Name: Gabby Marti
How long have you worked for POET?
I am a grain buyer for the Arthur, Iowa, plant, and I've been here for three years.
How did you first hear about POET?
I originally interned with Flint Hills in college at their Menlo, Iowa, location and loved that experience. They had extended a full-time position, and I took it, not knowing the area at the time. Shortly after, the Arthur, IA, location came to be and I felt like it was a pretty safe decision to stay in Iowa. I ended up accepting the offer to work at this plant and my first day was a couple of days after the official POET buyout of the Flint Hills plants.
Can you tell me about the path that led you to your career?
I grew up in a small town in Northeast Iowa with my family, and we had a crop operation and some feeder cattle. I was very involved in agriculture when I was a kid, and I knew that whatever I did after school, it was going to be ag-related. When I went to college, I initially thought that an ag finance route was where I wanted to go, and then I did some different job shadows, was able to go and sit with some guys for a couple of days, and figured out that I wanted a little bit more farmer interaction. I had heard some people recommend merchandising because your entire relationship is built off of trying to buy corn from them, have the relationship maintained, and then also be able to offer any other services to them. So, I took an internship just to test it out one summer and loved it. The next summer, just to make sure that it wasn't a fluke, I did another internship with Flint Hills and have loved it ever since!
What do you do in your position?
There's anything and everything that can be thrown at you in one day. Baseline, I make sure that we're buying corn for our plant, and we are keeping decent inventory here, as well as looking at some purchases that we can make down the road that would make sense for our business. We're in contact with farmers every day, either on the phone with them or in weekly marketing meetings. I'm not originally from this area, but in the three years that I've been here, I've gotten so close with a lot of the guys that you feel like you grew up here.
What’s your favorite part about your job?
When I was younger, my dad never really had a good connection with the grain buyers that we could go to if he had questions.
My hope is that the guys I work with every day can trust me enough that if they have questions or want to talk through something, they can call me at any time, and we'll be there to answer them.
POET places a lot of importance on community involvement because you can show a lot by investing in the community that we're operating in, and for farmers, that goes a long way.
What is your greatest career accomplishment here at POET?
I moved completely away from my hometown, got re-established in a community, and then built all those relationships, especially post-COVID. It has been a great transition that has helped me the most in my career.
If I had to pick a close second, it would be my involvement with the National Grain and Feed Association. I'm also on the National Corn Growers Association. It's just another way to advocate for our farmers and bring information from those organizations back to them at no cost to them.
Tell me about the dynamics with your team and your coworkers.
With a small plant team, there's never really a ton of people in the office, so you get to know everybody well and be part of their personal lives, too. When we come to work, it's not just work, work, work, 24/7. You have those little moments where you can ask, “Hey, how was your weekend?” or “What have you been up to with X, Y, and Z?” and you just get this feeling that it's like a little family and you all genuinely care about each other, and I would say that's probably my favorite part of it.
What’s unique about a career at this company?
There’s so much flexibility and potential. There's not a single job that you have to do X, Y, and Z every single time you come to work. As I mentioned earlier, I got involved with the National Grain and Feed Association, but that's not what everybody does. Some of our merchandisers are very involved with county fairs or heavily involved with the intern program because those are different things our team finds fulfilling. That’s what makes each role unique to each person. You have the capability to do that. Not only are you doing baseline work, but you have this extra piece that gives you this little boost of excitement special to your interests.
Tell me a little bit about yourself: what hobbies do you enjoy outside of work?
My fiancé and I have a couple of calves and are doing different house projects. I have a side business called GM Custom that does refurbishing items and custom-building! Recently, I built a table for someone and have also done buffets, coffee tables, and different things like that.
What’s one thing you want to do that you’ve never done before?
Personally, I would like to go to Switzerland for a week or two and explore my family's hometown area. There are all these cool stories that have circulated around our family about what it was like back then.
Professionally, I think it'd be really cool to start an ag, markets-related podcast and bring in different speakers from different plants. Every farmer falls into the trap of backyard syndrome. Having some different speakers come on and talk about markets, what they're seeing for fertilizer trends, and things like that, and then just having it available to farmers, would be great.
