A New Job

One of the reasons I haven't been posting as much recently is that there has been a big elephant in the room of our life that we didn't want to mention too publicly before we had made a decision.

Monsanto recruiters track all recent Plant Breeding graduates and have been in contact with Brian over the last few years letting him know about jobs that were open. We have never been tempted to leave by any of the offers before this one. They said they wanted to interview him for the position of Corn Discovery Breeder (I think that is the official title). Emily summarizes the position best by saying that he would be an inventor. He wouldn't be in charge of creating better corn hybrids, but of developing better/new methods and products for corn breeders.

He interviewed with them in their headquarters in St Louis in February and then they flew both of us out to Iowa last week to see where he would actually be working. He has a great team he would be working with and would also have access to engineers, statisticians and anyone else he would want or need to put his ideas into practice. He would be working in Huxley which is about 20 minutes north of De Moines and 10 minutes south of Ames (think central Iowa). The area isn't as pretty as Indiana (not quite as many trees) but is similar in other ways (flat, lots of corn, nice people).

The biggest pull for not accepting the job was our place here. We have REALLY been happy the last 2 1/2 years and didn't want to mess that up with a job that took too many hours or whatever inevitable changes happened. We like our cows that get out all the time (twice last week - Brian spent 5 hours strengthening the fences and still couldn't figure out how Little Cow had gotten out), our pig and chickens (did I mention that a skunk has been stealing their eggs?!? How rude!). Our house, land and animals have some major issues but we like it. Crazy, huh?

We looked at some places when we were in Iowa and didn't see anything with land that we wanted/could afford but we did find a beautiful, totally renovated house built in 1907 with a .4 acre lot filled with hostas, day lilies and other plants. Beautiful! Plus no work required. We will probably fly over again and look for a place. It would be nice to be able to find something to buy so we wouldn't have to move twice (esp. with a young baby). Fortunately they have a great moving plan and really try to make moving as easy as possible. I just need them to come and weed my flower beds, wash my windows, fix the dead bolt, replace the caulk in the bathroom, put in the railing and ceiling fan upstairs and haul away the carpet from upstairs and downstairs. (Brian pulled out the carpet and refinished the living room floors while we were in Washington.) It is a bit overwhelming, but really they are just things we need to do anyway.

Anyway after a lot of thought and heartburn on Brian's part (the spirit?), we decided to take the job and will be moving the very end of May. We are leaving the small company world and going to work for "the man." (Also a negative - though it looks like they are trying to become a better company. I just personally don't like how they are buying up every independent company in the world and patent everything they can think of. Oh, well...)

Wish us luck!