Heidi (Wentzel) St. Clair '85: Pivoting to Artificial Intelligence

Place of Influence: Minnesota and agricultural companies worldwide

Role: Director of Supply Chain Analytics, Automation, and Innovation, CHS

Products: Agricultural commodities, crop nutrients, energy solutions, and more.

Application: Using AI and analytics to streamline operations, support farmers’ decision-making, and drive innovation across the global supply chain 

Pivoting to Artificial Intelligence

"I've reinvented myself many times," says Heidi (Wentzel) St. Clair, currently the Director of Supply Chain Analytics, Automation, and Innovation for CHS, a leading global agribusiness and the nation’s largest farmer-owned cooperative.

St. Clair’s early careers include teaching high school math and then accounting. She and her husband left their careers to move to South Africa, where they mentored engineering students from Zulu and Xhosa backgrounds through the Navigators.

After starting a family and returning to Minnesota, St. Clair took a break from her career to be home with their two children.

Then, in 2001, her husband lost his brokerage position in the wake of 9/11-related layoffs.

"It was tough," she admits. The couple realized they would need to pivot. "As we talked through it, we realized how many prayers had been answered. An hour later, we were like, wow, this is God’s miracle."

Switching gears, they decided that Heidi would go back to work earlier than planned. 

 "Trying to figure out where I fit professionally and what fit into my family was hard at first."

 

 "Trying to figure out where I fit professionally and what fit into my family was hard at first."

Initially she found an accounting role at a printing company, but soon she realized that she wanted something different.

"When I applied at Canadian Pacific Railway for a management position I told them: If I can manage 150 high schoolers, 25 adults is a piece of cake." She got the position.

After six years in that role, she moved into a new area of interest: continuous improvement. She helped teams solve problems, reduce waste, and improve their processes by leading workshops and coaching staff. In this role, she traveled domestically and across Canada. She loved it.

"But then new leadership required that I travel 100% to Toronto, staying for a week at a time. That was just not working."

She stepped back and took a role at United Healthcare, keeping an eye out until a better fit opened at CHS.

In November of 2022, the same month that ChatGPT launched and artificial intelligence hit the mainstream, St. Clair saw again the need to pivot. 

Now more than 30 years past her college graduation, she took two courses in artificial intelligence and immediately looked for ways to put what she was learning to use at CHS. 

Now more than 30 years past her college graduation, she took two courses in artificial intelligence and immediately looked for ways to put what she was learning to use at CHS. 

This decision secured St. Clair's position as an innovator in her company. What follows are seven takeaways from her journey.

1. Pivot, Don't Freeze

Those who learn to use AI are more likely to successfully secure future jobs

The agility and ability to pivot when the game changes is the most important skill to develop. Companies restructure, oversupply happens, industries change, and personal goals change. Rather than dwelling on limitations or loss, focus on where you could go next.

My own first turning point came after three years of teaching. The field was saturated, and job opportunities were limited. 

Rather than staying stuck, I began exploring adjacent paths—and accounting surfaced as a strong option. It turns out, it was a great fit: one big algebra problem where success came from keeping debits and credits in balance.

That pivot wasn’t just a career move—it laid a foundation. Years later, those early teaching skills came full circle. Today, I teach business leaders how to apply artificial intelligence to their daily work. The subject has changed, but the core skill—translating complex ideas in a way people can act on—has remained the same.

 

2. Recognize The Role of AI

This isn't just for Gen Z employees

Artificial intelligence is now an organizational competency. 

What does that mean? In the same way that email, spreadsheets, and using Google are considered basic career skills, we are now adding AI to the list. 

Excel-savvy accountants brought greater efficiency and accuracy to their work after dropping the paper strip, 10-key calculator. 

Likewise, trades workers like plumbers and mechanics now rely heavily on online scheduling apps, email, and digital blueprints. 

Artificial intelligence is the next ubiquitous tool. How it applies to your role may look different to mine, but it will apply.

3. Lean Into Your Fear

Take one step forward and see where it takes you

At age 55, I took two online courses that helped me think about opportunities in AI. When ChatGPT came out, I got an app and started playing with it. Instead of hoping things will all work out, find a way to experiment and just start somewhere. 

4. Streamline Tedious Tasks

Because we have better things to do

Some work is mind-numbing and requires no creativity. These are perfect places to apply AI. Up until recently, a team at CHS would manually compare documents, a tedious task. Now they use a version of ChatGPT to do this comparison automatically. It's streamlined and standardized, significantly saving time and freeing staff up for other meaningful work.

5. Transfer Current Skills to New Roles

You might find that skills you already have give you a new outlet with AI

What skills do you have now that might transfer to different ways of thinking about your work? Might they transfer to other roles or even new fields? 

My twin loves of math and music are all about systems and patterns, which naturally led into my work with supply chain analytics. 

Then came AI. 

A huge question we ask at CHS is "How do we remove the guesswork for the farmer?" They have an annual risk cycle ranging from things like rain and soil temperature to commodity price fluctuations and labor shortages. This where I can combine systems thinking and an awareness of patterns with the power of artificial intelligence to help make strategic decisions about our supply chain.

6. Embrace Curiosity, Partner Across Generations

My most important tip

I built my team by pairing interns with seasoned experts—a dynamic that fuels innovation and speed. Each brings unique strengths, and mutual respect grows as they learn together. 

It takes humility for experienced professionals to seek input from younger colleagues, but that exchange is powerful. I remind new hires: “I’m asking you because I don’t know.” 

It takes humility for experienced professionals to seek input from younger colleagues, but that exchange is powerful. I remind new hires: 'I’m asking you because I don’t know.'

My advice to young professionals—follow your curiosity, partner with those who’ve seen more, and co-create solutions. Value their experience, and don’t hesitate to share fresh ideas.

7. Balance Prudence and Innovation

Think big, start small

It's healthy to have guard rails, and it's easier to let them out than to bring them in. The key is to think big and start small. Then you have to keep building on it. 

At CHS, we started by experimenting with a small drone. We used it to take pictures to count cattle using AI. That helped guide us in what we’d need for data storage, processes, and governance to scale the operation and use in other computer vision applications.

 

Remember: There are Things AI Can't Do.

Humans aren't obsolete, and it's important to recognize our role.

Lived Insight. AI is only working with the data set you give it or that has been uploaded to the larger system. It doesn't have the benefit of generational experience and thinking outside of the information it's been given. I think of some of the fifth-generation farmers we work with who have grown up on the land and have this depth of knowledge that has become almost instinctual: that is where the experience comes in. Maybe the data says something should work, but a farmer with generational knowledge sees potential pitfalls the AI might miss.

Imagination. AI just accelerates everything we've already figured out. When I'm looking for people who will become AI champions in our company, I'm looking for people with imagination. These are people who lean into the art of the possible; they don't just type data in to get something automated. They ask, what could this be? Then they use AI to accelerate that thing their creativity imagined.

Discernment. Currently, AI can struggle with transferring experience. Even as it grows in its ability with cross application, human discernment will be needed to look critically at the choices AI makes and ask, does this really transfer? 

 

MA Takeaway: Critical Thinking

Entering college and the workforce, I began to really appreciate my MA education. I was taught scientific reasoning, not just in my science classes, but in American history, English and other classes. I learned how to develop a hypothesis and to prove or disprove it. That's been a big part of my technology application: asking what will make something work, how could the technology improve things, and what is the ROI.