg industry has faced and been working to eliminate for a very long time. Of course, this is something that I don't think there's a single egg company out there that doesn't support, and we're really proud to be among the first to take the opportunity and go for it. It's still a very new and very emerging market, so there's still a lot of learnings to be had and we're very excited about it. But the premise of it is that around day 13 of incubation, the technology will be able to tell whether the embryo is male or female, and so this will eliminate the need for culling and maceration that day of hatch. So hopefully, by us and a few other producers taking a hold of this early on, this will become a much more widely available and commercially scaled option for egg producers here in the US.

Brandon Mulnix: 16:50

So you're saying this is still a relatively new technology?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 16:54

For the US it is. It has been around in Europe for several years, but the first machines are just going live in the US this fall, so we'll be among the first to get the chance to purchase chicks from those machines.

Brandon Mulnix: 17:07

That's pretty innovative and sustainable and learned as I read that article and I'll make sure I share that article on the podcast show notes just for our audience here, because that is important to see how companies like yours are able to pivot and do things that sometimes is easier to try on us with 60 family farms versus trying to do it with a three to four million bird complex.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 17:37

Yeah, it's a lot easier. Most of our all of our farms are between 20 and 40,000 birds per farm. Of course, we do have a few farms that have more than one house. So 20,000 birds per flock, that's something you can pivot and be flexible and be agile with. So it's a very exciting opportunity and we can't wait to get started with it.

Brandon Mulnix: 17:57

Yeah, I can't wait to chat with you in the future and find out how it's going and to see you and your team presenting at conferences on the success and what you guys have been able to accomplish. Look forward to that.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 18:10

Yeah, absolutely.

Brandon Mulnix: 18:11

So over-sexing is a problem that you guys are working on, but is there any other industry problems that you would really hope to get solved in the future as it relates to poultry?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 18:23

For me personally, I guess it's the elephant in the room AI. I came into this business during this unique brief hiatus when AI kind of subsided between 2015 and 2022. And I was still getting my feet wet. I was the low level farm supervisor 10 employees under me, really just responsible for keeping the houses clean and everything running day to day, and so I didn't really hear a lot about it there in the beginning and that's overnight it's exploded, and so my entire live production management career has been full of AI and I've really never known an industry without it.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 19:09

And it's one of those things that it's incredibly difficult to watch this industry where we have either mourned for our colleagues who have gone through this or we've become victims of it ourselves. And I really believe that we are on a precipice with the recent changes and developments with the mammalian detections, that now is the time for research, now is the time to do something about it so that this industry doesn't become collateral damage. I'm not a company owner. I don't have the financially vested interest that some other podcast listeners have, but this industry is my life and I don't want to see it damaged anymore this disease and I've been so fortunate that none of my thoughts have been affected and it's always working in an inline environment.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 20:12

It was always a it's always a big, heavy burden to shoulder to try to make sure you're keeping that massive flock healthy and doing whatever you could to prevent that disease. But it is a different animal entirely when you're working with family producers who, yes, it's your job to keep the disease out of the flock, but the family that it's going to affect directly If their flock gets sick for their names, their children's names. That's a different level of pressure. So for me, if I could make AI go away with a snap of a finger, I would For sure. I'm glad there's people out there that are a lot smarter than me working on vaccines and research, because it's hard stuff, it's scary stuff.

Brandon Mulnix: 21:07

Yeah, you mentioned the families up until last week, hpai and for those listeners that are new to the show, that are friends of family listening, we're talking about high path avian influenza and I have seen the tears of co-workers that are grieving for our customers here in our community. We've, at Prism Controls, have been sheltered from HPAI. We hear it when our customers have it and it's a state or two away, but it's in our backyard. In fact I know the person where the cattle landed in Michigan and I personally know the farms here in Michigan that have been affected and I know the employees that are dealing with the AI and all of the things that have to be done to secure the farm from further virus spread and everything that they have to go through. And it's something that's just so hard because you can actually look in their eyes. It's not where, it's a state away and it's just a phone call away and you hear it in their voices. But we've had so many people from the US just reach out to us this last week and say, hey, how are we doing? And we're a technology company but it does affect us.

