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 At Central Illinois Ag in
Atlanta, one of the largest family-owned Case IH Dealerships in
Illinois, three young women are currently following their passion
for agriculture and it’s leading them down a successful career path.
Abby Coers, Dawn Irwin and Ashley Zinser all agreed working together
in the positive atmosphere with the CIA management allows them to
have fun at their job each and every day.
Coers has been at CIA the longest of the trio. She began her career
in 2013 as the CIA Marketing Coordinator.
Coers is originally from Chestnut and grew up on a farm, but her
family didn’t farm. She says, "I went into business administration
at SIU-Edwardsville...
I had a big dream of living in the city doing the city thing."
Then, one of my friends, Brittany Cowan, told me about the Ag
Communications program at the U of I. She thought that I would
really enjoy it. I had never heard of Ag Communications before, but
it was all designing, journalism, advertising, and more of a
creative aspect. It was totally up my alley. I found my home at U of
I, and then within the Ag Communications program we had to choose a
focus, and I chose advertising. Going to school then turned into fun
for me because it was everything I enjoyed."
Coers graduated from the U of I in 2011 with a degree in
Agricultural Communication with a focus in advertising. She stayed
in Champaign for a year working before realizing she wanted to come
home to her roots. “We don’t realize, even though we live in a small
town or a smaller area, that we still have an impact on agriculture,
and the outside world doesn’t know the things that we know," she
said.
It was eye-opening for her to learn in college that not everyone
knows where their food comes from. Coers said, "We know where our
beef comes from. We know where all of our food comes from. Showing
(people) the importance of agriculture was really cool for me.”
When Coers joined CIA she was excited to bring her graphic knowledge
to the equipment dealer, "I applied all of my schooling, and then my
background of the rural lifestyle, to how you talk to farmers."
Dawn Irwin also has a passion for Agriculture that led her to CIA.
Irwin, a 2017 graduate of Lincoln Community High School is the
Marketing Intern at CIA.
Irwin grew up in Beason on a fifth generation grain and dairy farm.
Currently her dad, grandpa and brother work on the farm.
“My whole life I’ve helped out on the farm, whether it was with the
cows, baling hay or riding in the tractors,” said Irwin. “I always
knew I wanted to stay in agriculture. I was in 4-H and FFA. That led
me to Ag Communications. I knew I wanted to be in Marketing Ag,
talking and educating people.”
The changing roles for women in agriculture
Irwin said, “There are so many more opportunities now, like in
dealerships, and all different aspects of agriculture that are not
necessarily hands-on on the farm.”
When it comes to gender, Coers noted, “in the Ag Business industry
it’s less about males and females." In 2013, “We would go to the
Yield 360 meetings and things like that, and I would be the only
girl. Now I don’t even see it because the guys don’t treat you any
different. They treat you as a person.”
“Dawn and I just did an interesting article on my Grandma Dittus,
which was super-cool,” Coers said. “I knew she worked on the farm,
but I didn’t know everything she did. She was hardly ever in the
kitchen. She was out on the farm and her favorite seat was in the
grain truck.” That was the 1950s and her grandma viewed herself as
just another person on the farm helping to get the job done.
“I felt like that was cool because it was so different back then.
Today we all view men and women the same. If you’re 21, go get your
CDL," Coers said.
“A lot of wives, if their husbands are farmers, it’s kind of just
their lifestyle to go out and help them too,” added Irwin. “They
don’t necessarily see being a woman in ag as really rare, it’s just
what they do.”
Coers jumped back in, “I would definitely say the people that we
deal with day-to-day, business-to-business, would be more women. But
when we go out and interview farmers, there’s a lot more men there.
There’s a couple of couples, but it’s mostly men.”
“We do a lot of different things here,” at CIA, Coers said. “I would
say anytime you see Central Illinois Ag, like the vision of it or
anything like that, comes from our office." She quipped, "Now I can
say the 'Marketing Department' because there’s two of us."
"When Dawn came on board, we just work together very well. We do a
40-page magazine twice a year where we go out and interview farmers,
take photos, and put it all together.”
Irwin chimed in, “We also do articles to highlight the products we
sell.”
The magazines the trio create include testimonials from the
customers and rising technology, "Ag technology is huge right now,"
said Coers.
"We just had a new tractor, for instance, come out and we did a big
article on that. We just did a campaign on that tractor so we had
worked with our salesmen to gather, who do they think would be most
interested, and then we touched base with those farmers. So a lot of
that touch-point comes from us.
"We handle emails. Anything from our parts department has sales
going on to our salesmen, our equipment, and if we’ve got financing
offers, we are the ones pushing those messages out. Social media,
graphics, inventory, all those things are us,” Coers said.
Believe it or not, social media is huge with farmers.
“We are on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram,” said Coers, “Ag Twitter
is huge. It is so big right now.
"At Christmas, we do a campaign called “The 13 days of Christmas.”
We put up a Thunder Creek trailer, and within three hours someone
was in inquiring about the rebate on it. It’s crazy," Coers said.
"We put a lot of our inventory online. We put all of our new stuff
online. If you think of it like a car dealership and you are
searching for a car, that’s how we see this. You might be searching
for a tractor,"
She added, “Every aspect of the tractor, from the radio on the
inside, to the remotes on the outside, is included. It’s new and
used equipment that we do."
