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Welcome back to another edition of the Friday Podcast in our Superintendent series. Today, I am joined by Devin Carroll. She is a PhD student at the University Tennessee and their turf Weed Science program, and Devin came on to talk about a paper that she wrote recently during her studies. It is Women in Turf, a qualitative study examining how women have sustained their leadership role in the turf grass industry.
So I thought this would be a very interesting topic given turf's you know what, Turf's biggest challenges is labor and a shortage and label or labor and talking about women in turf. So Devin was a great guest. Thank you so much for her coming on, and I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. All right, Devin, thanks for coming on. I love to hear a little bit about yourself and what you're doing these days and how you got into turf.
Sure. So, I'm originally from Pennsylvania. I played golf on my high school golf team, and my cousin's a golf course superintendent. So when it came time for me to pick what to do for college, I thought, Hey, I love the golf course. Being a superintendent sounds great. So
I went to Penn State. I got an undergraduate degree Bachelor of Science and turf grass science, stayed down at penn State in a research capacity, got a master's degree in turf and then now I'm at the University of Tennessee working on a PhD in turf grass weed science. And while I was there, actually got a second master's
degree in Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications. And that was a really cool degree because I focused my research on women in turf grass, which is my two favorite things put together.
That's that's great. I mean, you're just stacking degrees left and right. What So your cousin was a superintendent? Was it in the Pennsylvania area? And and did you you know what attracted you about what they did?
Yeah? So he's a golf course superintendent for the scrant And Canoe Club right outside of scrant in Pennsylvania. And he just loved being outside. And I know one of the things for him that was always important was at the end of the day when he left the course, you know, he could see what he did, he could see the improvements that his crew made, he could see the golfers out there enjoying the work that they did,
and he found that really rewarding. And I also kind of like that hands on type of work and knowing that I'm doing something to help other people enjoy their lives as well.
It's something I always think about with with the turf industry is you know, I worked for startups before I started this, and you know, one of the things with entrepreneurship and working in like a small company, small growing company is like the benefits of it. You just feel such satisfaction every day because, like you when you're at a certain stage, like everything you do matters so much
for the for the company's success. And I think that's so similar with with turf because like you see, just incremental improvement and and different things that you do leads to you know, success to other places, and it's really a rewarding feeling at the end of the day.
Yeah, I agree, and I think a lot of people in the industry share that same sentiment and that's a lot of times what gets people into it.
So what where have you worked in the in the turf industry? I think you you've worked at Scranton country Club I saw, and what what other hands on experience have you had?
Yeah, so I did my official internship at the Country Club of Scranton I also did an unofficial internship with the Scranton and Wolfsparre Reial Riders. They're the Tripa, a baseball team for the New York Yankees. And then I've been very privileged to have worked four Masters tournaments, so I have set food on hallowed grounds. There.
You got any any story? What's your favorite story from the Masters?
Oh?
Gosh, if you that you could tell, you know, I know there's who knows, you know a lot of stuff under lock key, But is there one when you think back to your time? Is there one that stands out?
Uh? Definitely the year that Tiger won. I mean the energy on the course, you could just feel it. And we all came into work early that morning, rare in to go because we all just knew it was gonna be an amazing day. And that's just a moment I'll never forget.
Yeah, that that's so cool. How like, what are the hours like for doing the turf there? I imagine it's it's kind of wild, a wild week where you're you're doing stuff at night and in the morning. Like, how does that?
Yeah, it's it's a really long week. We get in early and stay really late, but you know it takes a lot to have the grounds look the way that they do.
Yeah, that place, above anything else, like the presentation is at a whole different level. I you know, Country Club of Scranton is one of the places I probably most want to see this year. I still kick myself. One of my buddies got buried in Wilkes Barre and we were there and I just, you know, I was with my wife and I just didn't really have that much time.
It was, you know, what, it's your friend's wedding, you kind of have to you know, if it was her friend's wedding, I might have you know, departed, but I couldn't leave her.
Alone, you know, some obligations.
What tell us a little bit about that property and what you what you learned, what was what was cool about that experience?