Brandon Mulnix: 22:30

Our original founding company was affected and it's not something I've ever experienced before, even in the world of being a paramedic, we talked about hazmat and we talked about all the things that you had to do, but it was still. Unless you experience it, you don't truly know what it is. And I still don't truly know what it is because I haven't been on that farm and been in those barns. But just seeing it in the eyes of people that we know it's so powerful, and then to hear my wife talk about it as a nurse that they're training for, when the virus changes and starts spreading in humans faster and what that's going to do and I don't want to do doom and gloom and the world is ending. But these are viruses that continue to mutate and change and it was here in 2015,. It was here before that and it just continues to grow and change. But man is that tough and how is free range adapting to that? How do you do biosecurity when it comes to free range birds?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 23:27

Yeah, so of course you do the best that you can, right. So we have amped up all of our biosecurity protocols on all of our farms, regardless of state. And then, because of the way that NPIP and some of the biosecurity systems are set up, it's on a very state-by-state basis. For producer groups like us who have farms in multiple states, it's ultimately up to the state vet in each individual state to direct what happens with outside access birds. Right now, for us, our birds in Kentucky per se they're still outside. They're still allowed to go outside and we would still be indemnified if we were to catch AI, because that's the current recommendation of the state vet. However, in our other states, all of our other birds are under an order of confinement. So what that means is, under an order of confinement, they're required to be inside, and then there are other states that will issue a confinement recommendation. They're not going to require you to keep birds inside, but they do recommend that you keep birds inside.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 24:40

Depending on the state, it can be a little bit of a gray area and my position in the Division of Ag Innovations is to always follow the advice of the state vet. We're not going to go outside of that and start to try to make those decisions on our own. I personally don't want that blood on my hands. There are people who have a bunch of letters behind their names for a reason and I'm not one of them for a reason watching the detections and that up until recently aside from, of course, your backyard flocks there haven't really been a whole lot of pasture or outside access detection.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 25:17

It wasn't until the last few weeks that we've really seen that we're really learning just with this, these recent changes, what we can do a little bit differently to try to make our outside access areas a little bit more biosecure. And we know that as the situation with cattle and mammals continues to change, that the recommendations may change. And it's just such a rapidly evolving situation that hour by hour things are changing. For us, that's what we're doing now and what we've been doing for the past several months is just following the state vet's orders, and that has mostly been an order of confinement. So, on the one hand, is it what we prefer to do for our setup? No, we would love for our birds to go outside every day, but unfortunately, or fortunately, this is what we can do to protect our flock best and to protect our other neighbors in the poultry industry.

Brandon Mulnix: 26:14

I'm sure we could talk about HPAI for a long time. You're living it across multiple states and even your family farms are probably really in tune and worried about it. Chloe, I can tell you're passionate about the poultry industry, absolutely. What gives you that passion and that purpose?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 26:34

For one, I really do enjoy the birds. I really, I genuinely enjoy being in the chicken house. I enjoy working with my hands and, though I don't get to do that a lot anymore at this point in my career, the other thing that I just I love this industry. I love that it's small, I love that it's unified, I love that it's collaborative and I love the people. It's such a unique experience to be in an industry where I'm less than 10 years removed from my undergraduate program and I have a voice in the same room with industry leaders like JT Dean and Bob Krause.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 27:23

That is an honor, is an understatement. And then, on the flip side of that, I have met some of the best people through this business. I've met my three best friends through this business, two of them as former employees and one of the colleagues. So the shout out to Arturo, bernice and Blake. But it's really the people in the community that this industry provides that, not to bring AI back up, but that, even though we're competitors when tragedy strikes. This is one of the few industries that I really feel stands together in solidarity rather than just looking for that next bit of business, and that's the type of industry I want to be a part of.

Brandon Mulnix: 28:08

It gives you hope when you see farms work with each other, the farms in Iowa reaching out to the farms in Michigan and saying, hey, this is what we've learned through all of our experiences with AI. There's something that happens on the farm, farms, there's a tragedy, people reach out, it's a family and, yeah, even if you're the obnoxious cousin, most of the time when something happens, they they're there for you they look past the woes of the past and still are there for you, and that is definitely something cool that I'm glad you brought up about our industry, because it is our industry.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 28:54

That is awesome.

