December 6, 2024 • 60 mins
In this episode of the Growing Our Future podcast, host Aaron Alejandro engages with Dr. Curtis Paulson, a pioneer in agricultural communication. They discuss the importance of gratitude, the influence of early life experiences, and the significance of taking risks in education and agriculture. Dr. Paulson shares his journey from a farm boy in Minnesota to a leader in ag communication, emphasizing the value of work ethic, innovation, and the role of technology in shaping the future of agriculture. The conversation highlights the impact of land-grant universities and the collaborative efforts that have led to the growth of agricultural communication programs.
Story Notes:
- Dr. Curtis Paulson's Early Influences
- Aha Moments in Agriculture
- Career Path and Education
- The Importance of Work Ethic
- Innovations in Agricultural Communication
- Establishing Agricultural Communication Programs
- The Role of Technology in Agriculture
- Reflections on Growth and Success
- Catalysts of Change: The Role of Creativity
- Navigating Career Transitions: Lessons from Academia
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Growing Our Future podcast.
In this show, the Texas FFAFoundation will take on a
journey of exploration intoagricultural science, education,
leadership development andinsights from subject matter
experts and sponsors who providethe fuel to make dreams come
true.
Here's your host, AaronAlejandro.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening or
whenever you may be tuning in tothe Growing Our Future podcast
Number one, we want to say thankyou.
Thank you for stopping by,thank you for spending some of
your time with us.
It is a real treat for us tobring this podcast and it's a
real honor to have subjectmatter experts, people that have
(00:53):
these incredible lifeexperiences, who are willing to
share some of their time with usand pour into us so that maybe
we can be encouraged or find askill set or something that
makes our lives a little better.
Today is no different.
I'm really excited I'm going togo into a little bit more
detail about this man here in asecond but I'm really excited to
(01:15):
have Dr Curtis Paulson with us.
Dr Paulson, thank you forjoining us today.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
You're welcome, Aaron , and I'm glad to be here.
Thank you for asking me to be apart of this great program.
Thanks, we're going to have funand again.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I'm going to tell you a little bit more about Dr
Paulson here in just a second.
But, dr Paulson, we start everyepisode with every guest asking
the same question, because Ithink it's just really a really
great place to start question.
Because I think it's justreally a really great place to
start and that is this.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Dr Paulson, what are you grateful for today?
Oh, the most important thing isI'm grateful is that we live in
a great country, I have myspiritual connection with my
higher power and that I havebeen given the opportunity to do
a lot of things in my life.
And just the concept ofgratitude, where I can take any
meal and I can look toagriculture, where all that food
(02:15):
comes from, and all the peoplethat process it, all the people
that import it or that packageit, and even the people who
design the packaging equipment Ihad a good friend that was in
packaging design.
You know everything associatedwith my life that relates back
to agriculture.
I'm extremely grateful for thatand for that I can thank so
(02:39):
many people in my life.
It's just, it's almost beyondwords what there is to be
grateful for.
So, with that, thank you, Aaron.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
No, thank you.
And, by the way, everythingthat he just said I agree with.
I tell people all the time thatFebruary 6, 1966, a bouncing
baby boy came into this worldand my mama loved me, she hugged
me.
But, in addition to my mom'sincredible love, they wrapped me
in this blanket of freedom andliberty and it was a full of a
(03:11):
country of opportunity.
And then, along the way, I hadgreat mentors and I learned
about faith and I learned aboutall of the things that Dr
Paulson just said.
So I appreciate you sharing allthose.
That's good stuff.
The show Growing Our Futurecomes from the simple concept of
what you just shared, and thatis this I tell people all the
(03:33):
time if agriculture's taught meanything, it's taught me that if
you want to know what thefuture is, grow it.
Well, how do you grow a future?
Well, we've got to plant theright seeds.
We have to take care of thoseseeds.
We have to take care of thoseseeds.
We have to weed the gardensometimes and then we have to
harvest and then share withothers.
And I think that's what life isabout.
(03:53):
I think life is about plantingthe right seeds, nurturing them,
caring for them and thensharing them with others, them
with others, and that's why I'mhonored that you're joining us
today, dr Paulson, to share someseeds of greatness that we can
pour into other people.
Are you ready to get started?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Sure, and I'd like to just make a comment on that,
you know, relating everything toagriculture.
I like to take that concept andgo back to some biblical
examples where our good Lordwould always feed the masses
before he did the education.
That concept is even carriedback to the biblical scene.
So with that, thank you.
Yes, I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Oh, that's great.
That's good stuff right there.
All right.
So the reason these podcastsare always a little bit
challenging, interesting and fun.
For me to do this one righthere is a great example of that,
and that's because I get tointerview this man right here,
dr Curtis Paulson, who I wanteverybody to know was one of my
(04:57):
early mentors.
Here's the story In 1984, whenI graduated from Cal Farley's
Boys Ranch, I started summerschool at Texas Tech University
and because of some scores thatI had made on an ACT test, I had
to take a leveling class inmath and English, which I passed
with A's, no problem.
(05:18):
So I get ready to sign up for myfall semester, and I'm a real
rookie at this college thing.
So I'm looking at the titles ofall these courses and I see one
that really got my attention.
The course was called Transferof Ag Technology Transfer of Ag
Technology, and I thought, hey,that really sounds like my kind
(05:41):
of class, cutting edge on theball.
I think I'm going to sign upfor this transfer of ag
technology class and I do.
And I show up to class underthis professor who everybody
told me was like this realcreative guy.
His name was Dr Curtis Paulsonand I show up to class and I
realized real quick I had made amistake, because along that
(06:05):
path nobody taught me to look atthe prerequisite of a course
and I did not look at theprerequisite of this course.
This was a senior level course.
Transfer of ag technology was asenior level course.
We were about to dive into abook by John Nesbitt called
Megatrends and I remember DrPaulson.
(06:26):
I asked him.
I said, sir, I said if I need atransfer out of here, you just
let me know.
And Dr Paulson said no, I thinkyou'll be just fine.
And this man let me stay in thatsenior level course and at an
early age started to stimulatemy imagination, started to
stimulate my what-ifs andpossibilities.
(06:47):
And I just want to say on apersonal note that this is going
to be a real honor to have DrPaulson here today, because he
helped me early on in my life'sjourney and now we get this
incredible platform where I getto let you share with him his
journey.
So, dr Paulson, let's do that,let's unpack your career,
(07:09):
because I don't necessarily I'vedone a little bit of research.
I don't necessarily want tocall you the godfather of ag
communications, but there is noquestion, you were one of the
early leaders in agcommunication across the United
States of America.
But I want to start and go alittle bit further back.
So, dr Paulson, take us all theway back to where you grew up
(07:31):
and kind of walk us through whatyour career pathway looked like
, and then we'll startextracting things out of that
career path.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
I'd be happy to, and I remember that day very well
when you walked into class, andone of the concepts that I'd
like to talk about throughoutthe day is the concept of taking
risks.
You know, I thought to myselfAaron's a risk.
You know, does he have thebackground needed to understand
some of the concepts ofdiffusion of innovation and what
(08:02):
an innovation is and how thatgoes through society and through
organizations, and that's, Iguess it's a concept that I'm
pretty lucky that I've taken afew risks and just by everything
that Aaron has accomplished inhis life, it paid off.
It paid off big for not onlyfor Aaron but for society as a
whole.
(08:22):
But now you asked me what mylife was like.
I'd like to start by going backto the beginning.
I grew up, I was born in 1946,and I'm a farm boy and I have
been involved in agriculture myentire life, with the exception
of two years in the military,but even today as I volunteer at
(08:43):
state and national parks,that's agricultural, natural
resource based.
So that goes back to thebeginning and, like I said, I
grew up in a farm.
I'm from western Minnesota.
Some of the things that I grewand I'm going to call not grew.
But some of these things that Ilearned and I'm going to call
them the aha moments inretrospect in life these are the
(09:07):
things that are important to me.
From my dad I learned takeresponsibilities.
Let's say I'm out on thetractor doing something and I
break a chisel off a chisel plow.
I won't try to hide it, I won'tsay it broke.
I'll say I broke it.
It was my responsibilitybecause I was in charge of that
(09:29):
machine.
And that has kind of stuck withme my entire life.
When I'm associated with it, Itake ownership of it and I
either broke it or I try to finda way to fix it or to go around
it.
You know the other it.
One of the other things Ilearned from him is to utilize
all your senses.
(09:50):
When you're out alone, utilizethe sense of smell, the tactile,
what it feels like If you'rerunning a machine you can sense
it.
The hearing you can hear ifsomething changes, be aware of
your surroundings, and thathelps you make decisions.
That was real important andrelated to that, let's say, I
(10:11):
had a breakdown out in the field.
I had usually a little toolboxwith me and then I'd trace the
power source from the engine orthe power takeoff to where I
thought the problem of theimplement was, and then I had to
make the decision okay, can Ifix that with what I have or do
(10:32):
I need to stop and go back andspend that extra hour and get
help?
So utilizing your senses tomake some current decisions.
And I think, like everybodyelse involved in agriculture, I
learned in the early days thework ethic.
I think that's so important.
Is that work ethic?
(10:53):
And I've also stressed that alot eventually, when I got to
teaching agriculture at the highschool level and in watching.
So anyway, aaron, at this pointdo you have any interest in my
background?
I guess I want to share oneother story.
(11:13):
Later on, when I was teaching,one of the students in Texas
asked me.
He said where are you from, drPaulson, you talk funny.
And I said, well, sir, and hewas sitting in the front row, he
was a corpsman.
And I said, well, sir, and hewas sitting in the front row, he
was a corpsman.
And I said, well, sir, I'm fromthe furthest state in the
continental United States.
Where is that?
He looked without skipping abeat and said we don't care, you
(11:38):
know.
And that taught me hey, it'sgood to have that image.
You know, growing up inMinnesota I didn't like it when
the people from Iowa came upthere and fished our fish.
I was proud of that.
I challenged this young man.
I said no, seriously, where amI from?
And he said well, northCarolina, north Dakota, any of
the states with north in it.
But in actuality I got my firstreal experience of teaching
(12:04):
agriculture in that schooldistrict, which was War Road,
minnesota, that part ofMinnesota that sticks up into
Canada.
That's the furthest northschool district and it's also
the second coldest schooldistrict in the United States.
So with that I'll turn thisback to Aaron a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
No, this is good stuff.
It's interesting, Dr Paulson,you know I did through my job.
Sometimes I get to work with mycolleagues across the country,
and Val Arsvold is my colleaguefrom Minnesota and she's a very
dear friend and I did someconsulting work with Minnesota
and so as part of my time upthere they knew that I'm an
(12:42):
outdoorsman and so I asked themif they would take me ice
fishing.
And so I will never forget myexperience of the teacher
picking me up and we weredriving along and we went down a
hill and at that moment it justkind of dawned on me that we
were on the ice and so I askedthe guy, the ag teacher.
I said are we on the ice rightnow?
(13:05):
And he said yes, and that's alittle unsettling from a boy
from West Texas.
And we were driving and wepassed a Domino's pizza delivery
sign and I said what in theworld is that?
And he said oh yeah, they'lldeliver pizza at our fish house
if we want to.
Anyway, we parked, we drilledour holes, had a great time
fishing.
Anyway, we parked, we drilledour holes, had a great time
(13:33):
fishing.
I remember stepping out of thefish house and it was minus 14
degrees with the wind chill.
I also remember we were inMinneapolis and they closed
schools that day.
Now there was no precipitation,dr Paulson, they just closed
schools.
