Career Opportunities
In this section we’ll cover current and future openings, internships and mentorships.
Current Openings
Food For Thought offers a variety of opportunities for people looking to enter the green business community. While we often have specific job openings that will be listed here, some of our most valuable team members simply walked in our door and said, “I want to work here and here’s what I can do for you.” So if you don’t see an opening here, feel free to send us an email and tell us about yourself. After all, you may get to work for a cool company and live in paradise. For more background on our company, click here.
Future Openings
Some of the areas we are not currently listing but we see on the horizon include:
- Sales representative
- Production line operator
- Assistant production manager
- Part time graphic artist
- Warehouse inventory management
- Sustainability czar
Internships
Internships can cover a variety of areas. We are uniquely positioned as a small company to offer a young person experience that is broad-based, but with emphasis in their given field of interest, be it marking/sales, organic farming, green business management, graphic arts, web site management or other. We’re still small enough that when a new person joins the team, we always say “Everyone here takes out the recycling.” In other words, we all wear many and at times all hats. As in career opportunities above, if there is not an opening listed here, it does not mean that we are not open to offers, ideas or suggestions. For more information or to share your thoughts please contact us.
Mentorships
This is a program that is in the thinking stages for me. When I look back on my life as a guy that has been self-employed from the time I mowed my neighbors lawn for ten bucks at age 10, I realize I had some excellent mentors along the way. Now as an established entrepreneur who often speaks in public on this subject it occurred to me that I may be able to be that mentor to other young future leaders. So of late I’ve been running this idea by friends that work with youth as well as encouraging non-profits to think about how we can identify and train the next generation of leaders.
Since having kids and deciding to home school them I’ve told all my business owning friends that when they are of the appropriate age that I’d like them to shadow them for a month or so simply for the experience of seeing how different businesses are run. So that begs the question, can I do that for others? The idea I have is that a young person, perhaps age 17 to a recent collage graduate, could spend time with us at Food For Thought shadowing my life. Experiences would include going to board meetings, public speaking engagements, staff meetings, trade shows and more. They could even live on site, babysit my kids and work on our organic farm. It would be the kind of summer camp experience for entrepreneurs that I’d want my kids to go to. There could be some income earning potential, but maybe that’s not it? I don’t know. So if you’ve read this far, what do you think? Is there a young leader in your life that could benefit from being our first test subject? Have ideas to share? Please email me with your thoughts.
Now if you are still with me, let me tell you a little story about how I became an entrepreneur. As I mentioned above I was 10. While mowing my lawn one day a neighbor stopped and told me that he’d pay me 10 bucks if I mowed his lawn and that he also knew a few other neighbors that needed theirs done too. Well, I started knocking on doors and by the time my dad came home from work I had negotiated more than a couple lawn jobs for the summer and was giddy with excitement to tell him about it. He took one step out of the car when I hit him with the “Hey dad guess what?!! He stood there patiently as I told him about the day and all the money I was going to make by the end of the summer. When I finally finished, or perhaps when I paused to take a breath, my dad calmly said, “That’s wonderful Timothy. I just have one question. Where are you going to get a lawnmower?” Boy, was he quick! He left me hanging there for a while as my summer dreams were slipping through my fingers. But by dinner time we had negotiated the use of “his” lawnmower. I would no longer be earning an allowance for mowing our lawn and I had to pay for all fuel and lawnmower repairs. In that split second, my dad had taught me that there is a cost to doing business and I credit him to this day for sending me down the path that has been a fine adventure.