"It’s really just a lot of touching the customer and the salesman,
and being that middle point,” Coers noted, “We are always making a
positive image for CIA.”
Without hesitation, Coers credits the management, “I’ve worked in
different places and nobody even compares to Michael and Steve
Schmidt. They are family through and through. Their leadership is
like they want us to succeed. Sometimes Michael will throw me a
project and he just puts it in our hands and he will let us figure
it out. He wants us to move forward and to help ourselves." And when
needed, "He works with us. That helps a ton.”
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Something newer, which Zinser
started from the ground up, is the CIA Ebay Store and E-commerce
online. Irwin said, “Most of our parts, toys, apparel and tools are
available online." CIA ships all over the USA and to other
countries.
Ashley Zinser rounds out the
trio making an impact at CIA. A 2017 Hartsburg-Emden grad, she
balances full-time Ag Business studies at Illinois State University
with a full-time workload at CIA.
Zinser is no stranger to hard work, “I have a passion for
agriculture because of my roots. The community that impacted me the
most are my mother’s family and father’s family, both farm. I was
introduced to both livestock and grain when I was young and knew I
wasn’t going anywhere. Both of my grandpas and my father truly
taught me the definition of hard work.
“I chose this career path
mostly because the importance of agriculture was always number one.
It’s so fun to be able to go to trainings and learn on behalf of
Central Illinois Ag as agriculture is changing and we get to learn
continuously,” Zinser said.
In addition to starting the online store on eBay in June of 2017,
Zinser is also a Warranty Administrator, "I submit claims and work
with the technicians to assure all work was properly done and the
claim gets submitted on time.”
So why do these young women enjoy working at CIA?
“This seriously is the best job ever because as being so young when
I started, my co-workers really helped me and honestly led me to my
position now,” said Zinser. “The atmosphere here is so positive and
uplifting that it makes it fun to come to work. We all work together
because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t be successful.”
“I think getting to know the farmers is really cool for me, and then
also when I get to interview them I get to know more about them,”
said Coers. “Getting out and about, I love being in the field during
the seasons. I like that hands-on, but also that everyday is
different.”
Irwin agrees, "Everyday is different, you can be in the office or
you can also be outside... Also we are doing what we go to school
for. It’s kind of hard to find a job that’s exactly what you want to
do so it’s awesome that we get to do that every day.”
Smiling, Coers said, “Going to work is like going to play. This job
is a mixture of everything we went to school for. It’s advertising,
writing, taking pictures, all of it.”
With the popularity of FFA growing among females, it was interesting
to discuss how FFA played a part in shaping the careers of these
three women.
Coers’ high school career interestingly did not include FFA or Ag
classes. Her older brother Andrew was in Ag and she said her mom
wouldn’t really let them take the same classes. “I really don’t
think I would have chosen Ag at the time anyway,” said Coers. “I
just thought it was a way of life that everybody lived.”
Zinser, however, was influenced by her high school Ag teacher. Now
retired Hartsburg-Emden Agriculture teacher, Betsy Pech, "led me to
agriculture and she led me to my career path,” said Zinser. “She
always was getting me involved in FFA judging contests like dairy
judging, meats judging, soil judging, agronomy contests, and
speaking contests. She always expected nothing but the best from me.
Today I could not thank her enough as she has made me so
self-motivated.”
Irwin too was influenced by other females in FFA and made the most
of every opportunity while a student at LCHS. “I was in Ag classes
and FFA in high school,” said Irwin. “Dr. Penny Haase Wittler was my
Ag teacher all four years and I would say she definitely inspired
me. She would take us all the time to conferences and career fairs.
Seeing all the women involved in different companies and different
aspects of Ag inspired me too. I feel like if I hadn’t been in FFA,
and been to those career fairs, I wouldn’t have chose going into Ag.
Once I was involved in 4-H and FFA, I was like, oh, yeah, there is
so much you can do.” Irwin commented that Jason Steffens was her 4-H
leader.
“Almost everyone I was in FFA with ended up going into Ag in
college,” continued Irwin. “I feel like she (Dr. Wittler) really
helped us figure out what we wanted to do and showed us all the
opportunities that were out there for us.
"Women have only been in FFA since 1969. When I was in it, it was
kind of surprising how it was half men and half women. It’s kind of
crazy how in just such a short amount of time how many girls are
involved now. I wouldn’t even be surprised if there were more girls
now. It’s awesome,” Irwin said.
Dr. Wittler is now teaching Agriculture classes at the college
level.
Coers shared a fun fact, “Something that I think is really cool is
that my mom (Mila Dittus) was the first female state degree holder
(a high honor award) at Mount Pulaski High School. She was huge in
FFA. She’s not involved in Ag now but it makes me really proud to
know... and that’s like a cool thing that she did.”
Coers grandma, Janice Dittus, is still very proud to be on the farm.
These three young women are not just making mentors and family
members proud, but they are also paving the way for future
generations. Up-and-coming females in Ag will follow in the big foot
print they are creating someday. Now that’s something they can be
proud of.
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