Kelly Olson, administrator of the Idaho Barley Commission, remembers helping her family break one of Elmore County’s first irrigated farms out of desert.

Photo: © Pam Benham. All rights reserved.

“Everybody got involved—everybody,” she says. With five daughters and no sons, father Harlan Olson “did not discriminate against young ladies working on the farm,” she says. “We dug out rocks, moved pipe, ran the tractor and the swather, cut the hay and baled it. And if we broke the equipment, we were expected to help fix it.”

“He taught us that we could do anything or be anything,” she says. So after earning her bachelor’s degree in economics at Albertson College of Idaho, Olson headed to Washington, D.C., as a legislative assistant in agricultural and trade issues. In 1987, she came home to develop the Idaho State Department of Agriculture’s first domestic and international marketing programs, and in the process, helped launch the Idaho Specialty Food Association.

By 1990, Olson was administering ISDA’s Division of Marketing and Development. She created agricultural trade missions and product promotions throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, and was instrumental in opening Idaho’s Trade Office in Mexico.

Within four years, she was directing research, market development, policy, and grower education programs for Idaho’s 5,000-plus barley producers.

“I’m very, very happy with where I am today,” Olson says. “I work in an industry that I feel absolutely passionate about, and I’ve been able to work on programs from ground zero and make my mark on them.” She finds it “fascinating” to be in the middle of agricultural public policy issues, “trying to shape good policy and help the industry be the best it can in the current environment.”

“I work in an industry that I feel absolutely passionate about, and I’ve been able to work on programs from ground zero and make my mark on them.”

Ever innovative, Olson also is a founding member and secretary of the Idaho Minor Crop Alliance—a committee of Food Producers of Idaho—and a prime mover in Idaho’s annual Ag Summit. Her influence in agriculture reaches well beyond Idaho’s borders: she has been secretary-treasurer of the National Barley Growers Association and remains staff advisor to its trade committee.

While these are “very difficult times, no question” for Idaho agriculture, Olson does not dwell on the down cycles. “We work in an industry that is very cyclical,” she says. “We have to accept that our industry will emerge from these difficult economic times stronger and better, and that we will face more difficult cycles in the future.”

Asked to describe her leadership style, she responds: “Being raised on a farm gave me the tools to be a hard worker, and I was blessed with a good mind and a good education. I think those things—in combination with being extremely self-motivated and having a vision for agriculture—allow me to lead by example.”

Olson inspires Idaho producers to be more creative in their marketing and formation of strategic alliances. “Our diversity has always been our strength, but our individuality has been our weakness,” she says. “Many small, independent farmers competing with one another and with farmers around the world just isn’t a good model in today’s integrated global marketplace. What farmers need now is more bargaining power.”

Olson says she has never been confronted with gender discrimination at work and has “given it practically no thought whatsoever. This may be a little ‘Pollyanna-ish,’ ” she says, “but I’ve always believed that if you knew your job, were competent, and dealt directly and honestly with people, they would accept you.”
 

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