Lindsay Davis-4-H, Chamber President, Hampton Lumber- Can Do

Lindsay grew up in southern Oregon as a mill worker's kid.

Her two brothers instilled in her a measure of grit!

She has an I-can-do-anything spirit.

She 

• spent 11 years working at the Oregon Extension Office helping with 4-H 
•  president of the Astoria Chamber of Commerse
• Community Relations for Hampton Lumber

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Find me on my website: jan-johnson.com

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Jan Johnson, Lindsay Davis

Jan Johnson  01:34

Welcome to Women of the Northwest. This is episode 26. Today I get to interview Lindsey Davis. Welcome.

LIndsay  01:42

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

LIndsay  01:43

Nice to have you here. Lindsay's got all kinds of fun stories she's gonna tell us today.  

Jan Johnson  02:34

 So, Lindsey, where'd you grow up?

LIndsay  02:40

I actually grew up in Southern Oregon, on the rural outskirts in between, like Grants Pass and Murphy, rural Josephine County. I grew up in the same little house that my my mom and her family grew up in. And it was on a little road called Rosewood Street, and is actually sandwiched in between the Church of the Nazarene and the Pine Cone Tavern. That's kind of my, you know, foundation was right there. You know, so yeah, it was it was a lot of great times where Sundays were even best because you know, that the between the church and the tavern and Sunday mornings, were just always entertaining.

Jan Johnson  03:27

All right, Who's in your family?

LIndsay  03:30

So my my parents that I've been married, like 46 or 47 years now, I believe. 

Jan Johnson  03:37

Wow. 

LIndsay  03:37

Yeah. Inspiration. Absolutely. Then I have my my older brother, Jeremy. And I have a younger brother, Jared. And I have two wonderful boys of my own. I have Mason, who's 13. And my oldest Tylor is 24. And getting married this August. 

Jan Johnson  03:57

Oh, that's very exciting. Yay. Oh, that's cool. What did your parents do? What did they work in? Or what did they do?

LIndsay  04:06

Yeah. So in Southern Oregon, my, my mom was always home with us kids and dinner was on the table at 3:30 in the afternoon, because my dad had to get ready and head off to the lumber mill, where he worked,

Jan Johnson  04:20

oh, so

LIndsay  04:23

we get off the bus at 3:30 and have dinner and dad would be off and on his way to the mill. So I grew up what we call ourselves the millworkers kids. Yeah. And that's a really great time stand there. We also were a big time golf family, which was

Jan Johnson  04:39

 oh, 

LIndsay  04:40

we kind of unique. And since that dad was the golf coach at the high school and myself and both my brothers lived it, breathed it. We worked at the golf course we competed around all around the Pacific Northwest. Oh really? So interlace a lot of golf.

Jan Johnson  04:57

Okay. All right. So you have a little bit of a competitive spirit mainly with your family then or

LIndsay  05:04

it's funny because we always said that we are we were more competitive with ourselves and with other people, because that's why we enjoyed golf so much not such a singular sport. Yeah. And you're always competing with yourself. And actually, our high school at the time didn't even have a golf team. So my dad said, well, coach and older brothers started the boys team. I started the girls team. And then my boys started or when you were a little, young, yeah, we, we enjoyed, we got bitten by the bug when we were in junior golf when we were little. And then, as we grew up into high school, we were, you know, the school didn't have a team. So we were really competitive and wanted to compete. And so my dad, fortunately, I mean, I think about it gave up quite a bit, because he worked nights at the mills. So then you'd have to get ready a lot earlier to go out to the course to be the coach to then get off the course and get to work on time and then work overnight.

Jan Johnson  06:07

So I'm going to say that probably some of his seeing something that he thought needed to be done and stepping out of doing it rubbed off on you

LIndsay  06:17

just a little bit. A little bit. I think it was just all we knew if if the opportunity wasn't there, then how do you create it is 

Jan Johnson  06:25

You just make it happen. 

LIndsay  06:26

My mom used to always say, you know, when we are always looking for, you know, when your kids are looking for ways to make money, what kind of chores can I do? And or what can I do? And she'd always say, Go Go look in the backyard, you'll always find something out in the backyard. Well, that just evolved in all kinds of fun ideas. I can remember my brothers and I loading manure into buckets and trucks and selling it throughout the day for furniture. Fertilizer lizer. Yeah. So we're like, yeah, you're right. It was all in the backyard. And I my older brother, he decided to grow worms for the local fishermen. So he had a little worm farm. Yeah. Which he'll probably kill me for saying that. But it was always just those little things where you live it out in the rural areas, there wasn't like you can go get a job down the local market. Yeah. So mom would always send us out to the backyard and say they'll go find something. Be creative, figure it out. And we'll help you guys get it up and running. And so that's awesome.

