Name: Joshua Shields, Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs at POET, LLC
How long have you worked for POET?
Three and a half years.
How did you first hear about POET?
I first heard about POET while working on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. I was working for a member of Congress from South Dakota, so I heard about POET just through that office. Even back then, it was clear that POET was a growing, leading company in the biofuels industry.
Can you tell me about the path that led you to your career?
I grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota, and you didn't hear a lot about biofuels or POET back then. I went to college out in Boston at Gordon College; I knew I wanted to go someplace far away and see a different part of the country. I loved current events and history, and so I found my way into a political science or political studies degree. During college, I interned one summer in Washington D.C. on Capitol Hill for Congressman John Thune. That's kind of when I got the politics bug. After graduating, John Thune decided to run for the U.S. Senate, so I worked on his Senate campaign in 2002.
It was after college, when I was working on Capitol Hill that I became more familiar with all the different businesses and industries in South Dakota. Over the next 15 years, I worked in different jobs in the political realm, either on campaigns or policy on Capitol Hill.
I was a communications director for a member of Congress for a little while, then ended up working for an energy company based here in South Dakota doing government relations for them. I also worked for the Governor and was her chief of staff for a little while. At the time, I felt like I was bouncing around and doing different things, but everything always looks like it made more sense when you're here than it does in the present. All those different experiences unintentionally lined up really well with what I do now!
What do you do in your position?
I would say that what we do as the corporate affairs team is help tell the POET story in all its various forms. We have many different audiences, ranging from stakeholders to policymakers to local businesses and media. We do a lot of strategy in communicating POET’s story to all of the buckets of audiences we touch.
What’s your favorite part about your job?
My favorite part is that every day is different and that you can go to work thinking you're going to work on something, and then it can totally change, and I kind of thrive in that. Not knowing for sure what’s going to happen that day keeps my mind active and the variety keeps it exciting and gets me out of bed in the morning.
What is your greatest career accomplishment here at POET?
I think that is still a work in progress, but I would say that the Inflation Reduction Act and the tax credits for low-carbon fuels that are in that bill. We're still waiting for the regulations to be finalized, but that has the potential to revolutionize biofuels in a new way.
People have said that the tax incentives in that bill could be as important as the renewable fuel standard was back in the 2002-2004 era, and I think that's probably an accurate statement. It could be the next big chapter in the history of biofuels, which is pretty cool to be here and be a part of making history.
Tell me about the dynamics with your team and your coworkers.
I've worked on a lot of the different things that our team does. That said, all of the individual contributors and the different team members do such a great job that I could not do the job that any of them do as well as they do. It's fun to help watch and encourage them and help provide some direction here and there, but it's more fulfilling to have such an engaged team who all understand the mission and the vision. You can't tell the POET's story if you're not also fired up about it and engaged on it, and so that flows through, and you see that in everyone on the team, and it's just fun to be a part of it.
What’s unique about a career at this company?
What's unique about the work here at POET is we are a part of a world-leading industry and the world's largest biofuels producer, right here in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and we're changing the world from the Midwest and a 12-minute drive to work. A lot of people, I think, would guess that you need to live in some big city and move to the coast to impact the environment, technology, and energy and all of these cutting-edge initiatives. It’s amazing that we get to do that right here in the Midwest, especially when a lot of us have ties to agriculture and rural economies.
Tell me a little bit about yourself: what hobbies do you enjoy outside of work?
I enjoy golf in the summer and skiing in the winter, and I'm trying to get my kids excited about those activities as well. I like to read, especially history, but with four young kids ages 7 to 11, I spend a lot of time taking them to activities, watching them, and cheering them on all the different sports and activities they do!
What’s one thing you want to do that you’ve never done before?
I have never participated in harvest or combined corn, so that would be really exciting. My grandfather farmed and ranched, and my dad worked on the farm and ranch, but we moved away before I was old enough to really participate in any of that. It would be eye-opening during harvest some fall to ride in a combine and be a part of that process.