Yeah, I really loved working there. It's a technically a twenty seven whole course, so they've got eighteen holes that are kind of a link style, and then they've got a nine smaller nine hole course. So that was a really great experience as an intern. The nine hole course is certainly very well kept, but because it's not the forefront of the club, it definitely give me more of an opportunity to get on a spray er, get on some of the equipment, and that was more of a
place for me to test some things out. But the way that they've got it set up there with the link style, I mean, when that fescue starts getting that purple golden hue, it's really an amazing place. It's something to see.
Yeah, the Travis greens are the thing. They got to be, like Travis course unique to mow those greens with how sharp the undulations are.
Some of them are really tough. I think it's number seven if I recall correctly to has a really steep bunker face. And if you've got a walk mower, yeah, you really have to be watching how you're negotiating some of those turns.
So could you give us that you know, in your you know, early early experiences as as a woman in the turf industry, how's it been.
Sure? So it was a little bit overwhelming at first. When I started my undergraduate career, Penn State told me that they hadn't had a woman in the program for a while. But you know, being a female golfer kind of you to do in my own thing. But I didn't really realize what that meant until I showed up and you know, my first day classes, I'm the only girl in the room and everyone's kind of looking at me like did you find the right classroom? And one
of the moments that really sung in for me. Penn State is one of the larger state turf grass conferences. Each year. There's about three hundred attendees. And at one point I'm sitting in the middle of the room and I look around and I kid you not, I'm the only woman in the room, and that's when it kind of just hit me, like, wow, this is different. So overall, I had a positive experience, but you know, there's definitely
some challenges. People always want to know your story, kind of a novelty a lot of times, which could be overwhelming.
In a way, you know, just because of the amount you feel different, whether or not, like you're all there for the same thing, and you feel different just because nobody else is there with you as another woman in the class.
Yeah, And I always say, I mean, it's great to promote women in turf, but sometimes when people kind of point out that a woman, I say, I mean, I'm just a person in turf.
Yeah, right, exactly.
Grass doesn't know if a man or a woman's mowing it. I just like Grass, and I'm taking care of it.
In your work experience, and we'll get to your your paper and you know, and what it kind of uncovered. But in your personal experience, did you see any issues of gender that came up?
So I definitely had some issues with gender, But I think a lot of times it's not what people expect. I don't really see an issue with any sort of physical limitations. And I think a lot of times there's a perception that, you know, people maybe tell women they can't do it. And at least for me, I think it's a real positive. I never had someone tell me I can't do it. But for me, one of the big issues has just been kind of inappropriate conduct by others. Again,
it should be a professional setting. I'm here to work, I'm here to learn that just some external commentary that sometimes makes things really uncomfortable.
Yeah, I can, you know, it's just that's that's the stuff that nobody wants to deal with it in a workplace, right. Did you you know were there other women on staff at you know, whether it be Augusta or at Country Scranton, and if not, what was that like.
Yeah, So my internship with the Scranton Wilkesbury rail Riders, I was the first female ground screw member they had ever had, so that was really unique. My boss was really great. He always kind of pulled me aside and just said like, look, I don't want to undermine your abilities, but are you able to do this? And I appreciated that. You know, he didn't make a big deal out of me being different, but he always made sure you know that I was okay. I was really lucky at Country
Club of Scranton. I think they had three other women on the crew. They weren't in leadership roles. I mean, they didn't have turf grass degrees, but it was really refreshing just to have other women out there, you know, Raken bunkers or whatever with me, and same thing with Augusta. As far as the volunteer crew, it's definitely male dominated, but there are other women, so I've never felt alone at either one of those locations.
How was the you know, one of the things he hit on is just like the communication. I imagine like a lot of managers in the turf industry are used to only mail and like a lot of it's just like learning to communicate, right.
Yeah, absolutely, And he went out of his way even with small stuff. He sent me an email and said, hey, would you like female sized polos? Yes, I very much would. But it meant a lot to me that, you know, he just thought through smaller details to just try to make me more comfortable. And instead of putting me in some men's double XL polo that looked ridiculous, you know, he got the right thing to make me a part of the team and fit in and look like everyone else.
