[New] EDITOR'S NOTE

THE DAYS ARE LONG, BUT IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE WORK REWARDING JOBS OFFER BEST OF ALL WORLDS

by California Cattleman Managing Editor Stevie Ipsen

From the time I was first introduced to the California ranching community in May 2007, the ingenutity and resilience I witness daily never ceases to surprise me. Raised in the agricultural world of the Intermountain West, I was familiar with the overarching issues facing cattlemen and women. But I will admit that list of "challenging" issues looked something like: drought, market fluctuations, vegetarians and fly season. I was fortunate to be raised around conservative, likeminded people, but my brain was about to be enlightened. Not to belittle the ranchers who I was raised around, because their issues today look much like yours. But my young, naive mind was aloof to the grand scale of problems plaguing the agricultural world further west.

When I was first hired by CCA to handle public relations in January 2008, I was a newly-wed who had been working as a newspaper reporter for the Red Bluff Daily News. Besides the meager pay, Tehama County was everything I dreamed of as a young agriculture journalist. It was not the mundate news beat I was previously at in the asphalt jungle of Salt Lake City and the environment I was immersed in was exactly what I craved — rodeo, farming and ranching. The opportunity to shed light on the topics that were important to me was exciting to say the least. And there was no snow to shovel.

When a friend and CCA member made me aware of the job opening at CCA, I jumped at the chance. I had already come to terms with the fact that journalism wasn't a lucrative career so moving over to a non-profit trade association didn't scare me off, even in the face of the nation's biggest housing crash. Doing public relations and social media specifically for ranchers couldn't have been a bigger priviledge and opportunity for me. I loved that initial job with CCA and would probably still be in that capacity today had business models at the association not evolved.

Of the things I have learned about leadership during the past 15 years, it is that keeping an open mind and considersing alternatives to the ways "it's always been done," can reap great rewards. Though I was fully content in my initial communications role at CCA, I am grateful for leadership who considered a bigger picture to help the organization grow.

The desire of CCA leaders to move into unchartered magazine publishing territory afforded me the chance to expand my skillset and follow in the footsteps of CCA influencers like Col. Jack Parnell, Phil Raynard, Jim Danekas and Kelli Toledo, and even learn personally from some of them firsthand. While it is a livelihood, each of those individuals definitely could have made a more lucrative living doing something else. They chose the beef industry because it mattered to them. Each person who managed this publication on behalf of CCA's membership played an important role in furthing the cause and mission of CCA.

Now 10 years into this specific role, those of us directly involved in production of CCA's official publication felt it was time for another update. As you will see in this issue and throughout 2023, we have not just changed some of the look of the magazine, we have also implemented ways for CCA's digital communications and print materials to better work hand in hand.

They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. A lot of things have changed since I first arrived on H Street in 2008, but a lot has stayed the same. I've met many new staff members over the years but they always come equipped with enthusiastic energy to be part of the betterment of CCA. For me, personally, I am now trying to keep up with three kids of my own, I still much prefer to be behind a camera than in front of it, I still love visiting with CCA members in person, online and on the phone and I am always conjuring up new ways to tell your unique stories and deliver news.

As CCA leadership prepares to write the next chapter at a new address not far from H Street, I continue to feel blessed by the opportunity to learn from CCA's membership and spread your stories of resilience, persistence and passion for a way of life second to none.