Post 3: Meet Student Scholar Haylee VanScoy in This “Where are They Now? Series

By Michelle Pelletier Marshall, Women in Agribusiness Media (March 29, 2022)

More than 150 students over the last eight years have been able to attend a Women in Agribusiness Summit because of generous sponsors who help defray the cost of their attending through the WIA Scholarship Program.

Where does the subject of this post – Haylee VanScoy – find herself after attending the 2018 Summit? Moving on from being a student to excelling in a position as a grain merchandiser for Heritage Cooperative, out of Delaware, Ohio. We asked Haylee to answer our Q&A series questions to get more details.

1). Please tell us more about the Women in Agribusiness Summit you attended, and how you came to learn about it and get involved in the organization.

I was a student scholar at the 2018 Women in Agribusiness Summit in Denver, Colorado. At the time, I was a senior at The Ohio State University studying agribusiness and applied economics. I had learned about WIA from a colleague that year during my grain merchandising internship with ADM. She was a previous scholar herself. I am grateful that she shared such a wonderful opportunity with me that became a highlight in my college career. Despite being unable to attend a WIA Summit since 2018, I have enjoyed supporting the organization and encouraging the next generation of women in ag to apply and attend this event!

2). What connections did you make from that participation, and how did it help shape your career goals and path?

My scholarship sponsor was Five Rivers Cattle Feeding. That year one of tours offered at the Summit was to their Kuner feedlot near Kersey, Colorado. This was a neat experience to illustrate first-hand the importance of my job as a grain buyer. No matter if that grain gets fed to animals, processed into products such as ethanol, or exported across the world, I play an important role in that commodity’s value chain. In addition to that, a popular topic at the Summit was ever-evolving technology and how it has led to an emergence of automation, integration, and transparency in the agribusiness industry. In my role as a grain merchandiser, I have embraced this change and have helped my organizations to implement the future of how we do business in the grain industry.

3). What is the top skill or benefit you walked away with from the Summit?

It is not very often that you have the opportunity to have this many women in the industry in one place. From small group sessions with other grain buyers from across the country; to sponsor dinners with Jerri Lynn Magana, the CFO of Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, and the rest of her amazing team of women; to fostering relationships with the other student scholars who have since gone on to impact the industry, the amount of support and encouragement felt throughout this Summit was second to none. As an industry often dominated by men, this experience has not only shown me what it takes to be a successful woman leader in the industry, it has also provided me the resources to connect and learn directly from them.

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Look here and here to read about the previous students featured. Also, if you are a WIA student scholarship beneficiary or know of one who’d like to share her story, please reach out to Michelle Pelletier Marshall at mmarshall@womeninag.com. Or to be considered for a scholarship, contact Carrie Vita at cvita@highquestgroup.com or visit womeninag.com/initiatives.

ABOUT HAYLEE VANSCOY

Haylee VanScoy (Zwick) is a regional grain merchandiser for Heritage Cooperative in Northwest Ohio. She enjoys working with her producers to help evaluate their grain marketing plans, explore risk management tools, and execute the best grain marketing solutions for their individual operations. After graduating from The Ohio State University, she started her career with Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) before joining Heritage Cooperative in 2021. VanScoy and her husband, Wesley, live in Ridgeway, Ohio, with their two dogs, Nessie and Buddy. They raise beef cattle and have a custom-baling operation for hay and straw. Reach out to VanScoy on LinkedIn.