And that that really means a lot to me to this day, how far he went to just make sure I had a good experience.
Listeners of this show think of the turf industry like as just golf, but like you eliminate here, you know, taking care of baseball fields are part of this. What what in total does the turf industry and compass, because your paper and compass is more than just golf. What other industries that people would know are part of the turf industry tree?
Sure so golf is definitely the biggest one. Certainly the highest percentage of people with turf degrees are working in golf. But athletic field, both at the professional level as well as collegiate, high school, municipal. We also have a lot of people who get turf degrees and go on to run landscaping crews. They get into equipment sales, you know, fertilizer sales, pesticide sales. There's also smaller things people don't think of. Some turf grass managers will do, you know,
right of ways on highways. The airport that you fly into has a turf manager out there taking care of things the cemetery, so if you start ligging around, there's a lot of grass and takes a lot of people to take care of it.
Yeah, that's I think your paper has said, like the fifth largest agri agricultural practice in the world, right yeah.
Right behind corn and cotton then some of the big crops. Turf grass is the fifth largest.
Personally, do you know, you know, when you finish your doctorate, where your what your most interesting going into. Are you looking to stay in academia, Are you looking to go get into golf or you know, something else.
So I'm leaning more toward the industry side, probably more in pesticide development. But we're very blessed right now there's a lot of job opportunities in the golf and turf industry, so definitely have a lot of options to weigh out.
Were there times where you understood why women might not stick with the turf profession.
Absolutely, and there I'll just admit there's a couple of times where I was kind of questioning, you know, is this right? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing. There's times that gets really hard and you feel like, hey, it's easier to walk away and do something else. But I've been really fortunate, you know that the whole women in turf, it's a movement now is happening, and there's more women slowly coming into the industry, so we're forming
more of a support group. So I'm really hopeful, you know, for other women, incurrent women, that when they maybe have these moments of doubt, there's you know, more of a support group there to help them through, so that we're not losing people for reasons beyond their control.
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equipment and irrigation solutions that solve real world problems. Follow at Toro Golf on Twitter and reach out to your local Toro distributor today. Now back to Devin Carrol. Yeah, it's it's Your paper is really well timed because I think one of the biggest topics that I hear about in traveling around the country is this labor short right, and turf is a industry that's really facing tough labor issues with with you know, just the cost of living
going up. You know, it's going to increase the cost of maintenance. And then there's a smaller and smaller pool of labor. And here, you know, you lay out like you know, women are very underrepresented in the turf industry, and here is this another large pool of potential workers that are available to the industry. So your paper is called Women in Turf, A qualitative study examining how women have sustained their leadership role in the turf grass industry.
Can you give listeners that haven't read it a kind of a cliff notes version of what the study was and some of the may the key fightings from the study.
Yeah, So, as you mentioned, a lot of superintendents right now are reporting that the biggest issue facing them is labor. So yes, there are other issues, you know, with water supply or the supply chain, et cetera, but labor is really time and again what we're hearing is a big problem. So if you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women make up fifty one percent of the US population, but only about two to four percent of employees working
in turf. So to me, we're having a labor shortage, but we're not tapping into literally half of the population of able bodied workers. So I teamed up with a researcher,
doctor Carrie Stevens at the University of Tennessee. She specializes in women at leadership research, and we reached out to thirteen women working in the turf bress industry as either golf course superintendents, assistant superintendents, field managers, assistant field managers actually from three different countries, and we interviewed them for between thirty to ninety minutes and just tried to get
a feel for what got them into the industry. You know, what challenges have they faced, what do they think are opportunities for women? Just so we could get a really global scope of what the barriers and opportunities for women are. And I think we found some really interesting things that hopefully help with recruitment and retention in the future.
Yeah, talk about some of those challenges. What are the unique challenges that are facing women in the turf industry.