But they did because of thetemperature.
And I said why do y'all closethe school because of
temperatures?
And they said because theycan't risk a kid getting
frostbite at a bus stop or a busbreaking down.
And it was an awareness.
I love it when you saidawareness, my senses.
(13:55):
I got to see what cold reallywas.
I got to feel what cold reallywas and I got to hear that the
way we process cold and days offin Texas is a lot different
than the way y'all process daysoff in Minnesota.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Absolutely, and related to the cold.
The little community I am fromdid not have an ag program and I
had industrial arts.
But my neighboring friends thathad, from the farm that
adjoined me, three young men myage.
They had agriculture and theytold me all these great stories
(14:35):
about vocational agriculture,ffa, that we didn't have.
What did I do?
I went to my industrial artsteacher and I tried to convince
him that, hey, why don't youteach agriculture like they do
in Evansville, the neighboringtown?
And he said well, we teach alot of the skills, the same type
(14:56):
of skills, that are taught invocational agriculture, and that
made sense.
Related to that, he alsoprovided some of the real aha
moments in my life about theimportance of the work ethic.
And I'll remember my first yearas a sophomore.
(15:17):
We were doing woodworking and wewere going to create an image
on just a board.
So my image was a young manhunting and his hunting dog
alongside and a little brushpatch and I got a pattern.
I traced that on the wood, Istippled the background, I
painted the image black.
(15:38):
It was a silhouette image and Iwas so proud of that.
I still have that hanging.
So I turned it in.
I knew I was going to get an Aplus.
I was that proud of it and Iwas devastated when I got an A
minus.
So I went up and I asked themwhy did I get an A minus?
I needed to know why it wasn'tperfect.
And guess what?
(15:59):
He taught me the importance ofit's always a chance to improve
and he's pointed out all theselittle things.
You did a great job.
However, this could have been alittle better.
You missed a tiny drop of paintover here that fell into the
stipple part.
This stippling around the bushis not the same as the stippling
(16:23):
out throughout and it wasbetter.
You can always be better ineverything you do, but overall
you did a great job and be proudof it, and I've tried to carry
that out throughout my life Inhigh school.
That's.
One of the aha moments isthings can be better.
And another aha moment that Ihad to change a subject is for
(16:51):
some reason I ended up in atyping class and I couldn't type
very fast, but that was a biginfluence in my life.
Later on, in both the militaryand Aaron, you referenced the ag
communications.
So with that I'm going to turnit back to you and I'll go back
to the typing concept later.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, we're going to talk about that.
I think I know where you'regoing with that.
I'm going to turn it back toyou and I'll go back to the
typing concept later.
Yeah, we're going to talk aboutthat.
I think I know where you'regoing with that.
So you grew up in Minnesota?
Were you a Golden Gopher?
Did you go to college there inMinnesota?
I?
Speaker 3 (17:14):
did and I'll say a little bit more about my entire
career.
I'm very proud of the fact thatI have three different degrees
from three different land-grantuniversities.
So Minnesota I graduated.
It took me two different tries.
Then I went to the Universityof Florida later on and that's a
land-grant institution, andfrom there I went to Texas A&M,
(17:39):
which is another land-grantuniversity, and also while in
the military I took some classesthrough the University of
Maryland, so that's the fourthland-grant university.
And then I kind of ended up mycareer teaching at Ohio State
University, which is anotherland-grant university, and we
could spend days just talkingabout the importance of the
(18:01):
land-grant system to everybodyin the United States.
With that I'm going to turn itback to you, aaron.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Oh, this is good stuff.
And yes, not only.
I'm very aware of Minnesota,obviously, Maryland, Florida.
And then I knew that there wasa giveaway earlier because you
mentioned Corman.
So I knew the young man was inthe Corps, so I knew you were
talking about A&M.
So I knew the young man was inthe Corps, so I knew you were
talking about A&M.
(18:27):
So while you were at A&M, Ibelieve and this is where we're
going to start the agcommunication story I believe
it's when you were at Texas A&Mthat you started teaching ag
communications.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Is that correct?
That's correct.
(19:06):
And that story came about.
One day I walked into class notclass, but I walked into the
department I'd usually get upand play racquetball or two
years before that identified thecompetencies that ag educators
had that industry wanted, suchas public speaking, writing for
newspapers, doing oralinterviews for radio and
television.
So this dissertation was doneprior to my arriving at Texas
(19:29):
A&M and they asked me.
Well, I guess they told me thatthe next semester I'd be
teaching the first class and itwasn't an official class, they
had a catch-all phrase that wasa what did they call it?
An independent study inagricultural communication
concepts.
It was an offshoot of the ag edprogram.
(19:51):
So that, I think, was the firstprogram or the first class in
agricultural communication.
That has since, and somebodytold me, and I think it's
correct, that that program hassince evolved.
That is larger than mostcolleges of agriculture in the
United States with the number offaculty and the number of
(20:14):
students.
This is at A&M.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
That's correct.
Do you remember what year thatwas?
By chance.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
That would have been probably in 81 or 82, 82 or 83,
something like that.
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, I did a little research.
I was drilling out, trying tofind out a little bit about
programs and I know that techstarted.
They actually started an ag-comclass in 73, class in 73, but
it did not become a degree until92, I believe.
I think it was ag-com degree in92, 93, somewhere right in
(20:59):
there.
But anyway, that's why I wascurious what your reference
point was when you were at TexasA&M when did you move from A&M
to Texas Tech?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
That would have been in 84.
So I think I started at TexasTech 84 and 85, because I
graduated from Texas A&M in 85.
And I was on staff at TexasTech for the last year I was
working on my dissertation.
Okay, that's what.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I remember too.
I was working on mydissertation.
Okay, that's what I remembertoo, so I remember, you know.
Here now we're getting into thereal exciting part here for me
is watching Dr Paulson's careerjust really take off when he was
at Tech.
So Dr Paulson is at Tech and hestarts the Ag Communicators,
the ACT program.
Were you involved also with thestarting of NAMA, National
(21:44):
Agri-Marketing Association?
Speaker 3 (21:47):
No, I was not.
I was not involved with NAMA,but I did go to some of the NAMA
meetings at different times,both as a professional and at
the university level.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, I remember ACT.
I remember you were veryinvolved with ACT.
I also remember you were ouradvisor for the Alpha Gamma Rho
fraternity because we juststarted the Beta Xi chapter.
I went back to a meeting onetime, dr Paulson, and everybody
was talking about their pinnumbers and I was pin number 21,
and I knew I was the old guythen because I was one of the
(22:21):
original pin numbers when AGRstarted at Texas Tech.
But you are our advisor.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I'd like to share a little bit about that.
I was asked to be the advisorwhen the advisor left the
university and I said sure, andI was very proud of the fact
that I took the it was still acolony at that time that the
colony at Texas Tech wouldusually come in first or second
(22:48):
in academic rank throughout theentire university and I was very
proud of that, where they couldcombine the elements of
fraternity life with theacademic life.
Let's see.
I want to go back a little bitand go back to another aha
moment I had while at Texas A&M.
(23:08):
That will relate to the Texasgrowing.
It was one cold night mycolleague, another graduate
student, asked me to go to acomputer users group where they
introduced the Macintoshtechnology, the Macintosh
technology, and I was just blownaway.
(23:29):
I'd been used to usingmainframes and IBMs and the
programming concept and Iremember to this day the group
showing the bottom of a tennisshoe the graphic capabilities of
Macintosh, and I thought tomyself, wow, and I got the
contact with the person puttingon the program that night and
somehow or another, when I wentto Texas Tech he contacted me
(23:50):
and he said I think you can usesome computers and I said I
think so also, but I don't knowwhat to do with them.
But he said here, here's somecomputers, you figure it out.
So at that time I was kind offocusing in the ag education,
the mechanized ag component, agmech, teaching a class in farm
building construction.
(24:12):
So I said, okay, we're going todraw this building first.
So I had to teach the studentshow to use the Macintosh, how to
picture in their minds all thecomponents of a small farm
building, and then we actuallywere going to build that.
And what a challenge to stayone step ahead of the students
and learning the technology andthen actually building a
(24:34):
building.
But then at that same time Irealized the ag communication
component.
And you mentioned that oneclass.
At that time there was only oneclass and I had found a program
called PageMaker for theMacintosh and I said, hey, can I
take these few students?
(24:55):
And at that time there wereseven students and I volunteered
to introduce them to theMacintosh.
And in my mind the rest ishistory, because we put out that
first newsletter and it was afar cry from what it is today
but it was the beginning of whatI call the real advancement of
(25:16):
AgCom, way back then.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
That's an important point.
I want everybody to hear this,because you just said something
that I don't think people reallyrealize the significance of
what you just shared.
One of the things I like totell people is we all stand on
the shoulders of the people thatwent before us.
All of us stand on theshoulders of the people that
(25:39):
went before us.
That influenced me too, and Iknow that.
But what I'm saying is, whenyou did what you did at Texas
Tech with those Macintoshcomputers, I still remember that
.
I remember we were so nervousyou know we were used to DOS and
we were so nervous using thesecomputers and everything was
(26:00):
WYSIWYG what you see is what youget, and you could click and
hold and move things around, andthe imagery was incredible.
And it would be very easy forus as students to be intimidated
, to think, well, we can messthis up, that we could break
this computer.
And I remember Dr Paulson wouldwalk around and he'd say use
(26:24):
your imagination.
He said there's nothing thatyou're going to do that we can't
fix, there's nothing thatyou're going to do that we can't
undo.
And so he challenges us tostretch our imaginations.
He challenges us to stretch ourboundaries, to know that it was
okay to take that risk, as youmentioned earlier, and then fix
(26:45):
it, but because you encouragedus to do that and I left AgComm
and went back into AgEd.
But look at all of the successthe AgComm department had as a
result of you unleashingpeople's imagination and saying
go for it, Use this technologyand go for it.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
You know that relates back to you mentioned earlier
is taking risks.
You know I didn't know what wasgoing to happen, but as I look
back on all the graduates of agcommunications from Texas Tech,
from Texas A&M and from otheruniversities, I can see little
bits here and there that allthese other graduate students
(27:32):
have taken throughout the world.
I was I'm kind of bragging.
I was recruited to go to Korea,south Korea, to one of the
universities, but at the timeyou may remember that there was
(27:52):
a bunch of demonstrations backthen and they were all related
to agriculture.
I don't know all the factsbehind it, but all of a sudden
this position dissolved andsomebody stepped on somebody's
toes, didn't come about.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
But that all goes back to the concepts you're
talking about taking the risksof agriculture and education
well, I got to tell you, it wasreally, you know it as me, for
me as a freshman, in 1984.
And then I left my 85, 86 year,because that's the year I was
(28:23):
state FFA president and to leaveand come back and in just one
year see the incredible growthof the ag communications
department, see the growth ofthe Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity,
and both of those programs hadyour thumb, your fingerprint on
them, just so, so you know.
So it was interesting to walkaway from it for a year and come
(28:43):
back and see them both justthriving and and continue to
thrive, and they continue tothrive to this day.
Again, go back to what we'retalking about growing the future
.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
You know, aaron, you gave me credit for that a lot of
times but as as I think back, Idid not have the training in
communications.
So one of my reasons forsuccess is I had gone to the
national ACT AgriculturalCommunicators of Tomorrow
national meeting and I realizedat that meeting that there were
(29:16):
eight or nine professionalassociations throughout the
United States where our studentscould go.