Jan Johnson  07:32

That is awesome. What about your mom? What kind of things that she did she do?

LIndsay  07:35

So she was a homemaker. She, she that sounds to matronly,

Jan Johnson  07:40

but there's a lot to be said for being a homemaker.

LIndsay  07:45

Yeah. So no, she always fortunately, we got to have her home most all of our childhood there were times, especially in the 90s when the spotted owl issue came to southern Oregon and ended up closing our mills. And we found ourselves needing two incomes, or two person incomes at that point and, and even at a time when my mom when my dad was working at the mills, my mom would always supplement now and then by she'd worked at Kmart during seasonal time, or pick up little jobs here and there bookkeeping, like that. And so she was always just kind of she filled in where needed. But was that was what was always great. She didn't have to work. So she only worked when she wanted to. Or, you know, we weren't maybe wanting to do a vacation. So she would work a couple of seasonal jobs just to or she used to breed and sell dauchsunds. Oh, so that would be our vacation money. Yeah,

Jan Johnson  08:44

yeah. Because not always in our lives. Do we get that choice to just work when we want chance? Yeah, that ever happened?

LIndsay  08:54

Exactly. Yeah, so then graduated high school and met and fell in love with who I thought was the man of my dreams.

Jan Johnson  09:08

Yeah. You did. They brought me flowers, and I thought that had to be loved.

LIndsay  09:15

found out we were expecting and I was 18 at the time. And which it was it was kinda you know, I had big hopes and dreams of you know, one day making it to the PGA but you know, you do what you got with what you got and move Oh, super excited that I was going to be having a little baby and, you know, starting this new life and, and, you know, things obviously is twists and turns along the way. And I think I was about seven months pregnant when I found myself I was suddenly single, and which was unfortunate, but I And I thought, Okay, well, you know, rents due rents coming due. And I, you know, I had a wonderful supportive family I was hell bent on making it on my own. Yeah. And so I went out looking for a job I needed to, I needed to get to work. And so I found out really quick, that being young and being that big and pregnant, that it was really hard to get anybody to hire me. There. It wasn't until someone looked at me in an interview and just flat out said, you know, we're looking for someone long term and looks like you're not going to be long term,

Jan Johnson  10:34

long term, which now you probably were not be able to say, as an employer, right? 

LIndsay  10:39

Yeah, this was the 90s. So it was Yeah, they just said, You're not for us. And this is the reason yeah. And so So what do you do? After a couple of interviews, and realizing I was having a hard time competing with other people looking for jobs. I just thought, you know, I've got to change my tactic here. And I need to change it. And I also kind of need to pull a spin on it. So yeah, first thing I did was I stopped applying for jobs that were in the Help Wanted section, okay, because I thought I gotta I gotta eliminate my competition. So actually, I drove around to all the different businesses around town, and looked at their parking lots. And if they had nice fancy cars, then they had money to hire me or money to pay me or pay me well, because if they're paying their employees while they're driving those fancy cars, that's kind of money I, I knew I was going to need to make to raise a baby on my own. Okay. So I would then go, I would kind of go home, I look at the parking lot great cars go home research, what they did, how they were doing, it looked at their marketing, their advertising kind of tried to figure out like maybe where they were trying to that point.

Jan Johnson  10:52

 How did you look at their advertising when ithere wasn't internet.?

LIndsay  11:59

No, there wasn't - just like the newspapers and any signage they had around town or even the radio advertisement, ah, and I kind of listened and try to figure out who they were trying to target. And why? Because I probably where they were lacking.

Jan Johnson  12:14

So how did you how did you think to do all of that kind of stuff? That's not a normal thing? For a teenager to do.

LIndsay  12:21

Yeah. Well, when you're raised with two brothers, you learn how to hustle. And you learn how to use a thing or two about grit. And, you know, always, you know, I'm just never stronger than my brothers, but I certainly needed to be smarter than them. So work smarter, not harder.

Jan Johnson  12:37

They might not like it. Yeah. They, you know, sometimes truths hurts.

LIndsay  12:42

Okay, there. They were all good on it now. Yeah, I just had to, I think it was a little bit of survival mode, too. You know, it's kind of like, realizing that, unfortunately, some people saw the growing belly as like a barrier and not was was not going to fit in with what they were looking for. You know, just hearing those words. You're not exactly what we're looking for. Yeah, it was disheartening. 

Jan Johnson  13:12

It was like, discriminatory. 

LIndsay  13:13

Absolutely. But we didn't use those fancy words back then. Right. It was back in the day. You I mean, you really you didn't, if you're competing for a job and you were unmarried. You didn't tell people you were married. Right? If you had children, you know, unfortunately, didn't celebrate that in an interview. You you kind of kept that quiet because you wanted to get just to the first day of work. And then you're like, Okay, now you can't.