Sure, so the big one was family building, which I do want to note, you know, can also be really difficult for men in the industry. Working on a golf course in particular, requires you know, really long hours and it can be tough, especially in the summer. But women felt, in particular, you know, if you are trying to have children, it could be difficult as far as the labor that's involved, as well as you know, needing time off or maternity
leave and whatnot. So building a family and having kind of intimate relationships was also hard, even with their own family members. They felt like, you know, especially during the peak season in the summer, it was just really hard to have a relationship with anyone, you know, their relationship was with the golf course. So especially for some of the younger women, they felt like it was difficult and they had to make sacrifices in that area.
Yes, something I hadn't really thought of when until I read your paper about this is like, you know, in a way, the golf course is almost like a human being in in the fact that it's living. So you know, yeah, as as a superintendent, you are when you go to the golf course, you're almost like taking care of a kid.
Yeah, I mean it has to be watered and fed, just like a baby. So a lot of times it's hard for them to walk away.
And I think, like this is something that as I'm a new dad, this is something that I've struggled with, like work and and parenthood, especially when you're when you're starting out, is not an easy balance, you know, like you know, because and then you also get the feel of like you want to get out and you want
to get back to the to the baby. You know, it's just a you know, I think it's a it's a struggle across the board, you know, I don't know if if any anyone had any ideas for how that could be improved.
Not too specifically, I mean, I think it goes with the whole movement kind of across the country right now of people wanting, you know, a built in maternity leave, which up until now golf's had so few women. I think a lot of clubs have never even considered that being something in a contract where, you know, if you want to recruit women to work on your golf course, that's something you know, you might need to think about.
Yeah, I mean, you think about like all the things like that. If you're you know, you might try and plan, if you're in a northern climate, you might try and plan, you know, having a baby in the winter. But that's not how that works, like right, And that's.
Also not fair. Yeah, use the word fair.
But yeah, exactly, Like it's just so much stress, you know, with that, And I can imagine how if you missed some of the most important part of the season, you know, just personally, you would feel like you're letting the team down in a way.
Yeah. And a lot of them said to the women that I interviewed that they did have kind of some self imposed reservations for that reason. You know, there were a couple of women who said they knew that their crews would understand, but they still felt like, you know, if they've spent time writing around on a golf cart telling people what to do and not joining the crew, you know that that just wasn't okay with them.
Yeah, this is an interesting thing that I'd never even thought of with the pesticide stuff, you know, And that's the big thing is like, you know, one of the things you when I've learned a lot of being around cruise is like everybody is out there doing work, and that's where you get the most infectious team spirit is when everybody's doing it and you can whether or not everybody else feels like that personally, you can feel that way.
Yeah, so that's on them, And they said, you know, it's definitely a balance of kind of coming to the terms with the situation themselves. But I do think there are some steps clubs might be able to take. You know, if you have an assistant superintendent just trying to rotate schedules to give everyone some time away from the course, you know, even if they're not having children, but to just allow everyone to have a better family relationship, whatever that family unit looks like for that person.
Yeah, what We're some other challenges that were presented.
The two other big ones were overcoming stereotypes, which we kind of touched on a little bit already, and then the biggest one overall was misconduct from peers and you know, golfers and whatnot.
Yeah, And in terms of misconduct, that's just where you know, work and personal life mix, which you know, is ever really a great idea in the workplace.
Yeah, it's really hard. It was. It was hard for me to listen to because I've had some of these experiences myself, but a lot of these women, you know, took it really serious. They worked really hard to get to where they are and then to have people, you know, discount you by making some remark that they absolutely would never say to their mother have said to a male in the same position is hard for them to hear.
Are there. Did you uncover any similarities and personalities of women who work in the turf industry. Was there anything that you picked up on in terms of, you know, the women that have succeeded and gotten to leadership positions.
Yeah, it was actually interesting. So, like I mentioned, we interviewed thirteen women. They came from three different countries, all sorts of different backgrounds, and they had strikingly similar responses for a lot of the questions I asked. First off, almost none of them started in the turf industry straight out of high school like I did. They almost all started in other careers and kind of found their path
to turf later. So I think that was a key finding for US as far as recruitment, but as far as personality traits, they all had a similar leadership style where they were really into open, honest communication type relationships. They said they really made a point to talk to their crew to get to know everyone individually, which is something that it's been reported, you know, the male side of the industry is maybe not so in touch with.
