Kinley excited about mentorship opportunity

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This article was published 13/10/2022 (1285 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A young man from the Cartwright area has won a chance to take part in a mentorship program that could launch him along the path to his dream career.

James Kinley has been selected as one of 16 participants for the Canadian Cattle Association’s Canadian Cattle Young Leaders program for 2022-23

“It’s an amazing opportunity,” said the 20-year-old Kinley, who is studying for an agricultural technology degree at Lakeland College in Vermilion, Alta.

The Canadian Cattle Young Leaders program (until recently known as the Cattlemen’s Young Leaders Mentorship Program), is a national initiative that provides people aged 18 to 35 from across Canada with industry-specific training and mentorship.

The mentorship, travel and networking the program provides allows participants to develop skills they need to help further the success of the Canadian beef industry.

The association reports that since the program began in 2010, 160 participants have graduated to take leadership roles throughout the beef industry.

“The overall goal and purpose of the program is to act like a built-in industry succession planning tool, where we’re taking the young up-and-coming leaders and pairing them with mentors and providing training,” said Jessica Radau, the association’s youth leadership co-ordinator.

Each year, participants are invited to submit written applications, which are used to reduce the field of prospects to 24 semi-finalists, who then attend the Canadian Beef Industry Conference for further review.

“I was really impressed with the high calibre of applications we saw this year,” Radau said.

This year’s conference was held in Penticton, B.C., on Aug. 16. There, semifinalists rotated through five 25-minute roundtable discussions with peers, facilitated and judged by representatives of program sponsors. The contestants participated in discussions of timely topics in the beef industry.

Kinley emerged from this process to be one of this year’s 16 finalists who will now be matched with a beef industry leader for a nine-month mentorship in their specific area of interest, which in Kinley’s case is agricultural technology.

“I think that technology is 100 per cent going to be the future of not only the beef industry, but agriculture and every industry,” Kinley said.

Participants also receive a $2,000 budget for travel related to the beef industry and learning opportunities of their choice, such as conferences or workshops.

Kinley said his mentorship with the young leaders program will get him a jump on learning technology that is ever-changing. It may also help him line up a practicum placement, a requirement of his degree.

Kinley grew up on the family livestock farm just north of Cartwright. His plan is to return to the family farm, where he’ll introduce new technology and also play a role in the technology industry.

“I plan to get involved with the technology industry and keeping the family farm going,” he said.

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