Jan Johnson  13:40

Yeah, I was in the 70s when I was pregnant and single. Right? Yeah, yeah, definitely didn't tell people. You're right

LIndsay  13:48

 Yeah. 

Jan Johnson  13:48

So. So you got a job? 

LIndsay  13:51

Okay, yeah, I made sure I'm going to outsmart them. And so I went down to JC Penney's, and I bought an oversized sweater that looked professional, but that, you know, you look in the mirror and you're like, she's that she's just must be a little overweight. You know, it's I got one of those. And then I went over and they had these beautiful little $10 cubic zirconia rings, like a wedding ring. So I would throw that on my ring finger. And yeah, I went in and, and went into this one company, and they were not advertising for any help wanted. But I went in there and said, Look, I I've been studying a little bit about your company and what you're, you know, who you're trying to reach. And yeah, I've been listening to your advertising and here's where I think I could contribute and make this successful and that kind of, you know, hey, if you brought me on, and you know, basically try me out for 30 days or 60 days. Yeah, and then we can see what you think. Yeah, keep me on. 

Jan Johnson  14:53

Yeah.  and they fell for it. 

LIndsay  14:55

They fell for it. I had no idea I was pregnant. 

Jan Johnson  14:57

They loved your baby afterward. 

LIndsay  14:59

Yes. So, first day at work, I show up in an actual maternity shirt. They're like, Oh, and this was, you know, the 90's. So you didn't you never got sick or vacation time or family leave, there was none of that you had to be with a company at least a year before you have this kind of benefits. And so, immediately when they saw me, they started thinking and like, Oh, this isn't gonna last very long. This can be very short term relationship. And I was like, no, no, I got it all figured out. I did not have it figured out. All I knew in my brain was that it was going to be due sometimes. And all that month a baby's gonna be born and I need to figure out how to make rent again. And again, wonderful, supportive family. They were wanting me to move home. I was just, I'm just going to do this. And so yeah, it worked out. Yeah, it worked. And it was a Wednesday got done with work. I went to Lamaze class, and my water broke at Lamaze class. So rushed to the hospital that evening. Had my son Tyler in the wee morning hours Thursday morning, and took the weekend off and went back to work on Monday.

Jan Johnson  16:13

That's my kind of woman.

LIndsay  16:15

 as people would say. You didn't take any maternity leave you didn't you know, like, well, you know, we just didn't sit around. Exactly. strapped her baby on her back. She had to keep going. 

Jan Johnson  16:26

So how did you get up to Astoria?

LIndsay  16:29

 Oh, that's a fun story, too. So yeah, we were multi generational family down in Southern Oregon, much like what it is here. Yeah, the story at Knappa. And there was my older brother who was managing a retail store. And he got his big break out of the valley and moved up to the big boys city of Hillsboro. And they have their son,  my nephew is Taylor. And I have Tyler and the boys are three months apart. Very, very, very close. So when they left, I was just like, wow, I can if they can do it, I can do it. And I thought I really want the boys to grow up closely together. So we I'd make several trips up just to go visits and the boys could spend trips, you know, vacations, summer breaks, Spring Break, Christmas break, and then I thought, you know, I think I might be able to buy a house. And by this time, I had started my own little consulting company. Okay, and so I had the, the ability to kind of take it, 

Jan Johnson  17:35

What were you consulting? 

LIndsay  17:37

Marketing and Advertising

Jan Johnson  17:38

Okay, so marketing kind of always been your gig kind of lit? 

LIndsay  17:41

Yeah, a little bit. In some ways. Yeah. And so found a cute little place up there, just on the outskirts of Hillsborough, and moved on up to the big city myself, thinking that, you know, I've made it, I've made the big city. And then shortly after that, you know, my parents raised cattle, and it was getting harder and harder to find your good hay in Oregon. And if you did find good hay was super expensive. So they were already kind of looking at like, well, what if we went somewhere where it's a little bit more rain? A little a little bit more rain.

Jan Johnson  18:14

 So Eugene, maybe,

LIndsay  18:18

you know, but they so at this time, my older brother and myself were around Hillsboro area. And they started looking really up in Washington and started making their way down, came out of 30 highway 30. Fell in love with  Astoria. And thought, wow, look at all this green grass in the middle of summer. And there's lots of green grass, which you don't see green grass and summer in Southern Oregon. So they found a place and just brought all their cattle up and were firmly planted there, which was great for me and my older brother because they were only about an hour and a half away from us again. Yeah, younger brother was still in southern Oregon

Jan Johnson  18:59

was fine. Yeah,

LIndsay  19:01

yeah. And so then all of a sudden, my older brother who I followed to Hillsboro gets transferred to Seaside oh my goodness, 

Jan Johnson  19:14

Now what am I going to do?. 