You know, in terms of the challenges. You know, what would be your thoughts on the ways that the turf industry could begin to lessen these challenges.
Oh, that one's pretty hard because it takes you know, it's the bullet, the magic bullet right to me, The biggest thing is just being accepting and being professional. Not that it was ever okay, but even when I started the industry, there's very few women, and like I said, people kind of looked at me like I was a novelty and they always asked, well, why are you here? Do you work in sales or are you one of the secretaries, And there's nothing wrong with that, but it's like, no,
I'm at this conference because I'm in turf. So I think, you know, for golfers, people in the turf industry, if you see a woman working out on the course, assume she might be the superintendent and treat her with the same level of professionalism that you would treat anyone at their job. So I really think that's the biggest step, is just recognizing women are becoming more plentiful in these roles and we need to just treat them as you know, normal people working in turf.
Yeah, you hit on the growth in recent years, do you do you know, is there any statistics on in terms of the growth of women interf and where it's come from, say twenty or whatever however far back.
Unfortunately, we don't really have those statistics since my study was kind of the first look at this. But I can just tell you, you know, from my little network of women when I started to now it's growing. I mean it's still small. We're only making up two to four percent of the industry, but I really feel like that's a lot from where we came from even ten years ago. So it'll be interesting to track, you know,
over the next five, ten, twenty years. I think it'll be slow going, but any growth is positive movement.
I imagine that, like social media is probably a big help to this, where you know, social media and just the connectedness of the of the world now is probably helping, you know, potentially drive this forward.
Absolutely. I mean that's how most of us women are kind of finding each other and building that support network. But also I mean you saw my paper on Twitter and now we're talking on this podcast. I think all of these sorts of oppportunities coming together is what's going to make the difference.
Yeah, I mean, like you see the profession in general like moving forward so much because of the spread of information, the sharing of ideas on Twitter, Like you see superintendents in different turf professionals like, oh I have this problem.
You know, has anybody encountered this? And you see thirty replies of people and it's a really cool thing for the turf industry, and it's funny because I think I stumbled across your paper by somebody liking it that I followed and is I was like immediately like, oh, I got to read this.
You know. Yeah, turf Twitter is a crazy world, but I give the industry a lot of credit that we all usually are willing to help each other. Like you said, people post pictures, ask for help. We're all really connected, and the turf faculty at all the different universities are really good about, you know, sharing research updates, trying to make sure everyone has the best information.
Yeah. Are there ways in which you think the turf industry suffers because there are so few women in it?
Yeah, I think they definitely suffer from a labor perspective. But I think in general, what our country is really learning is that diversity of thought can be, you know, a good thing. A few women touched on the fact that their leadership style is they don't really care how things get done as long as the end result is what they asked for, And to me, that's very telling, right, they don't care which way you mow or whatever, as long as the end result is there. And that's a
unique leadership style. But I think women can bring some of these innovative ideas to the golf course. I think women are also set up really well to be golf course superintendents. Like I mentioned earlier, they've got a really communicative leadership style. And also, I mean this is a fact, I think women tend to pay a lot more attention to detail than men. So when it comes to a course,
you know, I would agree. You know a lot of times there's things on golf course maintenance that are very detail oriented, and I think women could be really good at picking up on some of that and just you know, kind of creating a different dynamic and how things might be done.
I think you hit on such an important topics, Like you know, when you have people thinking about things from different perspectives, and you know, it yields a better workplace and you're going to find more solutions when you have more diverse ideas, and you know, diversity could come from a lot of different ways. And I think, like when I think about this a lot, is that potentially removing some of these challenges that women face could also increase
the potential workforce available to turf outside of women. It's just you know, different people have different backgrounds.