So with that little fact I wentback to Texas Tech and I formed
an advisory committee and Isaid, hey, I'm the new kid on
the block, I need to know whatour students need in their
(29:36):
curriculum.
So we went through a nominalgroup technique, a brainstorming
technique, and we identifiedthe major concept of that ag
communication program.
Now you give me credit for that.
But I'm going to turn that rightback to.
Yes, I had the wherewithal toform that committee, but the
success of that committee camebecause the professionals told
(30:01):
me slash the university, whatshould be in the program.
I took it to my boss, drStockton, and we got that
approved at the college leveland the university level and
then the rest is history.
So I turned this success backto that committee and I'm still
friends with quite a few ofthose people, in fact, as one of
(30:23):
the advisors on that committee,received one of the highest
honors that Texas Tech gave toany alumni.
He was one of the first agcommunication people, so it's a
group effort Well.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I don't disagree with that.
But every you know, everysuccessful venture has to start
as a creative idea and thenthere has to be something that
becomes the catalyst, and Idon't think there's any question
that you became the catalystfor a lot of the good things
that we experienced.
It's so funny here.
I knew when we started intothis there were going to be
things I was going to get toshare with you.
One you talked about PageMaker.
(31:02):
I'm going to make sure that myformer executive assistant,
joanne, gets to see thisinterview, because she worked
with me for 12 years at theTexas FFA Foundation.
She did not come from an agbackground, she came from a
technology background, but shewas so frustrated at me because
I would not quit using PageMaker, because I was so accustomed to
(31:26):
PageMaker that I wouldn't moveover to the other you know,
adobe or Microsoft programs andanyway, she just always got a
kick that I would refuse toleave PageMaker.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
You know, related to that concept.
I got started with Pagemakerand then another program came
out called Quark Express and itwas a lot of frustrations
amongst all the students becauseI switched.
I destroyed Pagemaker because Ithought Quark Express was a
little bit better, and nowadaysthere's all kinds of publishing
(32:01):
programs.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I remember, I remember when y'all made that
transition and I, like I said, Istuck with PageMaker.
The other thing that I wantedto share that you mentioned, you
referenced, which I'm glad youdid, and we're not going to talk
about it in detail, but it'sone of those things that I think
people don't really.
I always tell kids I want youto listen, and when I mean
listen, I mean listen with youreyes and listen with your ears.
So important, Absolutely.
(32:28):
Because, there's things that youcan pick up and one of the
things I picked up on early inmy career again because of your
tutelage was the nominal grouptechnique and I remember you
walked us through that exercisein class one time where we were
kind of dissecting a topic andan idea and trying to vet it out
(32:50):
and think through it and Iremember we went through the
nominal group technique strategyto get to a final conclusion.
And interesting, later in mylife I've been in numerous
non-profit roles andorganization roles where I've
leaned into that nominal grouptechnique to drill down to find
(33:13):
that common solution.
So that's just another funexample of seeds that you
planted that are still beingharvested today.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
And related to that.
I've always thought that agroup decision is more valuable
than an individual decision.
If I had gone to my boss withall these ideas and say we're
going to do this, this and thisjust based on my recollection or
my knowledge, he'd haveprobably scoffed at the idea.
But when I took those ideas,and with the stamp of approval
(33:46):
of the professionals, that addeda lot more weight to that
decision.
And I have used that nominalgroup technique as a consultant
in various points.
In fact, as you mentioned,nonprofits, within the next
month I'll be using thattechnique to establish the
agenda for the upcoming newnonprofit that deals with Civil
(34:09):
War history, you know.
So that technique and makingdecisions, I'm still using it
and that's something I learnedin graduate school.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Let's talk a little bit here Now.
This is really good stuff.
So we've talked about kind ofyour career and you left Texas
Tech and you went on to OhioState University where
ultimately you retired from OhioState.
Yes, you were a Buckeye.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
You know what a Buckeye is?
It's a hairless nut ofabsolutely no economic value.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Well, obviously you know you and I know that I've
got a connection to the Buckeyesas well.
And what do they say?
The more things change, themore things stay the same.
You know?
I believe that I've said thatall along.
I said people don't change.
I think individuals can change,but people don't change.
You can read the Bible and findpessimists and optimists and
status quo and innovators thereIn 1920, you can find the same
(35:07):
1950, and, lo and behold, herewe are in 2024, and there's
probably somebody in a coffeeshop that believe America's
going to hell in a handbasketand there's probably some kid in
a classroom thinking our bestdays are ahead.
Let's capitalize on yourhistory, but bring it to today.
(35:31):
So one of the things that Ilike to talk about here is this
I like to ask kids how many highschools are in Texas, and
they'll usually hem-haul aroundand say a lot, and I said, yeah,
there's a lot.
There's over 3,000 high schoolsin Texas.
Every one of those high schoolsare going to have a graduating
class.
That means the kids are going toget out, they're going to be
looking for a job, scholarshipor an opportunity, and so I
(35:54):
always ask the kids what's yourcompetitive edge?
What is it that separates youfrom your peers?
And so you've already sharedsome things that I think can be
a competitive edge Payingattention, taking risk, looking
for trends.
I think all of those thingsthat you mentioned are elements
(36:16):
of a competitive edge.
But in your life, in the seasonthat you're in, and in your
career history, what are somethings that you would tell a
young person would be skill setsto put in place in their lives
that'll give them a competitiveedge.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
First of all, I think it's taking a risk and
utilizing your senses to say hey, this is a good idea.
It's not a good idea.
And I'm going to share anexample.
I had a student at Ohio StateUniversity who was a better than
average student.
He was really good and he lovedagriculture, just like I did,
(36:55):
and I helped him get aninternship in Denmark on a
500-year-old hog operation thatstill had some of the original
moat around the castle, but itwas a state-of-the-art hog swine
production.
And that was about the time Iwas leaving Ohio State
University.
So I asked him to join me whenhe got back from Denmark and he
(37:16):
said, yes, I will.
Now he was a guy willing to takerisks.
He went over to Europe and heinterned and he published some
articles related to that in somenational magazines.
So, anyway, his first day onthe job, he said okay, boss,
what am I going to do?
(37:37):
And I asked do you remember,don, when you told me about this
little reading project?
You were interning at ReadingRecovery back in Ohio and that's
a program designed to helpstudents in the lower quartile
if they have trouble learning toread in kindergarten and grade
one, and you described how theywanted to publish some little
(37:57):
books to help that program.
And you described how theywanted to publish some little
books to help that program.
So I said let's make thathappen.
So we wrote a proposal, theypresented it to Reading Recovery
, they accepted it and prettysoon we coordinated the writers
and the illustrator and all thepre-press work for four little
(38:18):
books that are still in usetoday and they were very
successful.
They wanted more, and I thinkthat first press run was 20,000
books.
So then we immediately rananother press run for another 20
or 40,000 or something likethat, and they were just wildly
successful.
So within a few months we hadeight books in the set and we
(38:42):
did a press run of one million.
After that date we never ran apress run less than a million.
One time we had four millionbooks on press at one time.
We bought paper by the railroadcars.
We bought ink by the barrels.
We bought paper by the railroadcars, we bought ink by the
barrels.
(39:03):
And that's a result of taking achance and using your gut level
feeling, you know.
Is that the competitive edge?
Was it luck?
Was it intuition?
Was it utilizing the census?
Did I pick up on the trend?
Did my friend who was interningin Denmark?
Did he pick up on the trendbecause he had interned with
(39:25):
Reading Recovery.
So I look at being able to picka lot of different pieces a lot
of different strings and thismight relate to string theory,
which I think you're familiarwith, aaron.
We talked about that a littlebit in Diffusion, but you know,
picking up on something and thentaking the risk to follow it
through.
The bad part of this story isthis young man who did this.
(39:49):
He came down with leukemia andhe passed away about six months
into this whole program and theyended up dedicating the program
to him for a while and that'skind of gone by the wayside now.
So I don't know if that's whatyou're talking about the
competitive edge.
But as I look back in my career, I think about the risks I took
(40:09):
.
But I didn't really realizethere were risks at the time.
It just felt natural.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
What I like that you've shared already and this
is one reason I like theseinterviews, by the way is
because there's a lot of seedsof greatness.
If we'll just listen tosomebody's story, if we'll
listen to somebody's testimony,we find elements in there that
we can all learn from.
And there's several things thatyou've talked about.
Like I said, you've talkedabout paying attention, you
talked about work ethic, youtalked about taking risks, being
(40:38):
creative, being innovative.
We've talked a lot aboutinnovation.
You've said it several times.
You know, I think there's a lotof wisdom in being an innovator
, because everything that weexperience, every successful
venture, started as a creativeidea.
So I think there's a lot ofbrilliance and innovation, but
you've got to be willing to takethat risk, to try it and then
(41:02):
use critical thinking to figureout why it worked.
And you know, I like what JohnMaxwell says.
He says every success, you needto do an autopsy on it.
You know you need to evaluateit.
You need to do the same thingto a failure you need to unpack
it.
But I guess you know, drPaulson, one of the things I
tell people is all the peoplethat I've been blessed to work
(41:23):
with incredible corporateleaders, policy leaders,
athletes.
There's one word that they allhave in their vocabulary that I
find very unique, and that wordis next.
It does not matter if they havea success, what's next?
It does not matter if they havea success, what's next.
It does not matter if they havea failure, what's next?
(41:45):
It does not matter if they moveto a new job, what's next,
doesn't matter if they retire,it's what's next.
Next, I believe, creates atarget and a goal that beckons,
and I believe that next providesfuel to give us purpose, and I
(42:06):
think that looking for what'snext is also something that can
create a competitive edge.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
I like that concept and you know you talked about.
You mentioned failure a littlebit.
You know, so far we've talkedmostly about the successes.
I've had AgCom and AgEd andthat.
But you know, as I think backI've had plenty of failures too.
But as I look back on those now, you know my first time I went
to college I was a poor student.
(42:34):
I was a tremendously poorstudent.
I was a poor student.
I was a tremendously poorstudent Back in the 60s.
I drank way too much.
I knew I was going to farm, soI went home every weekend.
I didn't spend any time at theuniversity studying and
basically I probably would havefailed out of college had I not
dropped out of college when mydad had a heart attack and I
(42:55):
went back to the family farm andat that point what was next?
We had created a livestockfeedlot when I was in high
school because I was going backto the farm.
But you know, I've had plentyof different ideas that weren't
successful, but I learned fromthem and I just asked, like you
(43:15):
said, aaron, what's next?
You know you need to take allthose in stride.
You can't let anything get youdown and just go for the next.
You know I mentioned South Korea.
I thought I really kind ofwanted to go to South Korea
because I was stationed in SouthKorea and in my military.
Related to the next concept, Imentioned high school typing
(43:41):
class that led me to a radioteletype communication job and
that required an extremely highsecurity clearance because I was
responsible for all classes,from non-classified to top
secret, and they called it acrypto clearance because I
operated the equipment and allthose things were related to
(44:03):
agricultural community or tocommunications and I in turn
brought those into the agcommunications.
Without turning back to you, Ikind of changed the rabbits
there no, that's good stuff Iwas thinking through.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
When you talked about your resiliency, I got to
thinking about tenacity, andthere's a great movie about an
astronaut who was a migrant farmworker, called A Million Miles
Away.
It's a true story and there wasa moment there that he was
about willing to give up and oneof his instructors told him
(44:39):
that tenacity is your superpowerand that's what kept him going.
And sadly, she was one of thecrew members in the not the
Challenger.
It was the other space shuttlethat went down under with
Captain Rick Husband.
(44:59):
But I'll never forget that thattenacity is a superpower.
