Swoboda's title, director of planning, is vague, but only because his duties could easily be split into multiple positions. A blessing and a curse of working on a small staff is that each person is like his or her own autonomous department. When there's no one else to assign figuring out a way to rush the purchase of a first-class flight from Ethiopia, it leaves lots of room for on-the-job learning and experience. While most of Des Moines' working population is sitting at their desks, Swoboda is making last-minute preparations to fly to a United Nations Millennium Village in Uganda and visit with Kenyan farmers. Officially, Swoboda's job is to plan the annual Borlaug Symposium, which draws about 700 researchers and dignitaries from no less than 65 countries to hear lectures on food security and honor the year's World Food Prize laureate. "I didn't really plan in college for a career, which served me well," said Swoboda, between casual glances at pamphlets on the possible diseases he could get while on his trip. The East High grad majored in Russian at the University of Iowa, then went to work in the Peace Corps in the middle of the Uzbekistan desert before an uprising in the country forced him to leave in 2005. "Frank I hired to answer the phone and he so impressed me, now he's got the lead on leading the symposium," Quinn said. Once, a top research scientist came to Quinn and told him, "I've been dealing with Frank Swoboda so long, I came thinking I'd meet a 55-year-old man."
Uzbekistan RPCV Frank Swoboda serves as the director of planning at the the World Food Prize headquarters
Cover Story: 'This is my dream job'
Brianne Sanchez • brianne@dmJuice.com • March 10, 2010
The guy responsible for bringing Bill Gates to speak in Des Moines last October is Frank Swoboda, who is 29 years old and one of four people under 35 working on the nine person staff of the World Food Prize Foundation.
The foundation brings politicians, like Bob Dole and George McGovern, along with little-known researchers - like 2009 World Food Prize Laureate Dr. Gebisa Ejeta of Ethiopia, whose work developing hybrid grasses increased the availability of one of the world's main grains - to Des Moines for the symposium, a laureate award ceremony with lectures and dialogues on topics surrounding world hunger.
With a guest list of more than 600 ambassadors, research scientists and dignitaries from across the globe, this could be Iowa's most influential annual event. (Behind the scenes, making sure every second of the ceremony - from performers to keynote speakers - goes as planned is another under-35 staffer, 32-year-old Justin Cremer.)
For the past decade, the work of the World Food Prize Foundation was somewhat out of sight and out of mind for people in Des Moines. The construction of a new riverfront World Food Prize headquarters (on track to open in the old downtown library building in the spring of 2012) should change that. Maura Walsh, 24, is tasked with researching the history of agricultural achievement so the foundation can commission world-class art highlighting key moments for the new facility.
Working to further the influence of the foundation beyond those five days in the fall is Keegan Kautzky, 28, whose work linking high school students with international internships could pave the way for careers in groundbreaking research to help alleviate world hunger.
Though the paths that led them to work for the foundation cross different terrain on continents across the globe, all share a common thread: These four young professionals never saw themselves moving back to work in Des Moines.
It's working for the World Food Prize, a job that's more D.C. than D.M., that keeps them in Iowa. Turns out, what might one of the coolest, most influential jobs in Des Moines is all about agriculture.
Carrying on a legacy
In a World Food Prize boardroom on the 17th floor of the Ruan Center, Cremer, Kautzky, Swoboda and Walsh describe their backgrounds by telling stories that involve everything from cleaning toilets at a preschool in Denmark to caring for llamas in Kentucky.
All are from Iowa, and all have traveled and worked around the world. Among them, they speak many languages: Afrikaans, Czech, Danish, French, Russian, Uzbek, Wolof and some Spanish and introductory Arabic.
The next World Food Prize symposium is more than 250 days away (Oct. 12), so the winter months are a relative lull for an office that pulls 16- or 18-hour days during the weeks surrounding the event. But there's still work to be done.
Swoboda, for instance, is planning a last-minute trip to Kenya and Uganda to meet with farmers.
The four YPs and the rest of the World Food Prize staff carry on the mission of Nobel Prize winner Norman Borlaug, and have Ambassador Kenneth Quinn, one of the country's most decorated civilians, as their boss.
"There's a really high standard because of Dr. Borlaug's legacy," Swoboda said. They all admit: They're so busy, they don't really have time to stop and reflect on the magnitude of their work.
Certain moments, though, stand out as exceptional opportunities. Like Cremer's chance to sit in on a private conversation between Borlaug and Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley after Borlaug was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal (making him one of six humans ever to walk the earth to earn that, the Nobel Prize, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom).
The staff is aware that in Des Moines and abroad, they represent Borlaug's legacy.
"As a 28 year old, I'm trusted to fulfill that obligation," Kautzky said. "There aren't that many organizations that would put their trust in young people to go out and do what we do."
Quinn, their boss, is a supervisor who recognizes the talents of young people and the special energy youth brings to an organization. "They're dealing with CEOs and business executives and research scientists that come to know them," Quinn said. "They're so capable and I trust every one of them completely."
A conversation sparks a new career path
A short conversation with Norman Borlaug redirected Keegan Kautzky's life. Kautzky was a freshman at Iowa State University, majoring in international business and Spanish and interning at the World Food Prize.
