Her Story
About Cassandra
Cassandra Carpenter is passionate about agriculture, particularly the animal side, and has built a career focused on helping people succeed through leadership positions. She graduated from the University of Nebraska in 2018 with a bachelor's degree in animal science with a focus in business and a minor in agricultural economics. During her studies, she received a scholarship from the Midwest Poultry Consortium to attend a summer program at the University of Wisconsin, earning a certificate in poultry science. She also holds a certificate in Women in Leadership from the University of North Dakota and leadership course certificates from Southeast Community College. Carpenter is a member of the University of Nebraska Alumni Association and is actively involved in it. She attributes her success to the supportive family, friends, and professional network she built during college, and she values integrity and teamwork in both her professional and personal life. Her biggest achievement is the number of people she has led and helped advance in their careers.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Cassandra
01What do you attribute your success to?
A lot of it is the people that I've surrounded myself with. Not only in my personal life do I have a really supportive family and really supportive friends who I can always bounce ideas off of. But one thing I'm really grateful about my college decision at the University of Nebraska is how much they stressed building a professional network... I'm very proud of the network that I've built up, I'm very proud of the way I'm able to continuously grow my network, and it helps me overall be a better person and be a stronger professional.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice that I've ever received, and it's a little bit blunt, but I'm going to tell you how it was told to me: Shut up, because you learn more by listening than you ever do by running your mouth.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Have an open mind, and you really can't take things personally... there's gonna be individual cases of that, but overall, it's not true. A lot of the time, it's just you're gonna get treated like one of the guys. And if you can get through that and get your mind past that hurdle of wondering if they're looking down on you, it's gonna turn into you've got a million grandpas, uncles, cousins that you didn't know you had that are in your corner and want you to succeed and will go to bat for you like you wouldn't believe.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Biggest challenges right now, a big one is just trying to get people on board with using newer technology. Agriculture as a whole has a lot of opportunities to integrate more technology, but obviously it can cause hesitation to integrate that newer stuff, because once you find something that works, either A, you fall into a comfort zone, or B, everything has risk when you bring in new ideas and new technology, so are you willing to take that risk to see if it's gonna work to help you, or is it safer to just stay where you're at and continue to do what you know?
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity is a big one. I'm a firm believer that mistakes are going to happen, but you can't grow from them if you're not honest about it, and seek out help on how to fix it... Teamwork is a really big one. Not everything needs to be teamwork. However, when that teamwork comes up, I believe that it's important that you know how to work with others, because ultimately, a team's success is going to also attribute to your own personal success.
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