I met a person one time thattold me they were just tired of
the storms of life and they saidthey really wish they'd just
quit raining.
And I said, well, you want aplace that never rains.
(45:20):
I said I can take you there andthey said, really.
I said yeah it exists, so it'scalled a desert and nothing
grows.
But you show me somebody that'shad a little pain, a little
challenge, a little heartache,and I'll show you somebody
that's probably poised for someincredible growth.
A little heartache, and I'llshow you somebody that's
probably poised for someincredible growth, and I think
(45:40):
that through those failures,which I've had as well, if we're
smart about them, we learn fromthem.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
And they just make us better.
All right, let's close this up.
I want to talk about one lasttopic, and that's leadership.
Our country, you know, I tellpeople all the time this
country's got three vital andrenewable resources.
Think about that.
We've got three vital andrenewable resources.
That's young people,agriculture and leadership.
(46:13):
And I want to talk aboutleadership for a minute.
If you were to share some tipson leadership, what would you
tell young people?
What are some tips that theyshould employ to be really good
leaders?
Speaker 3 (46:27):
I think the first one is something you mentioned
earlier is the ability to listen, listen to understand, not
listen to reply.
Everything, everything.
You should try to relate it tosomething else and understand
what you're hearing.
There are so many people and Ithink it's my pet peeve of every
of anybody is somebody who justlistens enough to reply without
(46:53):
understanding the meaning.
That may go deep, and I thinkthat's a skill that can be
learned.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Does that answer your question?
Speaker 3 (47:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
If you got any more, you got anything else.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
Listen what else would a good leader do?
I am finding within the lastyear I have gravitated a lot to
stoicism, the stoic principlesthat have been around since the
Greeks and the Romans, with thenumber one thing is evaluating
everything and say is thiswithin my control?
Can I do something about it?
(47:31):
It might be just to acknowledgeit, it might be nothing, or it
might be to dive headfirst inand use that intuition and do
something, but everything youdeal with ask yourself is this
within my control and whatshould I do with it?
You can pass that on to thepeople you're working with if
(47:54):
you can give them the attitudeof that and I'm really firmly,
I'm impressed with the Stoicismand I have just learned that
recently, within the last fewyears.
So if I were to go back to theacademic world again, I would
try to introduce a section onphilosophy, history and
(48:15):
philosophy related to the Stoicprinciples.
And just this morning, for thegrins and giggles, I listened to
a podcast of 70 Stoicprinciples that are influenced
for 93% of your decisions inthat decision process and it
(48:36):
made sense to me.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
I really appreciate that.
By the way, just so you know,I've been on a kick for last
year and this year.
I'm on a real kick on the worddiscernment and we need to start
raising young people to bediscerning.
You've got to start beingdiscerning.
You can't just scroll throughsocial media and believe that
it's factual.
You can't just turn on a newsstation and believe everything
(49:00):
you hear.
You're going to have to bediscerning and you're going to
have to do a little research tobe discerning and you're going
to have to ask questions.
And you know, we put teachers ona bus every summer and take
them on a week-long leadershipdevelopment program and they get
their notebooks and when theyopen up their notebooks, the
first thing they see when theyopen up the notebooks is the
(49:21):
word question.
And I asked the teachers.
I said what's the root word ofthe word question?
Quest, to go on an adventure.
I said I want y'all on anadventure all week long this
week.
I want you always askingquestions and trying to learn,
because I believe that helps usbecome discerning and I think
(49:42):
that also adds to your stoicism,if you will.
I think that we've got to bediscerning, we've got to start
asking questions about things,otherwise we're you know we're
liable to be led down a paththat we're going to regret that
we were being led down.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
We're liable to be led down a path that we're going
to regret that we were beingled down.
You know you brought updiscernment and I want to bring
up back.
When we talked about AGR, thefraternity, and you had pin
number 20-something.
I was advisor to the colony butone of the guidelines of the
(50:21):
Alpha Gamma Rho National is thatthe advisor has to have been in
Alpha Gamma Rho as anundergraduate.
So they kind of made anexception and gave me pin number
one before, or they inducted meas a colony as an undergraduate
, but yet I was advised this.
So it's a way to get aroundthat rule.
When I went back and talkedabout leadership back then I
(50:43):
talked about discernment andthat was one of the topics that
I mentioned.
You may remember it a littlebit, but be able to discern what
is important and that relatesback Well, young people, if
y'all are listening.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Right now we need it more than ever.
There is a tax on agriculture,there's a tax on animal
agriculture, there's a tax onways of life.
There's so many things outthere that if we are not
discerning, we could fall victimto an ability to pay attention,
an ability to have that ahamoment, as Dr.
An ability to pay attention, anability to have that aha moment
(51:18):
, as Dr Paulson said.
And I don't want the aha momentto be because we lost
everything.
I don't want it to be well,where'd everything go?
What happened to my freedom?
What happened to my liberty?
What happened to my country?
What happened to my way of life?
I don't want that to be the ahamoment.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
And now with the artificial intelligence, that's
one of the hottest topics andwhat's going on?
You know, back when theMacintosh technology was first
coming out, I took a camera, adigital camera, to one of the
professional meetings andeverybody was just clamoring the
technology wasn't there yet butit was coming.
(51:56):
But they had professionalmeetings about how that
technology was utilized in thewrong way in advertising of the
high-end livestock and the bullsand the cows and how they were
manipulating the picture intheir advertising and what were
the ethics related to that.
So we've had that concept for along time and it continues.
(52:16):
It just really continues andit's getting worse.
It's getting more and more.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Well, that could be a whole other podcast, just so
you know.
But I'm glad you brought it upBecause I recently had I was at
an FFA board meeting and afoundation board meeting less
than a year ago, by the waywhere I shared with them my
concerns.
You know, back when we hadwebsites, we had SEO, search
engine optimization Brands wouldwork hard to push their brand
(52:44):
to the top.
Well, now that you got chat,gpt and AI, you've got the same
thing going on is it's capturinginformation, and if we're not
careful and we're not populatingthe right information and we're
not discerning, it doesn't takeyou long to see where this
could be a real problem.
So the reason I'm saying thankyou is because you're bringing
(53:06):
up a topic that I think you'regoing to find on this podcast
more and more in the coming year, because it's very important
that we have that discussion.
Speaker 3 (53:14):
And we both have been involved in agriculture and
communications and for thefuture of both that's so
important to just continueteaching, continued striving,
continued working towards whatis correct.
There's just so muchinformation in the whole
communication and agriculturalfields.
(53:35):
I'm happy and proud to havebeen a part of it over these
years.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Dr Paulson.
We got to bring this to a close, but I want to tell you thank
you.
You're welcome Personally andprofessionally.
On a personal note, you suredidn't have to let that freshman
kid in your class, but I'm gladyou did.
You taught me to use myimagination, to take risks, to
(54:02):
use a nominal group technique.
There are a lot of takeaways at18 years of age that I've been
able to carry with me through acareer, and you've also done the
same thing at the universitiesthat you've been at.
You've done that not just forme but for a lot of kids, and
you've helped create some prettystrong programs that you know
(54:25):
one of the things that we sayaround our shop a lot, and
you've probably heard me say it,but we always say that the
essence of leadership is toplant trees under whose shade
you may never sit.
That's so true.
That's so true, and I just wantto say that you've planted some
incredible oaks.
Thank you.
(54:47):
Those oaks are also springingand planting oaks.
Speaker 3 (54:53):
You know I think about it.
I opened the doors toopportunities and gave you and
other people a little nudge andkind of sent you on your way.
That's how I looked at mycareer.
I could open quite a few doors,but it's up to the individual
to make something happen.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
So just to piggyback on that, because, again, I just
spoke to a leadership group theother day and this is exactly
what I told them.
I said the adult's job, our jobas adults, is to make more and
bigger doors of opportunitiesfor those that follow us.
And then I look at the youngpeople and I said your
responsibility is to determinethe outcome.
(55:32):
Yep, yep, exactly, our job isto get you to the door.
We're going to try to nudge you, get you through it, but you've
got to determine the outcome.
And that's why podcasts likethis, experts like Dr Paulson,
that's why these things are soimportant, because they're seeds
of greatness and if you'lllisten to what they say and
(55:54):
plant those and nurture them,you might just grow a better
future.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
And take that initiative.
The initiative fits in theretoo, yep.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
All right, you know you get one fun question, so you
know I'm going to ask youwhat's the best concert you ever
been to?
Speaker 3 (56:09):
Well, without a doubt it's probably the first one I
went to and I would guess in theearly 80s, probably 83 or 80.
No, no, no, back in the 60s, 62or 63.
Peter Paul and Mary in Moorhead, minnesota.
Wow, yeah, wow, some of thebeautiful early music.
(56:29):
Yes, Another kind of funconcert I went to is I took a
year off, a summer off, and Ihitchhiked in Europe and I
happened to hear that Jimmy Soulwas playing.
Do you know what his famous,his one famous song was?
Speaker 1 (56:46):
If you want to be happy for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
Make an ugly woman, your wife, look at you, go
Tongue in cheek, type of thingbut it was a popular one, and it
was a small concert at a localestablishment.
But the one I really liked, andI still like, is Peter Paul,
mary, that's awesome.
I've been to some great JimmyBuffett concerts but I'm not a
big fan.
I know you are.
(57:10):
I'm a diehard Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
Buffett fan.
You know Dr Paulson too realquick and we're going to wrap
this up.
But one of the things I admireabout him too is this man
retires but he's not doneserving.
That's why I said you know,when you look at successful
people, they've always got thatword next in their vocabulary.
And this man right here nowtravels around the United States
(57:33):
volunteering his time atnational parks, volunteering his
time at national parks, and soif y'all are traveling about
this summer or in the fall, oreven in the winter or spring,
and you happen onto a nationalpark, you never know, you might
just find this guy in therehelping be a greeter, maybe a
(57:55):
trash picker, I don't know whatall you do, Dr Paulson, but I
just want to say thank you forcontinuing your service.
Speaker 3 (58:01):
You know I consider I'm very versatile.
I've done everything fromcleaning, greeting high school
kids to kindergarten kids and Ieven helped one school in Texas
where they based most of theircurriculum on outdoor activities
at a state park and that wasjust great, like with the
camping, the hunting, thefishing, the management of park.
(58:24):
That was a great experience andthat relates agriculture, to
communications, to naturalresources, to education.
So it's great.
It's a great life.
I'm living the dream now.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Dr Paulson, thank you for coming on today.
Thank you, aaron.
Thank you for being a mentor,and not just to me, but to so
many Folks.
That's what the Growing OurFuture podcast is all about.
If you want to know what thefuture is, grow it.
You got to have people likethis that plant seeds in the
minds of young people.
(58:57):
Find a mentor, aaron, and weneed young people that are
willing to do exactly what youjust said to listen, to be
mentored, to find somebody thatcan pour into you.
But if you'll do all thesethings, you'll grow a better
life, you'll grow a bettercareer, we'll grow better homes,
(59:17):
we'll grow better homes, we'llgrow better communities, we'll
grow better states and we'llgrow a better country Exactly.
Maybe when it's all said anddone, we'll grow a better world.
Dr Paulson, thank you forjoining us.
To all of our guests, thank youfor stopping by Again.
You can only spend time and youspent some of it with us, and
(59:38):
we just want to say thank you.
Until we meet again, everybody,go out, do something great for
somebody else.
You'll feel good about it andyou never know, you just might
change the world doing it.
Until we meet again, everybody,be safe.
Thank you for joining us.
You bet.
