Emily Yeiser Stepp: A Voice for Dairy

Name: Emily Yeiser Stepp

Preferred Pronouns: She/Her

Hometown & Current Town: Arnold, MD/Leesburg, VA

Graduation Year: BS 2007, MS 2011

Major & Minor: BS Animal Science, Minor Ag Business Management

Additional Degree & Institution: MS Dairy Science, Virginia Tech

Current Professional Title: Senior Director, Industry Affairs

Name of Employer: Fairlife, LLC

Brief Description of Your Role: My role is to represent Fairlife within the dairy industry and externally to ensure we are engaged with various national, state, and local entities and organizations to advance the values and goals of Fairlife, which in summary, is "Believe in Better," to make the best product for our consumers.

Why did you choose Penn State?

When I was growing up in 4-H, there were some Penn State alumni with whom I shared where I was looking at going to college. Admittedly, Penn State was not on the original list. They suggested I go to State College and check out Penn State to see if it would be a good fit. I visited with one of those alumni and fell in love with campus and the people.

After that visit, as I was trying to narrow down where I wanted to go, I ended up seeing the Penn State Dairy Judging Team at an event at Ohio State and they were very welcoming and friendly. That cemented my decision that that was the type of network I wanted to be around for the next four years. Dave Lentz, Ken Raney, Dale Olver, and Jana Peters, along with that judging team, really convinced me that Penn State was where I belonged.

It was a hard decision not to go to the University of Maryland due to familial connections, but this was an opportunity to expand my network. It was also an opportunity to be welcomed into a thriving ag industry.

What inspired you to pursue your degree?

I grew up showing dairy cows and being in 4-H and always had a passion for the production side of dairy. Penn State had the animal science degree with a business track that seemed like the perfect mix for what I was looking for in my education. Not having been raised in a traditional ag background, I felt it would give me flexibility to get the science side and the business side of things, which was helpful. Having the agricultural business management minor on top of that gave me some business acumen to complement the animal sciences and provided a lot of variety. If I wanted to go into genetics, sales, or nutrition, it provided that spectrum that could translate into any career path.

What clubs and organizations were you involved in?

I was active in the Dairy Science Club, participating in a number of activities from cow camp to the Nittany Lion Fall Classic sale. I was also a member of the Dairy Judging Team that won at the All American Dairy Show contest and served as President of the American Dairy Science Association-Student Affiliate Division. I also served as an Ag Advocate and was a sister of Alpha Zeta fraternity.

What is a favorite Penn State memory?

As part of the Dairy Science Club, we hosted the Nittany Lion Fall Classic sale. That week was always fun because it allowed us engagement with industry peers and friends, but we also treated it as a business opportunity. We were fundraising for the club while working with industry to have a successful sale. I think that’s where a lot of the passion I have for working with and alongside farmers came to be as we worked to market their animals while making sure we had a successful sale.

While at Penn State, the Dairy Science Club also got to take an international trip to New Zealand. That experience was fabulous. Getting that exposure to international agriculture was most definitely a highlight.

You studied abroad while in undergrad in Australia. Can you talk about that experience and how it impacted your life?

Before starting college, I knew I wanted to study abroad and had it set that I wanted to do that in Australia. Studying abroad didn’t seem as prevalent in the early 2000s as it is today, but I wanted to get outside of my comfort zone and try it. There were also two people in Alpha Zeta who had done a semester abroad at the same university a few years ahead of me, so they had socialized the idea.

It was absolutely the opportunity of a lifetime. I got to go with people I didn't know personally from other majors like communications and business, so it also broadened my circle of friends throughout Penn State.

You never get away from agriculture, even 12,000 miles from home. There was an ag program at the school, but I was taking general classes while studying abroad. But I asked my Australian advisor if there was an opportunity to get involved in ag in some way. He had a friend who was a large animal vet at a local dairy farm, so I got to work on a dairy farm for most of the time that I was there. It gave me real-life ag experience, a connection with the international dairy industry, alongside a semester abroad.

Australia is amazing, and I love the southern hemisphere. It was a life-changing opportunity to get exposed to a different culture. It was scary to be that far away from the comforts of home, but it was one of my top experiences within my college career.

How has your Penn State education influenced your career or life?

I think having the network that Penn State provides with its alumni base has been the largest influence. Those connections have really helped direct several milestones in my career.

For example, when I was looking at graduate school, my graduate advisor was Dr. Christina Peterson Wolf at Virginia Tech. She was in Alpha Zeta and was a Penn State alumna. That was a connection that led me to doing my graduate work with her.

I have also been able to use my Penn State education and its network to support the various career paths I've pursued, providing the subject matter expertise and industry-wide connections for success.

What are one or two of your proudest accomplishments in which your Penn State education played a role?

Penn State and all of the experiences I had the fortune to be involved in have really been critical in maintaining my confidence that I can serve the dairy industry to the greatest extent. I’ve previously worked for a national dairy trade association that represents the voices of nearly all the U.S. dairy industry on important topics like social responsibility along with domestic and international policy. Everything I’ve been able to contribute throughout my career stems from the network of support from Penn State and the College of Agricultural Sciences.

Outside of work, you are a managing partner with Spots-Pride Farm. Can you expand on your role there and why staying involved in the dairy industry in this way is important to you?

My sister, Amy Leslie (’09, Animal Science), and her husband, Joe Leslie (’09, Ag Business Mgmt), met at Penn State. After we had aged out of 4-H, it was still a strong passion of ours to show and market our cattle. We call it our professional hobby. It really has allowed us to keep driving towards goals we have had since we were eight years old.

We also recognize that this keeps us grounded in our day-to-day work as well. We’re not milking our cows every day, but we rely on our people and our network, both in Maryland and Pennsylvania, to do that work for us all, so we can maintain this professional hobby. The things that we all work on professionally directly impact the industry that we are so passionate about.

The heifer we showed at World Dairy Expo this past year was second in her class out of 51 animals and was also named Best Bred and Owned in her class. That means we have bred and retained ownership of multiple generations of this cow family. The calf, Patagonia, can be traced back to the first Brown Swiss heifer we bought in 1999 for $850. Our support network has allowed us to continue to develop our small dairy herd and to have a huge goal realized and recognized this past year was special. All the credit goes to Amy, Joe, and Palmyra Farm, who do all the hard work every day to help us achieve these dreams.

What has been the best advice you’ve ever received?

If it scares you, it's probably the right thing to do.

In reflecting upon going to Australia and recently changing jobs, if it doesn’t scare you a little bit it's probably not worth doing. Inevitably, whether a big life decision ends up with success or failure, you're going to learn something from it, so you might as well take the leap.

Why are you proud to be a Penn State Ag Sciences alum?

It's very easy to feel a ton of pride being a Penn Stater with the good the University and its students, faculty, and staff do. I think in comparing my experience to those in a different college or even at other universities, Penn State Ag Sciences is unique in the way that it creates a family environment.  The willingness of people in the college to take care of one another is unique and special.

We’ve got faculty and staff that care deeply about the impact of what they’re doing every day and the impact they have both on students and the broader agricultural industry. Our college supports the big picture of feeding the world. We don't always want recognition for the impressive work we do, but the technology and science from our college touch every facet of people’s everyday lives. I'm extremely excited to see what will come from our college in the future.