Brandon Mulnix: 28:55

As a young leader in the industry, what resources have you utilized to grow and develop?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 29:01

It's really changed over the years. Early on, I ate up every video recording of every seminar, everything I could find on YouTube. I've read the textbook, and recently it's turned into podcasts. I discovered the Nutrition Black Belt, the Poultry Podcast, the Poultry Leadership Podcast, and my current role. I do a lot of driving, I do a lot of road time, and so it's given me the opportunity to just to sit and absorb, and so over the last six or eight months, it's really been these podcasts and then within the workplace, I have been so blessed to have had a couple incredible mentors Jason Wallace with Country Charm Eggs, which is now part of MPS, and Brian Klepke, our COO here at Ag Innovation. The level of mentorship that they have provided has been second to none, and I credit them for my development as a leader more than anything else, for my development as a leader more than anything else.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 30:14

And then the organizations that I have had the opportunity to work with. I started out at Country Charm Eggs and, though I wasn't, I had no experience in this industry at the time, and so I didn't really understand the gravity. But I worked for Brent Booker and at the time, though I didn't really understand who he was, in the scheme of the industry? Now I do, and so even now, if I'm faced with a decision I need to make for something I'll think about, would this choice make Brent proud? And though I don't always make the right choice, working for individuals like him that I respect so much, I think all of those things combined have really allowed me to develop as a leader and grow professionally as much as I have in such a short time.

Brandon Mulnix: 31:01

The industry is not shy of great leaders.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 31:05

No, it's not.

Brandon Mulnix: 31:06

I have found so many of them willing to talk, willing to chat, willing to share their story not necessarily on a podcast, but they will share their story one-on-one and there's so many great people to look up to, and you've mentioned a few really good folks in your shout outs there and I'm sure they'll appreciate that, knowing just the leader that you're turning into. All great leaders overcome challenges and I'm not necessarily calling you great yet. You've got a career ahead of you. Greatness always comes on the end of, basically in retrospect, but all leaders overcome challenges Along your journey. What challenge have you overcome in your life and how did you learn from it?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 31:51

Yeah, just on the flip side of having that great mentorship, there have been periods where I haven't had mentorship, and I think that's been.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 32:00

The biggest challenge I've had to overcome is during those voids, those periods where I was the mentor.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 32:06

Those voids, those periods where I was the mentor, trying to find the tools to be the mentor, especially to people who are sometimes twice my age, who have a lot more life experience than I do and a lot more professional experience than I do, yet I'm charged with coaching them.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 32:22

That's been a huge challenge and for me, what's worked is just looking to my past and resourcing different sounding boards whether that has been at one time hiring a professional coach or reading tons and tons of professional development books and then learning to lead different types of teams. When in my first leadership role, I was lost to a great team and I got into a rhythm and people talk about developing their management style and when I moved into my next role, attempting to implement that I realized was not going to work. The team was so totally different, the personalities were so completely different, the personalities were so completely different. And then there's the dynamic of going from leading hourly personnel, like production level personnel, to leading other leaders was a huge challenge, and that's one that I am still working through, something I'm still learning and growing into, for sure.

Brandon Mulnix: 33:28

You're a person that sounds like you're very motivated and you plan things out a little bit too in your life and you set goals. What is one of those goals that you've set for yourself that you're hoping to overcome in the next few years?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 33:44

Yeah, so I've had the incredible opportunity, just for the first time this year, to be on a UEP committee which is just I feel like I'm living a dream, but growing into my voice and not being afraid to use my voice for good. I think I spoke up once during our meetings in January and I referred to myself as the peon in the back. Meetings in January and I referred to myself as the peon in the back. It's growing into that, not being afraid to talk just because I'm not one of the legacy families in the room, I'm not an owner of one of the large egg companies. Still, feeling like my voice has a place in that room is probably my biggest goal for right now. I'm lucky that I'm in a place in my career where I'm very happy. So for me, my goals are just to continue to develop professionally, continue to peel back the layers of being a leader and develop those different management skills, and using my voice is probably the biggest part that I feel like I have some opportunities in.