Speaker 1 (59:58):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the
Growing Our Future podcast.
This show is sponsored by theTexas FFA Foundation, whose
mission is to strengthenagricultural science education
so students can develop theirpotential for personal growth,
career success and leadership ina global marketplace.
Learn more at mytexasffaorg.
Welcome to the Growing Our Future podcast.
In this show, the Texas FFAFoundation will take on a
journey of exploration intoagricultural science, education,
leadership development andinsights from subject matter
experts and sponsors who providethe fuel to make dreams come
true.
Here's your host, AaronAlejandro.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening or
whenever you may be tuning in tothe Growing Our Future podcast
Number one, we want to say thankyou.
Thank you for stopping by,thank you for spending some of
your time with us.
It is a real treat for us tobring this podcast and it's a
real honor to have subjectmatter experts, people that have
(00:53):
these incredible lifeexperiences, who are willing to
share some of their time with usand pour into us so that maybe
we can be encouraged or find askill set or something that
makes our lives a little better.
Today is no different.
I'm really excited I'm going togo into a little bit more
detail about this man here in asecond but I'm really excited to
(01:15):
have Dr Curtis Paulson with us.
Dr Paulson, thank you forjoining us today.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
You're welcome, Aaron , and I'm glad to be here.
Thank you for asking me to be apart of this great program.
Thanks, we're going to have funand again.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
I'm going to tell you a little bit more about Dr
Paulson here in just a second.
But, dr Paulson, we start everyepisode with every guest asking
the same question, because Ithink it's just really a really
great place to start question.
Because I think it's justreally a really great place to
start and that is this.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Dr Paulson, what are you grateful for today?
Oh, the most important thing isI'm grateful is that we live in
a great country, I have myspiritual connection with my
higher power and that I havebeen given the opportunity to do
a lot of things in my life.
And just the concept ofgratitude, where I can take any
meal and I can look toagriculture, where all that food
(02:15):
comes from, and all the peoplethat process it, all the people
that import it or that packageit, and even the people who
design the packaging equipment Ihad a good friend that was in
packaging design.
You know everything associatedwith my life that relates back
to agriculture.
I'm extremely grateful for thatand for that I can thank so
(02:39):
many people in my life.
It's just, it's almost beyondwords what there is to be
grateful for.
So, with that, thank you, Aaron.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
No, thank you.
And, by the way, everythingthat he just said I agree with.
I tell people all the time thatFebruary 6, 1966, a bouncing
baby boy came into this worldand my mama loved me, she hugged
me.
But, in addition to my mom'sincredible love, they wrapped me
in this blanket of freedom andliberty and it was a full of a
(03:11):
country of opportunity.
And then, along the way, I hadgreat mentors and I learned
about faith and I learned aboutall of the things that Dr
Paulson just said.
So I appreciate you sharing allthose.
That's good stuff.
The show Growing Our Futurecomes from the simple concept of
what you just shared, and thatis this I tell people all the
(03:33):
time if agriculture's taught meanything, it's taught me that if
you want to know what thefuture is, grow it.
Well, how do you grow a future?
Well, we've got to plant theright seeds.
We have to take care of thoseseeds.
We have to take care of thoseseeds.
We have to weed the gardensometimes and then we have to
harvest and then share withothers.
And I think that's what life isabout.
(03:53):
I think life is about plantingthe right seeds, nurturing them,
caring for them and thensharing them with others, them
with others, and that's why I'mhonored that you're joining us
today, dr Paulson, to share someseeds of greatness that we can
pour into other people.
Are you ready to get started?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Sure, and I'd like to just make a comment on that,
you know, relating everything toagriculture.
I like to take that concept andgo back to some biblical
examples where our good Lordwould always feed the masses
before he did the education.
That concept is even carriedback to the biblical scene.
So with that, thank you.
Yes, I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Oh, that's great.
That's good stuff right there.
All right.
So the reason these podcastsare always a little bit
challenging, interesting and fun.
For me to do this one righthere is a great example of that,
and that's because I get tointerview this man right here,
dr Curtis Paulson, who I wanteverybody to know was one of my
(04:57):
early mentors.
Here's the story In 1984, whenI graduated from Cal Farley's
Boys Ranch, I started summerschool at Texas Tech University
and because of some scores thatI had made on an ACT test, I had
to take a leveling class inmath and English, which I passed
with A's, no problem.
(05:18):
So I get ready to sign up for myfall semester, and I'm a real
rookie at this college thing.
So I'm looking at the titles ofall these courses and I see one
that really got my attention.
The course was called Transferof Ag Technology Transfer of Ag
Technology, and I thought, hey,that really sounds like my kind
(05:41):
of class, cutting edge on theball.
I think I'm going to sign upfor this transfer of ag
technology class and I do.
And I show up to class underthis professor who everybody
told me was like this realcreative guy.
His name was Dr Curtis Paulsonand I show up to class and I
realized real quick I had made amistake, because along that
(06:05):
path nobody taught me to look atthe prerequisite of a course
and I did not look at theprerequisite of this course.
This was a senior level course.
Transfer of ag technology was asenior level course.
We were about to dive into abook by John Nesbitt called
Megatrends and I remember DrPaulson.
(06:26):
I asked him.
I said, sir, I said if I need atransfer out of here, you just
let me know.
And Dr Paulson said no, I thinkyou'll be just fine.
And this man let me stay in thatsenior level course and at an
early age started to stimulatemy imagination, started to
stimulate my what-ifs andpossibilities.
(06:47):
And I just want to say on apersonal note that this is going
to be a real honor to have DrPaulson here today, because he
helped me early on in my life'sjourney and now we get this
incredible platform where I getto let you share with him his
journey.
So, dr Paulson, let's do that,let's unpack your career,
(07:09):
because I don't necessarily I'vedone a little bit of research.
I don't necessarily want tocall you the godfather of ag
communications, but there is noquestion, you were one of the
early leaders in agcommunication across the United
States of America.
But I want to start and go alittle bit further back.
So, dr Paulson, take us all theway back to where you grew up
(07:31):
and kind of walk us through whatyour career pathway looked like
, and then we'll startextracting things out of that
career path.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
I'd be happy to, and I remember that day very well
when you walked into class, andone of the concepts that I'd
like to talk about throughoutthe day is the concept of taking
risks.
You know, I thought to myselfAaron's a risk.
You know, does he have thebackground needed to understand
some of the concepts ofdiffusion of innovation and what
(08:02):
an innovation is and how thatgoes through society and through
organizations, and that's, Iguess it's a concept that I'm
pretty lucky that I've taken afew risks and just by everything
that Aaron has accomplished inhis life, it paid off.
It paid off big for not onlyfor Aaron but for society as a
whole.
(08:22):
But now you asked me what mylife was like.
I'd like to start by going backto the beginning.
I grew up, I was born in 1946,and I'm a farm boy and I have
been involved in agriculture myentire life, with the exception
of two years in the military,but even today as I volunteer at
(08:43):
state and national parks,that's agricultural, natural
resource based.
So that goes back to thebeginning and, like I said, I
grew up in a farm.
I'm from western Minnesota.
Some of the things that I grewand I'm going to call not grew.
But some of these things that Ilearned and I'm going to call
them the aha moments inretrospect in life these are the
(09:07):
things that are important to me.
From my dad I learned takeresponsibilities.
Let's say I'm out on thetractor doing something and I
break a chisel off a chisel plow.
I won't try to hide it, I won'tsay it broke.
I'll say I broke it.
It was my responsibilitybecause I was in charge of that
(09:29):
machine.
And that has kind of stuck withme my entire life.
When I'm associated with it, Itake ownership of it and I
either broke it or I try to finda way to fix it or to go around
it.
You know the other it.
One of the other things Ilearned from him is to utilize
all your senses.
(09:50):
When you're out alone, utilizethe sense of smell, the tactile,
what it feels like If you'rerunning a machine you can sense
it.
The hearing you can hear ifsomething changes, be aware of
your surroundings, and thathelps you make decisions.
That was real important andrelated to that, let's say, I
(10:11):
had a breakdown out in the field.
I had usually a little toolboxwith me and then I'd trace the
power source from the engine orthe power takeoff to where I
thought the problem of theimplement was, and then I had to
make the decision okay, can Ifix that with what I have or do
(10:32):
I need to stop and go back andspend that extra hour and get
help?
So utilizing your senses tomake some current decisions.
And I think, like everybodyelse involved in agriculture, I
learned in the early days thework ethic.
I think that's so important.
Is that work ethic?
(10:53):
And I've also stressed that alot eventually, when I got to
teaching agriculture at the highschool level and in watching.
So anyway, aaron, at this pointdo you have any interest in my
background?
I guess I want to share oneother story.
(11:13):
Later on, when I was teaching,one of the students in Texas
asked me.
He said where are you from, drPaulson, you talk funny.
And I said, well, sir, and hewas sitting in the front row, he
was a corpsman.
And I said, well, sir, and hewas sitting in the front row, he
was a corpsman.
And I said, well, sir, I'm fromthe furthest state in the
continental United States.
Where is that?
He looked without skipping abeat and said we don't care, you
(11:38):
know.
And that taught me hey, it'sgood to have that image.
You know, growing up inMinnesota I didn't like it when
the people from Iowa came upthere and fished our fish.
I was proud of that.
I challenged this young man.
I said no, seriously, where amI from?
And he said well, northCarolina, north Dakota, any of
the states with north in it.
But in actuality I got my firstreal experience of teaching
(12:04):
agriculture in that schooldistrict, which was War Road,
minnesota, that part ofMinnesota that sticks up into
Canada.
That's the furthest northschool district and it's also
the second coldest schooldistrict in the United States.
So with that I'll turn thisback to Aaron a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
No, this is good stuff.
It's interesting, Dr Paulson,you know I did through my job.
Sometimes I get to work with mycolleagues across the country,
and Val Arsvold is my colleaguefrom Minnesota and she's a very
dear friend and I did someconsulting work with Minnesota
and so as part of my time upthere they knew that I'm an
(12:42):
outdoorsman and so I asked themif they would take me ice
fishing.
And so I will never forget myexperience of the teacher
picking me up and we weredriving along and we went down a
hill and at that moment it justkind of dawned on me that we
were on the ice and so I askedthe guy, the ag teacher.
I said are we on the ice rightnow?
(13:05):
And he said yes, and that's alittle unsettling from a boy
from West Texas.
And we were driving and wepassed a Domino's pizza delivery
sign and I said what in theworld is that?
And he said oh yeah, they'lldeliver pizza at our fish house
if we want to.
Anyway, we parked, we drilledour holes, had a great time
fishing.
Anyway, we parked, we drilledour holes, had a great time
(13:33):
fishing.
I remember stepping out of thefish house and it was minus 14
degrees with the wind chill.
I also remember we were inMinneapolis and they closed
schools that day.
Now there was no precipitation,dr Paulson, they just closed
schools.
But they did because of thetemperature.
And I said why do y'all closethe school because of
temperatures?
And they said because theycan't risk a kid getting
frostbite at a bus stop or a busbreaking down.
And it was an awareness.
I love it when you saidawareness, my senses.
(13:55):
I got to see what cold reallywas.
I got to feel what cold reallywas and I got to hear that the
way we process cold and days offin Texas is a lot different
than the way y'all process daysoff in Minnesota.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
Absolutely, and related to the cold.
The little community I am fromdid not have an ag program and I
had industrial arts.
But my neighboring friends thathad, from the farm that
adjoined me, three young men myage.
