Episode Transcript
00:00 Madalyn Lamoreaux: I'm not one to just sit still. I'm part of our executive board for Leadership Walton, I'm a VP for our Women Impacting Supply Chain Excellence, so that all still translates over to my internship. It's never sitting still. I'll pop into someone's office if I'm bored and say, "What more can I do? What more can I learn?"
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00:34 Brian Fugate: We're here with Madalyn Lamoreaux nearby Del Monte Foods. Madalyn is a University of Arkansas Supply Chain Management student at the Sam M. Walton College of Business. Madalyn is graduating in 2020, so next year, and she's currently an intern at Del Monte Foods as a business analyst intern. So, Madalyn, could you tell us a little bit about Del Monte Foods?
00:58 Madalyn Lamoreaux: Yeah, it's a great CPG company. Their office here in Rogers is specifically for Walmart. So, I get to work on the Walmart team and our sales work specifically with fruit cups, canned vegetables and all their new innovative lines.
01:14 Brian Fugate: So, could you tell us a little bit about what you're doing this summer?
01:17 Madalyn Lamoreaux: Yeah, it's a rotational internship which is really cool. So, each week, I get to sit with a different department. I've sat with our sales analyst team, our sales team. And then, this week, I'm with supply chain and coming up will be marketing and category management.
01:33 Brian Fugate: So, you're a Supply Chain Management major at the university.
01:36 Madalyn Lamoreaux: Yes.
01:37 Brian Fugate: So, how are you applying that on this intern? You're working really cross-functionally. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
01:44 Madalyn Lamoreaux: Yeah. So, it's really cool because I get to pull from my supply chain experience and even my previous internship with J.B Hunt. That I really understand not only why they're ordering what they're ordering but the quantities, inventory management and forecasting. So, I guess, slightly an edge when it comes to all that but I'm still learning so much.
02:07 Brian Fugate: That's fantastic experience 'cause throughout your career as a supply chain person, you're gonna constantly be working on those cross-functional teams with diverging goals but yet you're gonna be trying to work collaboratively together. So, that's gonna really serve you well. So, that's pretty cool. So, Madalyn, could you tell me a little bit about what inspires you?
02:28 Madalyn Lamoreaux: I don't know about inspiration but I can just say, day-to-day, it's just constantly "What more can I be doing?" I'm not one to just sit still. I'm part of our executive board for Leadership Walton, I'm a VP for our Women Impacting Supply Chain Excellence, so that all still translates over to my internship. It's never sitting still. I'll pop into someone's office if I'm bored and say, "What more can I do? What more can I learn?" And I think that is what got me to where I am right now.
02:58 Brian Fugate: That's great to hear. So, you just mentioned the Women Impacting Supply Chain and I know you just came from a conference or a symposium in that space, could you tell us about that experience and what that was?
03:10 Madalyn Lamoreaux: I did. I just got back from our Northwest Arkansas Women's Empowerment Summit. I was just fortunate to get the invite to attend with the fellow ladies from our office. We heard about 10-15 speakers and it all just really helped us as women in leadership roles, not even necessarily women in business, and helping us just key in and focus on how to better ourselves and how to include men and saying, "You're not the bad guy, it's just how to help support other women in this industry."
03:46 Brian Fugate: That would be so helpful. I can tell you that from experience.
03:48 Madalyn Lamoreaux: I'm sure.
03:49 Brian Fugate: That's a really impactful and important agenda and I know that you're working with the student club at the university as well, and that thing is thriving. So, thank you for working in that space with Dr. Stephanie Thomas and...
04:01 Madalyn Lamoreaux: Oh, I love her.
04:03 Brian Fugate: Could you tell us some of the... What's going well this summer for you?
04:10 Madalyn Lamoreaux: So, I've heard from a lot of feedback is that I ask really great questions and that also comes to one of my challenges is I have to constantly tell myself it's okay to not know something. I am trying to get comfortable each and every day of asking questions that I think might sound stupid but I'm just encouraged to continue to do that. And so, what that has done is it actually has brought attention to the other employees at Del Monte of, "Hey, I'm actually glad you asked that. We don't even know or that's something we can even fix." But I don't realize I'm helping them until they're pointing it out, but it's helping myself in the same time.
04:47 Brian Fugate: That's a great way to learn and, actually, to help others learn. So, that's wonderful. Maybe you should be asking me the questions.
04:54 Madalyn Lamoreaux: You never know. We could.
04:56 Brian Fugate: Yeah. So, can you also tell us a little bit about the challenges that you're working through this summer?
05:01 Madalyn Lamoreaux: So, one challenge would be, and this just isn't my experience, I've never worked in depth in a CPG company, so it's a little tough coming in. I had a whole notebook just of terms I did not know. They used so many acronyms that I couldn't keep up with. I constantly would leave a meeting and bump into someone, and say, "Hey, 10 different words. Can you just explain them to me then I might be able to understand what we were talking about?" But I know by the end, I'll be able to get the hang of that.
