Leadership Learning for All
When past national officers Seth Derner and Doug Kueker started working for the National FFA Organization to develop projects designed to teach leadership skills via distance learning, they had no idea they’d soon launch a company based on the same idea.
In 2006, the two launched Vivayic, which has become the nation’s largest learning solution provider for agriculture. With a team of nearly 40 people, Vivayic develops training curricula, designs eLearning and provides consulting services for talent and leadership development. An estimated five million farmers, ranchers, ag professionals and students participate annually in a training experience Vivayic designed for its corporate, association and nonprofit clients.
The two never imagined where their FFA experiences would lead from their rural childhoods, but they say those experiences in developing critical thinking, problem-solving and relationship-building skills directly impact their work and adult lives.
Leadership Learning
Seth Derner
Derner was the 1995-96 national FFA president. A native of Nebraska, he taught agriculture after college and before joining FFA at the national office in a curriculum development role. Missourian Doug Kueker (pictured above, back row, second from left) served as the 2000-01 central region vice president and joined the National FFA staff after college as well, assigned to Derner’s team in 2003 as an education specialist.
In the national office, Derner and Kueker worked on projects designed to make leadership learning more accessible to all ag education students across the country, not just those who could attend in-person leadership development workshops or conferences. Derner says he and Kueker were both drawn to technology, especially as it related to instruction.
After a few years, both left employment with FFA and moved back to their home states. An organization they’d worked with while at FFA asked them to consult on similar distance-learning training projects and then other projects followed.
“We didn’t really plan to start a company,” Derner says. “We thought we could do this consulting work for a few years, which would give us time to figure out what to do next in our careers.” But as the projects kept coming, the two decided they needed a business structure. They were both familiar with entrepreneurship — Kueker growing up on a Missouri farm and Derner on a Nebraska cattle ranch.
“We took the opportunities of what we’d done working for FFA and said ‘let’s take a risk’ and see how this goes,” Kueker says. “And 20 years later at Vivayic, here we are.”
FFA Leads the Way
Doug Kueker
Both men say their success can be traced to following some simple rules: Do a good job; treat people well; do the right thing, even when it isn’t popular. They say those simple rules, along with leadership lessons, can be traced to their FFA experiences.
“In FFA, you really learn to solve problems and you gain a lot of skills in listening, understanding what’s going on and then thinking critically and coming up with solutions,” Kueker says. He says testing ideas, getting feedback and improving is, “a fundamental skill in everything I’ve done from FFA in high school to today.”
For Derner, encouraging students to try new things is one of the strengths of FFA. While participating in a Creed Speaking Leadership Development Event in high school, he realized he was being pushed beyond what he was comfortable with. “While FFA has competitions and we hang banners and give out trophies, it’s not really about that,” he says. “It’s about getting kids to try things and figure out what they’re good at and recognize they’ll learn something from the experience.”
Co-founding Vivayic has reinforced Derner’s belief in the power of communication, and both past national officers say it’s not easy to make decisions that often make them unpopular. “But if you do the work, you listen and really consider, and then you tell people honestly why you’re doing what you’re doing, over time that builds trust, which is the most important currency you can have as an individual and an organization,” Derner says. “I think that’s why FFA has thrived for so long because people trust the experience.”
Both Kueker and Derner have given generously to FFA. Kueker has provided training for the Missouri FFA state officer teams and helped with curriculum development for ag education teachers throughout Missouri. “Growing up in a rural setting on a farm, FFA really broadened my horizons and gave me a lot of opportunities I wouldn’t have had otherwise, and there’s so much value in giving back so that others have those same opportunities I was afforded,” Kueker says.
Derner has served on the Nebraska FFA Foundation board of directors. “You get to the point where you realize you didn’t get to where you are by yourself,” he says. “I have the capacity now to do what others have done for me in the past, and it just feels natural to do that.”
Vivayic is currently partnering with FFA to create virtual leadership labs, a collection of modules utilizing a challenge-based learning approach to help prepare FFA members for success. The partnership is made possible by an in-kind gift of learning design and eLearning development services by Vivayic valued at more than $100,000 per year for 10 years. The labs will be free and available for FFA members to use online. They are anticipated to be available this summer.
“We felt we had 20 years of experience in creating really engaging distance learning, and we wanted to translate that experience into something that is really useful for every kid in every kind of community,” Derner says.