They had agriculture and theytold me all these great stories
(14:35):
about vocational agriculture,ffa, that we didn't have.
What did I do?
I went to my industrial artsteacher and I tried to convince
him that, hey, why don't youteach agriculture like they do
in Evansville, the neighboringtown?
And he said well, we teach alot of the skills, the same type
(14:56):
of skills, that are taught invocational agriculture, and that
made sense.
Related to that, he alsoprovided some of the real aha
moments in my life about theimportance of the work ethic.
And I'll remember my first yearas a sophomore.
(15:17):
We were doing woodworking and wewere going to create an image
on just a board.
So my image was a young manhunting and his hunting dog
alongside and a little brushpatch and I got a pattern.
I traced that on the wood, Istippled the background, I
painted the image black.
(15:38):
It was a silhouette image and Iwas so proud of that.
I still have that hanging.
So I turned it in.
I knew I was going to get an Aplus.
I was that proud of it and Iwas devastated when I got an A
minus.
So I went up and I asked themwhy did I get an A minus?
I needed to know why it wasn'tperfect.
And guess what?
(15:59):
He taught me the importance ofit's always a chance to improve
and he's pointed out all theselittle things.
You did a great job.
However, this could have been alittle better.
You missed a tiny drop of paintover here that fell into the
stipple part.
This stippling around the bushis not the same as the stippling
(16:23):
out throughout and it wasbetter.
You can always be better ineverything you do, but overall
you did a great job and be proudof it, and I've tried to carry
that out throughout my life Inhigh school.
That's.
One of the aha moments isthings can be better.
And another aha moment that Ihad to change a subject is for
(16:51):
some reason I ended up in atyping class and I couldn't type
very fast, but that was a biginfluence in my life.
Later on, in both the militaryand Aaron, you referenced the ag
communications.
So with that I'm going to turnit back to you and I'll go back
to the typing concept later.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, we're going to talk about that.
I think I know where you'regoing with that.
I'm going to turn it back toyou and I'll go back to the
typing concept later.
Yeah, we're going to talk aboutthat.
I think I know where you'regoing with that.
So you grew up in Minnesota?
Were you a Golden Gopher?
Did you go to college there inMinnesota?
I?
Speaker 3 (17:14):
did and I'll say a little bit more about my entire
career.
I'm very proud of the fact thatI have three different degrees
from three different land-grantuniversities.
So Minnesota I graduated.
It took me two different tries.
Then I went to the Universityof Florida later on and that's a
land-grant institution, andfrom there I went to Texas A&M,
(17:39):
which is another land-grantuniversity, and also while in
the military I took some classesthrough the University of
Maryland, so that's the fourthland-grant university.
And then I kind of ended up mycareer teaching at Ohio State
University, which is anotherland-grant university, and we
could spend days just talkingabout the importance of the
(18:01):
land-grant system to everybodyin the United States.
With that I'm going to turn itback to you, aaron.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Oh, this is good stuff.
And yes, not only.
I'm very aware of Minnesota,obviously, Maryland, Florida.
And then I knew that there wasa giveaway earlier because you
mentioned Corman.
So I knew the young man was inthe Corps, so I knew you were
talking about A&M.
So I knew the young man was inthe Corps, so I knew you were
talking about A&M.
(18:27):
So while you were at A&M, Ibelieve and this is where we're
going to start the agcommunication story I believe
it's when you were at Texas A&Mthat you started teaching ag
communications.
Speaker 3 (18:41):
Is that correct?
That's correct.
(19:06):
And that story came about.
One day I walked into class notclass, but I walked into the
department I'd usually get upand play racquetball or two
years before that identified thecompetencies that ag educators
had that industry wanted, suchas public speaking, writing for
newspapers, doing oralinterviews for radio and
television.
So this dissertation was doneprior to my arriving at Texas
(19:29):
A&M and they asked me.
Well, I guess they told me thatthe next semester I'd be
teaching the first class and itwasn't an official class, they
had a catch-all phrase that wasa what did they call it?
An independent study inagricultural communication
concepts.
It was an offshoot of the ag edprogram.
(19:51):
So that, I think, was the firstprogram or the first class in
agricultural communication.
That has since, and somebodytold me, and I think it's
correct, that that program hassince evolved.
That is larger than mostcolleges of agriculture in the
United States with the number offaculty and the number of
(20:14):
students.
This is at A&M.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
That's correct.
Do you remember what year thatwas?
By chance.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
That would have been probably in 81 or 82, 82 or 83,
something like that.
Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Yeah, I did a little research.
I was drilling out, trying tofind out a little bit about
programs and I know that techstarted.
They actually started an ag-comclass in 73, class in 73, but
it did not become a degree until92, I believe.
I think it was ag-com degree in92, 93, somewhere right in
(20:59):
there.
But anyway, that's why I wascurious what your reference
point was when you were at TexasA&M when did you move from A&M
to Texas Tech?
Speaker 3 (21:05):
That would have been in 84.
So I think I started at TexasTech 84 and 85, because I
graduated from Texas A&M in 85.
And I was on staff at TexasTech for the last year I was
working on my dissertation.
Okay, that's what.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
I remember too.
I was working on mydissertation.
Okay, that's what I remembertoo, so I remember, you know.
Here now we're getting into thereal exciting part here for me
is watching Dr Paulson's careerjust really take off when he was
at Tech.
So Dr Paulson is at Tech and hestarts the Ag Communicators,
the ACT program.
Were you involved also with thestarting of NAMA, National
(21:44):
Agri-Marketing Association?
Speaker 3 (21:47):
No, I was not.
I was not involved with NAMA,but I did go to some of the NAMA
meetings at different times,both as a professional and at
the university level.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Well, I remember ACT.
I remember you were veryinvolved with ACT.
I also remember you were ouradvisor for the Alpha Gamma Rho
fraternity because we juststarted the Beta Xi chapter.
I went back to a meeting onetime, dr Paulson, and everybody
was talking about their pinnumbers and I was pin number 21,
and I knew I was the old guythen because I was one of the
(22:21):
original pin numbers when AGRstarted at Texas Tech.
But you are our advisor.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I'd like to share a little bit about that.
I was asked to be the advisorwhen the advisor left the
university and I said sure, andI was very proud of the fact
that I took the it was still acolony at that time that the
colony at Texas Tech wouldusually come in first or second
(22:48):
in academic rank throughout theentire university and I was very
proud of that, where they couldcombine the elements of
fraternity life with theacademic life.
Let's see.
I want to go back a little bitand go back to another aha
moment I had while at Texas A&M.
(23:08):
That will relate to the Texasgrowing.
It was one cold night mycolleague, another graduate
student, asked me to go to acomputer users group where they
introduced the Macintoshtechnology, the Macintosh
technology, and I was just blownaway.
(23:29):
I'd been used to usingmainframes and IBMs and the
programming concept and Iremember to this day the group
showing the bottom of a tennisshoe the graphic capabilities of
Macintosh, and I thought tomyself, wow, and I got the
contact with the person puttingon the program that night and
somehow or another, when I wentto Texas Tech he contacted me
(23:50):
and he said I think you can usesome computers and I said I
think so also, but I don't knowwhat to do with them.
But he said here, here's somecomputers, you figure it out.
So at that time I was kind offocusing in the ag education,
the mechanized ag component, agmech, teaching a class in farm
building construction.
(24:12):
So I said, okay, we're going todraw this building first.
So I had to teach the studentshow to use the Macintosh, how to
picture in their minds all thecomponents of a small farm
building, and then we actuallywere going to build that.
And what a challenge to stayone step ahead of the students
and learning the technology andthen actually building a
(24:34):
building.
But then at that same time Irealized the ag communication
component.
And you mentioned that oneclass.
At that time there was only oneclass and I had found a program
called PageMaker for theMacintosh and I said, hey, can I
take these few students?
(24:55):
And at that time there wereseven students and I volunteered
to introduce them to theMacintosh.
And in my mind the rest ishistory, because we put out that
first newsletter and it was afar cry from what it is today
but it was the beginning of whatI call the real advancement of
(25:16):
AgCom, way back then.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
That's an important point.
I want everybody to hear this,because you just said something
that I don't think people reallyrealize the significance of
what you just shared.
One of the things I like totell people is we all stand on
the shoulders of the people thatwent before us.
All of us stand on theshoulders of the people that
(25:39):
went before us.
That influenced me too, and Iknow that.
But what I'm saying is, whenyou did what you did at Texas
Tech with those Macintoshcomputers, I still remember that
.
I remember we were so nervousyou know we were used to DOS and
we were so nervous using thesecomputers and everything was
(26:00):
WYSIWYG what you see is what youget, and you could click and
hold and move things around, andthe imagery was incredible.
And it would be very easy forus as students to be intimidated
, to think, well, we can messthis up, that we could break
this computer.
And I remember Dr Paulson wouldwalk around and he'd say use
(26:24):
your imagination.
He said there's nothing thatyou're going to do that we can't
fix, there's nothing thatyou're going to do that we can't
undo.
And so he challenges us tostretch our imaginations.
He challenges us to stretch ourboundaries, to know that it was
okay to take that risk, as youmentioned earlier, and then fix
(26:45):
it, but because you encouragedus to do that and I left AgComm
and went back into AgEd.
But look at all of the successthe AgComm department had as a
result of you unleashingpeople's imagination and saying
go for it, Use this technologyand go for it.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
You know that relates back to you mentioned earlier
is taking risks.
You know I didn't know what wasgoing to happen, but as I look
back on all the graduates of agcommunications from Texas Tech,
from Texas A&M and from otheruniversities, I can see little
bits here and there that allthese other graduate students
(27:32):
have taken throughout the world.
I was I'm kind of bragging.
I was recruited to go to Korea,south Korea, to one of the
universities, but at the timeyou may remember that there was
(27:52):
a bunch of demonstrations backthen and they were all related
to agriculture.
I don't know all the factsbehind it, but all of a sudden
this position dissolved andsomebody stepped on somebody's
toes, didn't come about.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
But that all goes back to the concepts you're
talking about taking the risksof agriculture and education
well, I got to tell you, it wasreally, you know it as me, for
me as a freshman, in 1984.
And then I left my 85, 86 year,because that's the year I was
(28:23):
state FFA president and to leaveand come back and in just one
year see the incredible growthof the ag communications
department, see the growth ofthe Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity,
and both of those programs hadyour thumb, your fingerprint on
them, just so, so you know.
So it was interesting to walkaway from it for a year and come
(28:43):
back and see them both justthriving and and continue to
thrive, and they continue tothrive to this day.
Again, go back to what we'retalking about growing the future
.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
You know, aaron, you gave me credit for that a lot of
times but as as I think back, Idid not have the training in
communications.
So one of my reasons forsuccess is I had gone to the
national ACT AgriculturalCommunicators of Tomorrow
national meeting and I realizedat that meeting that there were
(29:16):
eight or nine professionalassociations throughout the
United States where our studentscould go.
So with that little fact I wentback to Texas Tech and I formed
an advisory committee and Isaid, hey, I'm the new kid on
the block, I need to know whatour students need in their
(29:36):
curriculum.
So we went through a nominalgroup technique, a brainstorming
technique, and we identifiedthe major concept of that ag
communication program.
Now you give me credit for that.
But I'm going to turn that rightback to.
Yes, I had the wherewithal toform that committee, but the
success of that committee camebecause the professionals told
(30:01):
me slash the university, whatshould be in the program.
I took it to my boss, drStockton, and we got that
approved at the college leveland the university level and
then the rest is history.