05:29 Brian Fugate: If it makes you feel better, every time that I interact with CPG companies here, I'm still learning their TLAs or their three-letter acronyms. So, there you go. Lots of learning there. So, now I wanna ask you, back to your experience at the university, your first three years I suppose, what was your favorite class so far?
05:51 Madalyn Lamoreaux: I actually just took that class. I really enjoyed our international logistics. Sebastian was our teacher. Garcia, I believe. And he just had such a fun learning environment. It was "Let's talk about what's going on in the industry" not as much lecture and worksheet as it was learning about current events. And I have traveled a decent amount, so I really enjoy learning about not just what's going on in the US but going on globally.
06:21 Brian Fugate: So, I know you've traveled and so let's talk about that a little bit. You took a study abroad course, could you tell us about that?
06:28 Madalyn Lamoreaux: I did. I spent last summer in Rome. We have a University of Arkansas campus in Rome. A lot of students still don't actually know that but it's really cool because it was a university professor, Molly Jensen, took us over there and taught us a marketing course where we were able to split off into groups and my group partnered with a restaurant owner to try to rebrand and remarket. That was so fun and a really great experience that I don't think a lot of students can quite say that they have. But I really highly recommend branching out and going to a different country, especially through study abroad, where it might be paid for by the university but you also get a cultural experience, an eye-opening understanding of everything going on. People live differently, think about things differently and you'd gain so much more insight into that.
07:18 Brian Fugate: What a phenomenal experience. And I know Molly leading that, she's just fantastic in that space. And so, I bet that was a great experience, an experience that's gonna help you in global supply chain management throughout your career because that's where we are in the world and supply chain. And so, that's great to hear. Let's imagine that you're speaking to a set of students who are juniors or sophomores, or let's say we're speaking to you a year ago, what advice would you provide them?
07:50 Madalyn Lamoreaux: I'd say it's like three parts. The first one is just get comfortable being uncomfortable. Put yourself out there, sign up for events where your friends might not be going, apply for the jobs or the internships that you might not necessarily think you qualify for. It's just about putting yourself out there and saying, "I'm going to try." And if someone says no or if you don't get that job, that's fine. You can go apply for another one you tried. Another one is ask questions. Like I said, that's something I'm still trying to work on but so many people are afraid to speak up and say, "I'm confused" or "I don't understand." And if you just ask a simple question or even ask for a promotion, you're not going to get that because someone's not going to come and hand you all of the answers or hand you the promotion. And that was talked about a little bit at the Women's Summit, which I really enjoyed that. And my other one would probably just be to relax and enjoy college. You don't realize that until you're entering your senior year and it's almost over. And I realized I haven't done near the amount of things that I want to. You're only young once, I guess, so you gotta enjoy it.
08:56 Brian Fugate: Yeah, what a great experience that I think we all miss. And so, I think that'd be a good advice. I think I'd like you to come speak to my classes and tell our students that...
09:04 Madalyn Lamoreaux: I could, I'll shake them. Yeah. [chuckle]
09:05 Brian Fugate: Really great advice. There you go, there you go. So, Madalyn, could you tell us a little bit about why you chose supply chain management?
09:13 Madalyn Lamoreaux: Yeah, absolutely. So, I started as a marketing major and I took the intro to supply chain course with Dr. Stephanie Thomas, and it just really opened my eyes to a whole different industry or field that I didn't even know existed. And it's all really fun to learn because it's new, it's relevant, you're not reading from textbooks because they're not quite there yet. You're reading news articles, talking to industry professionals. It's something that's constantly changing and, for me, that's fun and interesting because I'm constantly a what's next person. "Let's see what's new going on in the world," and that's supply chain for me.
09:50 Brian Fugate: That's fantastic. So, Madalyn, I know you've gotta get back to work. Could you first tell us what about working at Del Monte Foods this summer is fun, exciting? What brings you in everyday and gets you going?
10:03 Madalyn Lamoreaux: It's the people. CPG is a really fun industry and all these other companies are all CPG but the difference with Del Monte is the people. You show up and you're part of a team. It's not getting to work and you're sitting at a desk all day, it's stopping and saying, "Hey, I saw the Blues won a Stanley Cup. That's me, I'm from St. Louis." So, everyone was patting me on the back on my way in like I had something to do with that. We have a ping-pong table in the middle of the office that people come in and play during their lunch breaks. If they're just stressed, they'll get up and have a game. It's really fun we do. It's like an extremely casual environment, so you can make your mistakes, you can ask your questions and it's encouraged. That's the only way that you can really learn and grow.
10:50 Brian Fugate: What a great place to work.
10:52 Madalyn Lamoreaux: Yeah, it is.
10:53 Brian Fugate: So, we wanna thank Del Monte for giving you that opportunity. We also wanna thank you for taking the time to speak with us and share with other students and other companies, and all of that about internships. And so, thank you for that.
11:05 Madalyn Lamoreaux: Oh, this was really fun. I'm glad I'm here.
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