He is kind, smart, and musically talented. He has served our country and our local community well. He is a baker. He taught me to make pie crust. He is my friend. His name is Gary.

A few months ago, Gary was diagnosed with the big C — cancer, a rare, fast-growing form. It breaks my heart to see him struggle with treatments and surgery. Occasionally, I pop in to see Gary, especially when I see him working in his garage. Woodworking and building things for our community are his passions.

This year, Gary is tilling and planting a huge community garden where anyone can just come get what they want, when they want it: fresh fruits and veggies for all. Since Gary is a very talented wood worker, he is also making “hods” which are versatile garden harvest baskets for gathering, transporting, and washing. Neighbors can come and get fruits and veggies, gather them in the hods, wash them, and take them home.

As Gary was telling me about these new projects, he added one I was excited to hear. He has developed a love for writing. Writing is helping him go through this cancer journey. He sent me his writings in chronological order, almost like book chapters, for me to read while I am on the plane.

I spent my time reading them over the last week while traveling. Gary is an excellent writer, mainly because he speaks from the heart. These memories have become more of his memoirs for his family; he is sharing stories and experiences that are close to his heart. His kids and grandkids will have these to share with family and friends.

We all have stories to share. We all have history worth sharing for others to learn from our experiences, both personal and work. Our industry has changed so much in 25+ years. What experiences do we have to share with those of the next generation?

As Gary would say, most of us would prefer to “turtle up” rather than share our memories on paper. However, we should really start thinking about what we want others to know. Most of us do not have the opportunity to have a Wikipedia page. But there are other ways to make an impact. We can make an impact in our industry with sharing our experiences.

Everything comes and goes and comes back again. Look at fashion; platform shoes and bell bottoms were totally the rage when I was a kid, then it was nerdy, now we are back to being cool again. Same thing with our industry. Just look at salt; we used salt as a functional ingredient, then we went to lower salt, then we added salt again because people complained, and now we are back to low salt formulations. There are lessons learned in these changes and challenges to share.

We are going to have a huge generational turnover soon in our industry as people retire. With that retirement, we are going to lose a lot of knowledge. Take the time to teach the next generation about our lessons learned in industry as well as personally. This is not the time to turtle up. It’s important to get rid of that shell and speak up and teach our lessons learned.

What is a lesson learned you want the next generation of leaders to know? Don’t turtle up…comment below.

Don't 'turtle up'

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