So I turned this success backto that committee and I'm still
friends with quite a few ofthose people, in fact, as one of
(30:23):
the advisors on that committee,received one of the highest
honors that Texas Tech gave toany alumni.
He was one of the first agcommunication people, so it's a
group effort Well.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
I don't disagree with that.
But every you know, everysuccessful venture has to start
as a creative idea and thenthere has to be something that
becomes the catalyst, and Idon't think there's any question
that you became the catalystfor a lot of the good things
that we experienced.
It's so funny here.
I knew when we started intothis there were going to be
things I was going to get toshare with you.
One you talked about PageMaker.
(31:02):
I'm going to make sure that myformer executive assistant,
joanne, gets to see thisinterview, because she worked
with me for 12 years at theTexas FFA Foundation.
She did not come from an agbackground, she came from a
technology background, but shewas so frustrated at me because
I would not quit using PageMaker, because I was so accustomed to
(31:26):
PageMaker that I wouldn't moveover to the other you know,
adobe or Microsoft programs andanyway, she just always got a
kick that I would refuse toleave PageMaker.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
You know, related to that concept.
I got started with Pagemakerand then another program came
out called Quark Express and itwas a lot of frustrations
amongst all the students becauseI switched.
I destroyed Pagemaker because Ithought Quark Express was a
little bit better, and nowadaysthere's all kinds of publishing
(32:01):
programs.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
I remember, I remember when y'all made that
transition and I, like I said, Istuck with PageMaker.
The other thing that I wantedto share that you mentioned, you
referenced, which I'm glad youdid, and we're not going to talk
about it in detail, but it'sone of those things that I think
people don't really.
I always tell kids I want youto listen, and when I mean
listen, I mean listen with youreyes and listen with your ears.
So important, Absolutely.
(32:28):
Because, there's things that youcan pick up and one of the
things I picked up on early inmy career again because of your
tutelage was the nominal grouptechnique and I remember you
walked us through that exercisein class one time where we were
kind of dissecting a topic andan idea and trying to vet it out
(32:50):
and think through it and Iremember we went through the
nominal group technique strategyto get to a final conclusion.
And interesting, later in mylife I've been in numerous
non-profit roles andorganization roles where I've
leaned into that nominal grouptechnique to drill down to find
(33:13):
that common solution.
So that's just another funexample of seeds that you
planted that are still beingharvested today.
Speaker 3 (33:22):
And related to that.
I've always thought that agroup decision is more valuable
than an individual decision.
If I had gone to my boss withall these ideas and say we're
going to do this, this and thisjust based on my recollection or
my knowledge, he'd haveprobably scoffed at the idea.
But when I took those ideas,and with the stamp of approval
(33:46):
of the professionals, that addeda lot more weight to that
decision.
And I have used that nominalgroup technique as a consultant
in various points.
In fact, as you mentioned,nonprofits, within the next
month I'll be using thattechnique to establish the
agenda for the upcoming newnonprofit that deals with Civil
(34:09):
War history, you know.
So that technique and makingdecisions, I'm still using it
and that's something I learnedin graduate school.
I love it.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Let's talk a little bit here Now.
This is really good stuff.
So we've talked about kind ofyour career and you left Texas
Tech and you went on to OhioState University where
ultimately you retired from OhioState.
Yes, you were a Buckeye.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
You know what a Buckeye is?
It's a hairless nut ofabsolutely no economic value.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Well, obviously you know you and I know that I've
got a connection to the Buckeyesas well.
And what do they say?
The more things change, themore things stay the same.
You know?
I believe that I've said thatall along.
I said people don't change.
I think individuals can change,but people don't change.
You can read the Bible and findpessimists and optimists and
status quo and innovators thereIn 1920, you can find the same
(35:07):
1950, and, lo and behold, herewe are in 2024, and there's
probably somebody in a coffeeshop that believe America's
going to hell in a handbasketand there's probably some kid in
a classroom thinking our bestdays are ahead.
Let's capitalize on yourhistory, but bring it to today.
(35:31):
So one of the things that Ilike to talk about here is this
I like to ask kids how many highschools are in Texas, and
they'll usually hem-haul aroundand say a lot, and I said, yeah,
there's a lot.
There's over 3,000 high schoolsin Texas.
Every one of those high schoolsare going to have a graduating
class.
That means the kids are going toget out, they're going to be
looking for a job, scholarshipor an opportunity, and so I
(35:54):
always ask the kids what's yourcompetitive edge?
What is it that separates youfrom your peers?
And so you've already sharedsome things that I think can be
a competitive edge Payingattention, taking risk, looking
for trends.
I think all of those thingsthat you mentioned are elements
(36:16):
of a competitive edge.
But in your life, in the seasonthat you're in, and in your
career history, what are somethings that you would tell a
young person would be skill setsto put in place in their lives
that'll give them a competitiveedge.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
First of all, I think it's taking a risk and
utilizing your senses to say hey, this is a good idea.
It's not a good idea.
And I'm going to share anexample.
I had a student at Ohio StateUniversity who was a better than
average student.
He was really good and he lovedagriculture, just like I did,
(36:55):
and I helped him get aninternship in Denmark on a
500-year-old hog operation thatstill had some of the original
moat around the castle, but itwas a state-of-the-art hog swine
production.
And that was about the time Iwas leaving Ohio State
University.
So I asked him to join me whenhe got back from Denmark and he
(37:16):
said, yes, I will.
Now he was a guy willing to takerisks.
He went over to Europe and heinterned and he published some
articles related to that in somenational magazines.
So, anyway, his first day onthe job, he said okay, boss,
what am I going to do?
(37:37):
And I asked do you remember,don, when you told me about this
little reading project?
You were interning at ReadingRecovery back in Ohio and that's
a program designed to helpstudents in the lower quartile
if they have trouble learning toread in kindergarten and grade
one, and you described how theywanted to publish some little
(37:57):
books to help that program.
And you described how theywanted to publish some little
books to help that program.
So I said let's make thathappen.
So we wrote a proposal, theypresented it to Reading Recovery
, they accepted it and prettysoon we coordinated the writers
and the illustrator and all thepre-press work for four little
(38:18):
books that are still in usetoday and they were very
successful.
They wanted more, and I thinkthat first press run was 20,000
books.
So then we immediately rananother press run for another 20
or 40,000 or something likethat, and they were just wildly
successful.
So within a few months we hadeight books in the set and we
(38:42):
did a press run of one million.
After that date we never ran apress run less than a million.
One time we had four millionbooks on press at one time.
We bought paper by the railroadcars.
We bought ink by the barrels.
We bought paper by the railroadcars, we bought ink by the
barrels.
(39:03):
And that's a result of taking achance and using your gut level
feeling, you know.
Is that the competitive edge?
Was it luck?
Was it intuition?
Was it utilizing the census?
Did I pick up on the trend?
Did my friend who was interningin Denmark?
Did he pick up on the trendbecause he had interned with
(39:25):
Reading Recovery.
So I look at being able to picka lot of different pieces a lot
of different strings and thismight relate to string theory,
which I think you're familiarwith, aaron.
We talked about that a littlebit in Diffusion, but you know,
picking up on something and thentaking the risk to follow it
through.
The bad part of this story isthis young man who did this.
(39:49):
He came down with leukemia andhe passed away about six months
into this whole program and theyended up dedicating the program
to him for a while and that'skind of gone by the wayside now.
So I don't know if that's whatyou're talking about the
competitive edge.
But as I look back in my career, I think about the risks I took
(40:09):
.
But I didn't really realizethere were risks at the time.
It just felt natural.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
What I like that you've shared already and this
is one reason I like theseinterviews, by the way is
because there's a lot of seedsof greatness.
If we'll just listen tosomebody's story, if we'll
listen to somebody's testimony,we find elements in there that
we can all learn from.
And there's several things thatyou've talked about.
Like I said, you've talkedabout paying attention, you
talked about work ethic, youtalked about taking risks, being
(40:38):
creative, being innovative.
We've talked a lot aboutinnovation.
You've said it several times.
You know, I think there's a lotof wisdom in being an innovator
, because everything that weexperience, every successful
venture, started as a creativeidea.
So I think there's a lot ofbrilliance and innovation, but
you've got to be willing to takethat risk, to try it and then
(41:02):
use critical thinking to figureout why it worked.
And you know, I like what JohnMaxwell says.
He says every success, you needto do an autopsy on it.
You know you need to evaluateit.
You need to do the same thingto a failure you need to unpack
it.
But I guess you know, drPaulson, one of the things I
tell people is all the peoplethat I've been blessed to work
(41:23):
with incredible corporateleaders, policy leaders,
athletes.
There's one word that they allhave in their vocabulary that I
find very unique, and that wordis next.
It does not matter if they havea success, what's next?
It does not matter if they havea success, what's next.
It does not matter if they havea failure, what's next?
(41:45):
It does not matter if they moveto a new job, what's next,
doesn't matter if they retire,it's what's next.
Next, I believe, creates atarget and a goal that beckons,
and I believe that next providesfuel to give us purpose, and I
(42:06):
think that looking for what'snext is also something that can
create a competitive edge.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
I like that concept and you know you talked about.
You mentioned failure a littlebit.
You know, so far we've talkedmostly about the successes.
I've had AgCom and AgEd andthat.
But you know, as I think backI've had plenty of failures too.
But as I look back on those now, you know my first time I went
to college I was a poor student.
(42:34):
I was a tremendously poorstudent.
I was a poor student.
I was a tremendously poorstudent Back in the 60s.
I drank way too much.
I knew I was going to farm, soI went home every weekend.
I didn't spend any time at theuniversity studying and
basically I probably would havefailed out of college had I not
dropped out of college when mydad had a heart attack and I
(42:55):
went back to the family farm andat that point what was next?
We had created a livestockfeedlot when I was in high
school because I was going backto the farm.
But you know, I've had plentyof different ideas that weren't
successful, but I learned fromthem and I just asked, like you
(43:15):
said, aaron, what's next?
You know you need to take allthose in stride.
You can't let anything get youdown and just go for the next.
You know I mentioned South Korea.
I thought I really kind ofwanted to go to South Korea
because I was stationed in SouthKorea and in my military.
Related to the next concept, Imentioned high school typing
(43:41):
class that led me to a radioteletype communication job and
that required an extremely highsecurity clearance because I was
responsible for all classes,from non-classified to top
secret, and they called it acrypto clearance because I
operated the equipment and allthose things were related to
(44:03):
agricultural community or tocommunications and I in turn
brought those into the agcommunications.
Without turning back to you, Ikind of changed the rabbits
there no, that's good stuff Iwas thinking through.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
When you talked about your resiliency, I got to
thinking about tenacity, andthere's a great movie about an
astronaut who was a migrant farmworker, called A Million Miles
Away.
It's a true story and there wasa moment there that he was
about willing to give up and oneof his instructors told him
(44:39):
that tenacity is your superpowerand that's what kept him going.
And sadly, she was one of thecrew members in the not the
Challenger.
It was the other space shuttlethat went down under with
Captain Rick Husband.
(44:59):
But I'll never forget that thattenacity is a superpower.
I met a person one time thattold me they were just tired of
the storms of life and they saidthey really wish they'd just
quit raining.
And I said, well, you want aplace that never rains.
(45:20):
I said I can take you there andthey said, really.
I said yeah it exists, so it'scalled a desert and nothing
grows.
But you show me somebody that'shad a little pain, a little
challenge, a little heartache,and I'll show you somebody
that's probably poised for someincredible growth.
A little heartache, and I'llshow you somebody that's
probably poised for someincredible growth, and I think
(45:40):
that through those failures,which I've had as well, if we're
smart about them, we learn fromthem.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
And they just make us better.