Right, Yeah, I think you know, any of the progress you make quote unquote for women is advancing the industry as a whole, because if you make it more inclusive for women, you're making it more inclusive, you know, for other groups who might want to work in turf. I know a golf course superintendent, mister Brent down sees the superintendent otter Crete Country Club. He's really made an effort
to recruit high school students and it's funny. It's simple things like when they are irrigating with a hose, he lets the more flip flops. He lets them wear air pods while they're mowing greens. And I know that sounds silly, but be it male or female, if you want to attract high school students to work on your golf course, those are things that matter to them. So just redefining, you know, the things we're focusing on and how we're attracting people. It's time for change. Yeah.
I was with a super headed this week who say that, you know the problem with high school students is they don't want to work weekends and it's like, well, maybe you could plug in some teachers or some golf nuts that are looking for Monday playing privileges. There.
Yeah, but that's the thing, you know, talk up the perks, and I think people are learning trying to let people have a more flexible schedule, Like, yes, the golf course needs to be mote on weekends, but you know, maybe it's high schoolers come in every other weekend or whatever. So there's things we could do to just garner more people from whatever background.
In your research, have you come across any other industries where you know, female involvement was low that it is soared in and has become you know, a much bigger part of that. Potentially turf could look at and mimic, you know, and maybe look at some of the strategies that we're used to, you know, promote women into the workforce.
Sure, so right now we're kind of using agriculture as a whole as the model. Certainly agricultural disciplines are male dominated, but it's much more balanced than turf. The only disciplines I know of that are quite this low are you know, welding, plumbing, and electric construction. So it's hard to make those sorts of comparisons, but I think agriculture has made some big, big steps lately to get more women involved to help
deal with some of the labor issues they're facing. So I cited a lot of similar works in my paper, but there are studies on women in ag and other sectors that I think we can kind of model and tie into to help with the turf issue.
Do you know of any of the things that they've done to help with that labor shortage? With with you know, getting women involved.
One of the biggest things is mentorship. They've made really focused efforts to create mentor programs, you know, match women with women in the industry, just so if they feel like they have someone there to kind of walk them through. So that's something we are doing in turf that one of the ladies from the Canadian Golf Course Superintendent Association
has started the Women in Turf grass Mentorship program. So I think if we can start expanding that program, you know, bigger across the US, and not even just for women but also for men, that that could help with the recruitment.
So, you know, in terms of you know, goals and different things, I'm not sure, you know, but where would you like to see you know, turf get to in the next five to ten years.
Sure, I mean, it's hard to put a number on it. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that we're going to be fifty to fifty. Yeah, but I mean for me, like we're at four percent, I would love to see that growth doubled in five to ten years. To me, that would be a success. And we're gaining more by the day, so I think it's achievable.
How could people help, you know, whether they're in the turf industry, uh, whether they are at a club or a course, what what are types of things that that they can do to to promote this uh, this movement?
Yeah, so we're really asking people to just support women. So I mean in the industry, that could be anything from saying hi at a conference to you know, nominating a qualified woman to win an award. I think out on the golf course kind of like we talked about earlier,
just recognizing that you know, women belong there. If you see a female working on the crew and you suspect she's a superintendent, go up and say the greens are rolling nice, or you know, just give them that support and that validation that you recognize, you know that they're doing their job and they're doing it well, that's.
Uh, that's great. Well, We hope you get back into golf, you know, so we can have more toughs in the future. But everybody should go check out your paper. How can people get in touch with you if they want to lend, you know, help with in any way or potentially you know, contact you about different you know something I don't know what somebody context.
Yeah, so the paper is open access, so you can access it for free if they just google the title you mentioned earlier. And as far as contacting me, probably the easiest way. I am on Twitter. My handle is turf Girl twenty four, so look me up, shoot me a DM or whatever and I'd be happy to connect and chat more about this.
Yeah, that's how I got in touch, So you know, it's easy, and thank you so much, and I hope everybody goes and reads your paper. It was really a great read.
Yeah, thanks for letting me share.
Yeah, we'll link to it in the podcast notes, so if you are looking for it, you can find it there.