I don’t consciously think about my first job when I meet with leaders in the electronics industry to talk about trade policy. But my young days in an Illinois cornfield will always shape how I view, and do, work.

My hometown in western Illinois had maybe 10,000 people if Western Illinois University was in session. I grew up with a single mom and things were tight. If I wanted a little spending money as a kid, I had to earn it; a deep and early seeded lesson in the value of work.

Detasseling corn for $1.50 an hour over the summer was my first job at the ripe age of 11. My friends and I, sack lunch and water jug in hand, would hop on the school bus that waited for us near the town square at 5:30 every morning. The workday ahead was not easy, but it was a common Midwest ritual.

For 10 to 12 hours, we walked down the corn rows towering over our heads in the dead of summer heat, pulling off the feathery tassel part at the very top of each plant. (Farmers do this to prevent the plants from self-pollinating and encourage cross-pollination.) Despite the heat, you wore long sleeves because the rows were lined with dew-covered leaves sharp enough to slice right through exposed skin.

Like the objectives we try to accomplish for industry, a cornfield seems impossibly large when you’re looking down that long row. The idea of detasseling even one acre of corn just doesn’t compute in a helpful way.

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