All right, let's close this up.
I want to talk about one lasttopic, and that's leadership.
Our country, you know, I tellpeople all the time this
country's got three vital andrenewable resources.
Think about that.
We've got three vital andrenewable resources.
That's young people,agriculture and leadership.
(46:13):
And I want to talk aboutleadership for a minute.
If you were to share some tipson leadership, what would you
tell young people?
What are some tips that theyshould employ to be really good
leaders?
Speaker 3 (46:27):
I think the first one is something you mentioned
earlier is the ability to listen, listen to understand, not
listen to reply.
Everything, everything.
You should try to relate it tosomething else and understand
what you're hearing.
There are so many people and Ithink it's my pet peeve of every
of anybody is somebody who justlistens enough to reply without
(46:53):
understanding the meaning.
That may go deep, and I thinkthat's a skill that can be
learned.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Does that answer your question?
Speaker 3 (47:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
If you got any more, you got anything else.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
Listen what else would a good leader do?
I am finding within the lastyear I have gravitated a lot to
stoicism, the stoic principlesthat have been around since the
Greeks and the Romans, with thenumber one thing is evaluating
everything and say is thiswithin my control?
Can I do something about it?
(47:31):
It might be just to acknowledgeit, it might be nothing, or it
might be to dive headfirst inand use that intuition and do
something, but everything youdeal with ask yourself is this
within my control and whatshould I do with it?
You can pass that on to thepeople you're working with if
(47:54):
you can give them the attitudeof that and I'm really firmly,
I'm impressed with the Stoicismand I have just learned that
recently, within the last fewyears.
So if I were to go back to theacademic world again, I would
try to introduce a section onphilosophy, history and
(48:15):
philosophy related to the Stoicprinciples.
And just this morning, for thegrins and giggles, I listened to
a podcast of 70 Stoicprinciples that are influenced
for 93% of your decisions inthat decision process and it
(48:36):
made sense to me.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
I really appreciate that.
By the way, just so you know,I've been on a kick for last
year and this year.
I'm on a real kick on the worddiscernment and we need to start
raising young people to bediscerning.
You've got to start beingdiscerning.
You can't just scroll throughsocial media and believe that
it's factual.
You can't just turn on a newsstation and believe everything
(49:00):
you hear.
You're going to have to bediscerning and you're going to
have to do a little research tobe discerning and you're going
to have to ask questions.
And you know, we put teachers ona bus every summer and take
them on a week-long leadershipdevelopment program and they get
their notebooks and when theyopen up their notebooks, the
first thing they see when theyopen up the notebooks is the
(49:21):
word question.
And I asked the teachers.
I said what's the root word ofthe word question?
Quest, to go on an adventure.
I said I want y'all on anadventure all week long this
week.
I want you always askingquestions and trying to learn,
because I believe that helps usbecome discerning and I think
(49:42):
that also adds to your stoicism,if you will.
I think that we've got to bediscerning, we've got to start
asking questions about things,otherwise we're you know we're
liable to be led down a paththat we're going to regret that
we were being led down.
Speaker 3 (49:57):
We're liable to be led down a path that we're going
to regret that we were beingled down.
You know you brought updiscernment and I want to bring
up back.
When we talked about AGR, thefraternity, and you had pin
number 20-something.
I was advisor to the colony butone of the guidelines of the
(50:21):
Alpha Gamma Rho National is thatthe advisor has to have been in
Alpha Gamma Rho as anundergraduate.
So they kind of made anexception and gave me pin number
one before, or they inducted meas a colony as an undergraduate
, but yet I was advised this.
So it's a way to get aroundthat rule.
When I went back and talkedabout leadership back then I
(50:43):
talked about discernment andthat was one of the topics that
I mentioned.
You may remember it a littlebit, but be able to discern what
is important and that relatesback Well, young people, if
y'all are listening.
Speaker 2 (50:57):
Right now we need it more than ever.
There is a tax on agriculture,there's a tax on animal
agriculture, there's a tax onways of life.
There's so many things outthere that if we are not
discerning, we could fall victimto an ability to pay attention,
an ability to have that ahamoment, as Dr.
An ability to pay attention, anability to have that aha moment
(51:18):
, as Dr Paulson said.
And I don't want the aha momentto be because we lost
everything.
I don't want it to be well,where'd everything go?
What happened to my freedom?
What happened to my liberty?
What happened to my country?
What happened to my way of life?
I don't want that to be the ahamoment.
Speaker 3 (51:35):
And now with the artificial intelligence, that's
one of the hottest topics andwhat's going on?
You know, back when theMacintosh technology was first
coming out, I took a camera, adigital camera, to one of the
professional meetings andeverybody was just clamoring the
technology wasn't there yet butit was coming.
(51:56):
But they had professionalmeetings about how that
technology was utilized in thewrong way in advertising of the
high-end livestock and the bullsand the cows and how they were
manipulating the picture intheir advertising and what were
the ethics related to that.
So we've had that concept for along time and it continues.
(52:16):
It just really continues andit's getting worse.
It's getting more and more.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Well, that could be a whole other podcast, just so
you know.
But I'm glad you brought it upBecause I recently had I was at
an FFA board meeting and afoundation board meeting less
than a year ago, by the waywhere I shared with them my
concerns.
You know, back when we hadwebsites, we had SEO, search
engine optimization Brands wouldwork hard to push their brand
(52:44):
to the top.
Well, now that you got chat,gpt and AI, you've got the same
thing going on is it's capturinginformation, and if we're not
careful and we're not populatingthe right information and we're
not discerning, it doesn't takeyou long to see where this
could be a real problem.
So the reason I'm saying thankyou is because you're bringing
(53:06):
up a topic that I think you'regoing to find on this podcast
more and more in the coming year, because it's very important
that we have that discussion.
Speaker 3 (53:14):
And we both have been involved in agriculture and
communications and for thefuture of both that's so
important to just continueteaching, continued striving,
continued working towards whatis correct.
There's just so muchinformation in the whole
communication and agriculturalfields.
(53:35):
I'm happy and proud to havebeen a part of it over these
years.
Speaker 2 (53:40):
Dr Paulson.
We got to bring this to a close, but I want to tell you thank
you.
You're welcome Personally andprofessionally.
On a personal note, you suredidn't have to let that freshman
kid in your class, but I'm gladyou did.
You taught me to use myimagination, to take risks, to
(54:02):
use a nominal group technique.
There are a lot of takeaways at18 years of age that I've been
able to carry with me through acareer, and you've also done the
same thing at the universitiesthat you've been at.
You've done that not just forme but for a lot of kids, and
you've helped create some prettystrong programs that you know
(54:25):
one of the things that we sayaround our shop a lot, and
you've probably heard me say it,but we always say that the
essence of leadership is toplant trees under whose shade
you may never sit.
That's so true.
That's so true, and I just wantto say that you've planted some
incredible oaks.
Thank you.
(54:47):
Those oaks are also springingand planting oaks.
Speaker 3 (54:53):
You know I think about it.
I opened the doors toopportunities and gave you and
other people a little nudge andkind of sent you on your way.
That's how I looked at mycareer.
I could open quite a few doors,but it's up to the individual
to make something happen.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
So just to piggyback on that, because, again, I just
spoke to a leadership group theother day and this is exactly
what I told them.
I said the adult's job, our jobas adults, is to make more and
bigger doors of opportunitiesfor those that follow us.
And then I look at the youngpeople and I said your
responsibility is to determinethe outcome.
(55:32):
Yep, yep, exactly, our job isto get you to the door.
We're going to try to nudge you, get you through it, but you've
got to determine the outcome.
And that's why podcasts likethis, experts like Dr Paulson,
that's why these things are soimportant, because they're seeds
of greatness and if you'lllisten to what they say and
(55:54):
plant those and nurture them,you might just grow a better
future.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
And take that initiative.
The initiative fits in theretoo, yep.
Speaker 2 (56:03):
All right, you know you get one fun question, so you
know I'm going to ask youwhat's the best concert you ever
been to?
Speaker 3 (56:09):
Well, without a doubt it's probably the first one I
went to and I would guess in theearly 80s, probably 83 or 80.
No, no, no, back in the 60s, 62or 63.
Peter Paul and Mary in Moorhead, minnesota.
Wow, yeah, wow, some of thebeautiful early music.
(56:29):
Yes, Another kind of funconcert I went to is I took a
year off, a summer off, and Ihitchhiked in Europe and I
happened to hear that Jimmy Soulwas playing.
Do you know what his famous,his one famous song was?
Speaker 1 (56:46):
If you want to be happy for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3 (56:50):
Make an ugly woman, your wife, look at you, go
Tongue in cheek, type of thingbut it was a popular one, and it
was a small concert at a localestablishment.
But the one I really liked, andI still like, is Peter Paul,
mary, that's awesome.
I've been to some great JimmyBuffett concerts but I'm not a
big fan.
I know you are.
(57:10):
I'm a diehard Jimmy.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
Buffett fan.
You know Dr Paulson too realquick and we're going to wrap
this up.
But one of the things I admireabout him too is this man
retires but he's not doneserving.
That's why I said you know,when you look at successful
people, they've always got thatword next in their vocabulary.
And this man right here nowtravels around the United States
(57:33):
volunteering his time atnational parks, volunteering his
time at national parks, and soif y'all are traveling about
this summer or in the fall, oreven in the winter or spring,
and you happen onto a nationalpark, you never know, you might
just find this guy in therehelping be a greeter, maybe a
(57:55):
trash picker, I don't know whatall you do, Dr Paulson, but I
just want to say thank you forcontinuing your service.
Speaker 3 (58:01):
You know I consider I'm very versatile.
I've done everything fromcleaning, greeting high school
kids to kindergarten kids and Ieven helped one school in Texas
where they based most of theircurriculum on outdoor activities
at a state park and that wasjust great, like with the
camping, the hunting, thefishing, the management of park.
(58:24):
That was a great experience andthat relates agriculture, to
communications, to naturalresources, to education.
So it's great.
It's a great life.
I'm living the dream now.
Speaker 2 (58:37):
Dr Paulson, thank you for coming on today.
Thank you, aaron.
Thank you for being a mentor,and not just to me, but to so
many Folks.
That's what the Growing OurFuture podcast is all about.
If you want to know what thefuture is, grow it.
You got to have people likethis that plant seeds in the
minds of young people.
(58:57):
Find a mentor, aaron, and weneed young people that are
willing to do exactly what youjust said to listen, to be
mentored, to find somebody thatcan pour into you.
But if you'll do all thesethings, you'll grow a better
life, you'll grow a bettercareer, we'll grow better homes,
(59:17):
we'll grow better homes, we'llgrow better communities, we'll
grow better states and we'llgrow a better country Exactly.
Maybe when it's all said anddone, we'll grow a better world.
Dr Paulson, thank you forjoining us.
To all of our guests, thank youfor stopping by Again.
You can only spend time and youspent some of it with us, and
(59:38):
we just want to say thank you.
Until we meet again, everybody,go out, do something great for
somebody else.
You'll feel good about it andyou never know, you just might
change the world doing it.
Until we meet again, everybody,be safe.
Thank you for joining us.
You bet.
Speaker 1 (59:58):
We hope you've enjoyed this episode of the
Growing Our Future podcast.
This show is sponsored by theTexas FFA Foundation, whose
mission is to strengthenagricultural science education
so students can develop theirpotential for personal growth,
career success and leadership ina global marketplace.
Learn more at mytexasffaorg.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!