Theodore Geisel, more commonly known as beloved children’s author Dr. Seuss once said:
“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory”
I’m finding a lot of truth in that statement as my VALOR experience comes to a close. Tomorrow I head to Roanoke to be with my classmates one final time, and celebrate the learning and growth that has occurred over the last two years. There were moments over the last two years where it felt like the last thing that I wanted to do was pack a bag, leave home, and spend time away from work and family. However, as soon as I saw Megan or one of my classmates all that I could think about was how excited and ready I was for the next experience. I know that as we conclude our time in VALOR, I will remember fondly all of the learning, challenges, and laughter that small but mighty Class VI was able to share.
Now, on to Central Virginia! Our final seminar was a quick one, but allowed us to cover a lot of ground. Themes that resonated with me were working with family, adding-value, and the ideas of creating access and building capacity. Some of my classmates have written great summaries of our time in Central VA already, but I think the visit that sticks with me the most was our visit to Soli Organics. You might recall from a previou blog that we also visited Soli when we were in the Shenandoah Valley a few months ago. The difference between these two stops are that the Elkwood location is a true controlled environment space, meaning there are no traditional greenhouses like what we say when we visited the Valley.
Gilberto was an incredible host to our cohort, and was extremely thorough in walking us through the facility and explaining all parts of the operation in great detail. What I was fascinated by was Soli’s continuous focus on efficiency and improvement. This facility is really their “proof of concept” facility where they test and try out methods before deploying them in larger-scale operations across the country. I think I was so fascinated by what they were doing because it closely models what we do in VALOR. This sequence of experience – reflection – action/implementation is the foundation of experiential learning, and it was so cool to see that happening in business as well as a leadership development program like ours.
While Soli Organics might have been my favorite stop, I was so grateful to our hosts at Graves Mountain Lodge, Michael Shaps Winery, The George Washington Carver Ag Research Center, MadWood, Saunders Brothers, and Albemarle Ciderworks.
valeadersor.com 