Brandon Mulnix: 34:49

Audience if you don't hear her voice on this podcast and recognize the fact that in a few years she's going to be leading this industry in some way. She's going to, and it doesn't have to be by title, it doesn't have to be by position, but she's making a difference just by sharing her story with you, for the industry, and I look forward to watching her growth and watching her develop as a mentor, watching her be okay, asking the quote, quote, as I call it, dumb question in the room, when it's probably the question that everybody wants asked but everybody's too afraid to ask. And Chloe's going to be the one asking that question because that's what's going to lead to change and I appreciate your vulnerability and recognizing that that's really cool. As we wrap things up, any last advice that you would have for anybody getting into the egg industry?

Chloe Kleinheinz: 35:51

Gosh. Brian, my current coach, is probably going to completely roll his eyes at me if he hears this, because I know a lot of it's going to probably be hypocritical. It is advice that I try to live by the best that I can. The biggest thing is it's always OK to say no or not. Right now it's really easy as a young leader to try to take on every opportunity presented to you and you can become overwhelmed and burnout very quickly and you'll end up not enjoying what you're doing. And those early years, especially as a low to mid-level manager, cherish those years. They're fun. Don't take on so much that they're no longer enjoyable. And then the second part is and I'm just throwing numbers out there but if you're 26, stop trying to be 56. It's okay to not know everything. You're not expected to know everything. It's okay to say I don't know. It's okay to ask the dumb question. No one expects you to have the knowledge of somebody that's been in this business for 30 years. And if they do, then I guess that's a different. That's a different conversation. But it's okay to be young and it's okay to learn. We always have the right to get smarter and then always, just never be afraid to work.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 37:24

It was less than a year ago. I was waist deep in a flooded pit pumping out water. Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. Being willing to do that will get you further than a tidal lever will, and you will learn more from the folks under you. You will learn more from them than you will from the people over you any day of the week. I've learned more from health caretakers, truck drivers, people who have been doing their jobs for 30 years than I have anyone else in this business. Treat them with respect and they are a wealth of knowledge. No one knows their job better than they do. Those are probably the best pieces of advice I've ever been given coming into this business, and I know. The parts about being willing just to say no or not right now and not feeling like you got to know everything are probably hypocritical coming from me, but I think they're good pieces of advice and good things to try to look by.

Brandon Mulnix: 38:29

Chloe, that's great advice. You're giving credit to others that have gone before, and our responsibility is one to find our passion, and then the other is to share that passion with others, and that's a quote someone shared with me this week. Chloe, I want to say thank you for sharing your story to the Poultry Leadership Podcast audience, and this show wouldn't be possible without people like you as listeners. I really appreciate you reaching out to me and sharing your journey so that way, we could then share and make this podcast continue to grow and continue to evolve to help leaders like yourself. So thank you very much.

Chloe Kleinheinz: 39:16

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Brandon.

Brandon Mulnix: 39:19

Listeners, this podcast would not be possible without our sponsor, Prism Controls. You've heard it weekend and week out that Prism Controls is a great company. I'm pretty pretty fond of it myself, but I want you to go to our website, prismcontrolscom and just to learn more about us. We were hatched in this industry. Every one of us just loves this industry. Check out our website, check out our products and don't hesitate to reach out to us and tell us what you want to see from your controls. We're there to help support and develop the new technology for the industry.

Brandon Mulnix: 39:58

Please, like I say every week, like this podcast. Like it on iTunes and Spotify and iHeartRadio, Wherever you're going to find this. Please like it. Share a rating, because that's how this podcast gets found by the Chloe's of the industry or the John's of the industry the folks that are looking to grow, and by just simply taking the time and putting a five-star rating, it really does help this podcast get found. Share this with others and, as always, I really do appreciate you listeners. You are the reason I do this podcast get found. Share this with others and, as always, I really do appreciate you listeners. You are the reason I do this podcast. So thank you from the Poultry Leadership Podcast. Have a great day.