"Two weeks into it, Norm pulled me aside and said 'What are your interests?'" Kautzky said. "He said, 'I want you to go home and think about how you're going to use those talents. Think about how you're going to get to Africa.'"
Borlaug impressed upon Kautzky that Africa was the place to be if he wanted to address poverty issues. According to the organization, Africa is the greatest worry, with nearly 220 million hungry and malnourished people. Plus, there's declining soil quality and poor education and transportation infrastructures.
The next semester, Kautzky was in Malawi interning with the World Agroforestry Centre through an arrangement made by a former WFP laureate.
During the rest of his time in college, Kautzky started "Pages of Promise," a nonprofit that collects used textbooks to ship to Africa. He worked in an orphanage in India, then moved to South Africa to pursue a master's degree in international development studies and another in public health from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.
Kautzky's plan was to live in South Africa permanently. His office features a poster of Nelson Mandela on one wall and a painting of African villagers on another. He sips rooibos tea, an African drink that keeps him connected to a land where he learned so much.
But a series of family tragedies and a call from Quinn with an invitation to become the World Food Prize's director of national program development and outreach changed his plan. Kautzky left South Africa because he thinks he can do more good in his current position. He says a booming global population, climate change, lost genetic biodiversity and a move away from rainforest deforestation are all factors that put the world's food supply at risk, making improvements in agricultural science imperative.
"Unless in the next 40 years we inspire tens of thousands of our best and brightest to go into these fields, there's no way we're going to be able to feed the world," he says. "Ag isn't sexy, so we don't know how critical it is."
Here, Kautzky works to expand the foundation's global internship program so high school students can have a chance to practice research with scientists all over the world. He's establishing relationships with land grant universities across the United States so graduates have incentives to become entomologists or economists. In his spare time, he conducts research and writes papers on migrations effects on children's health.
"(My career) was Norm basically saying 'You need to rethink your life and use it to end suffering,'" Kautzky said. "I'd do anything to see this dream of Norm's become a reality."
Through learning comes leadership
Frank Swoboda's expense report for February could include vaccinations against meningitis, typhoid and yellow fever. (He'll take the one with the nausea side effect over the one that gives you psychosis, please.)
Swoboda's title, director of planning, is vague, but only because his duties could easily be split into multiple positions. A blessing and a curse of working on a small staff is that each person is like his or her own autonomous department. When there's no one else to assign figuring out a way to rush the purchase of a first-class flight from Ethiopia, it leaves lots of room for on-the-job learning and experience.
While most of Des Moines' working population is sitting at their desks, Swoboda is making last-minute preparations to fly to a United Nations Millennium Village in Uganda and visit with Kenyan farmers.
Officially, Swoboda's job is to plan the annual Borlaug Symposium, which draws about 700 researchers and dignitaries from no less than 65 countries to hear lectures on food security and honor the year's World Food Prize laureate.
"I didn't really plan in college for a career, which served me well," said Swoboda, between casual glances at pamphlets on the possible diseases he could get while on his trip.
The East High grad majored in Russian at the University of Iowa, then went to work in the Peace Corps in the middle of the Uzbekistan desert before an uprising in the country forced him to leave in 2005.
"Frank I hired to answer the phone and he so impressed me, now he's got the lead on leading the symposium," Quinn said. Once, a top research scientist came to Quinn and told him, "I've been dealing with Frank Swoboda so long, I came thinking I'd meet a 55-year-old man."
The staff has high praise for their boss, too.
"Working for Ambassador Quinn is like getting a master's degree," Maura Walsh, the newest addition to the World Food Prize staff, said. She started as "special assistant to the president" in October. She spent time in Senegal, France, England and most recently on an organic farm in Kentucky before her previous volunteer experience with the foundation led her to this job, during what was supposed to be a temporary layover in her hometown before pursuing career opportunities in Portland, Oregon.
"I'm enjoying approaching Des Moines as not the city I grew up in," Walsh said. "In a way, it is a new city."
For her, the administrative duties at the World Food Prize are just what she needs to transfer her do-gooder zeal into concrete skills picked up while helping the staff with projects.
Iowa's role in feeding the world
Connecting with high-level officials is another aspect of the job that makes working for the World Food Prize exciting.
Cremer, the director of communications, was given VIP access to the State Department in Washington, D.C. when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made the 2009 WFP laureate announcement.
Before coming to the World Food Prize, he backpacked across Europe (where he met his wife), worked in a welfare office and cleaned toilets in a Danish day care (to be clear, that stint only lasted a few months).
Not exactly a direct path to coordinating the foundation's awards ceremony, a global event which last year involved seamlessly transitioning between Ethiopian performers and remarks from U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, as well as producing the video that highlights the lifetime achievements of the prize winner and designing all of the brochures, programs and pamphlets for the foundation.
"Each year, the laureate has an incredible story with a personality to match," Cremer said. "I get such satisfaction from getting to meet so many amazing people. "
This group of globally experienced Iowans, each one or two generations off the farm, cultivate their pride in Iowa's influence on the fields of Cambodia or Kenya.
"It's actually ending hunger - it's not just about sows and silos," Kautzky said. "It's feeding the world. If that's not cool, then I don't know what is. This is my dream job, I just got it 20 years sooner than expected."