LIndsay  19:17

 I didn't want to be alone. And so this a lot of people asking why did you choose here? Did you choose your Why did you choose? I chose Knappa. And you say well, do you live in a story? So no, I chose Knappa. Why did you choose there? It's funny story. Let me tell you. So when parents and older brother got out here on the coast, and I thought well, I'm going to start looking for somewhere that that felt like home to me. On the coast. It had enough of the city life living on a postage stamp. I wanted to come out here as well. Yeah. So I started on the south end of the county and started working my way through just looking all the different communities different areas and I just about given up, you know, like nothing just felt right. Yeah. And I saw I said, Now highway 32, then head back to Hillsboro. So I thought you'd pull over and get some gaps. So at the one blinking light, I pulled over at the gas station, and got out of my car. And this, this nice gentleman came to pump my gas. And I didn't know at the time, but I'm so honored in that it was the unofficial mayor of Knappa Mr. Strawberry himself. And Strawberry comes out, pumping my gas into my car with a lit cigarette in his mouth. And they're, they're hollering at me. I found my people. I found my people. But no, and that in just in that little bit of time, I just watched how everybody interacted. And you heard a lot of like, Hey, how are your parents doing? Or what's Jimmy up to and just, it was like this little community hub. And in the 10-15 minutes that I was there, there was all these interactions of that small town feel that was very similar to where I grew up. And the little gas station by our house. Yeah. And so we'd go down there, and there'd be the same chitter chatter conversations that were happening here. And so I just really fell in love with the community. Yeah. And so yeah, found a place here in Knpapa. And it's been my home now for 15 years. Oh, well, I cheese, your husband and say 15 years do I earn my Knappa wings?

Jan Johnson  21:39

He's been here since 70s.He's still waiting. I don't know. Like a real

LIndsay  21:46

Yeah. And you know, I, I do a lot of my work what I do now and is in town, and a lot of people say why don't we move to town? Yeah. It's like, No, I I really love it out here. And it's not the end of the world. Yeah. As people say when they say you live all the way out Knappa

Jan Johnson  22:02

well know what they say. You live all the way out in Brownsmead? Yeah.

LIndsay  22:07

Right. Yeah, you're even further up into there. But it's a wonderful decompressing drive. And you're coming home at the end of the day.

Jan Johnson  22:15

Yeah. So you're working at Hampton. Now. Tell me about that. Yeah. So

Jan Johnson  22:19

Yeah. It's like, Pick Me Pick Me. 

LIndsay  22:19

fortunately, well, when I when I got up here, I found that there was a job at the extension office. And it was just a part time job, which at that point, when you work at home for so long, you crave any sort of adult interaction. So I'm going for I'm going to go work part time and the extension office, which was super familiar to me, because I grew up in extension. And I grew up in the f4- H program. And so in my kids, kids were involved at that point, I had Tyler and then then I had my son Mason, and very involved in 4-H. So it was like, This is gonna be so much fun. Yeah. And I think I was in that little part time job for two weeks. And then they had a need for a full time office manager. Okay, and I'm like, we moved into the minute, I don't know, if I want to do full time, I just thought I was signing up for part time. But I really loved the people in there. And I loved obviously everything about Extension. So I said, Well, you know, we'll just go for it, which I'm so fortunate we did, because that was right when the '08 crash happened right after the crash. And we were still recovering. So this was October of 2010. When I started with them, and we were still on the tail end of that recession period, just still feeling it. And so it's really great to kind of jump into an office and an organization that was you know, trying to fill the community need wherever they could, right felt like you're a part of something bigger. Right? Right. So I was fortunate I spent 11 years at the Extension, my younger brother worked there as well, in the 4-H part of it and so so in that role, I interfaced a lot with Hampton. Forestry, natural resources. Yeah. And just of the seven program areas other than 4-H my, my heart kind of led into forestry natural resources. Okay. It's kind of the industry that built me in Southern Oregon. So yes, that's familiarity. Yeah, yeah. And so where opportunity came about that they needed a community outreach specialist and stewardship coordinator. 

LIndsay  22:22

Well, I figure not much competition if I'm the only extroverted person and introverted world when it comes to forestry. But no, it was it was it's been such a wonderful fit.

LIndsay  23:31

And I asked what do you like? What do you like about doing that? 

LIndsay  24:42

I love that you didn't get to interface with all kinds of people in that community. Again, you know, when you're passionate about something, such as forestry management. You know, it's really easy to talk about it

Jan Johnson  24:56

Who do you interface with what kind of people are you talking to?

LIndsay  24:59

 Oh, Everybody from from the K 12 systems, kids teachers to community and business leaders to electeds. Commissioners. Anybody who wants to talk forestry, come on. But yeah, just looking for those partnerships and collaborations to where, you know, we're such a huge compliment to the community on the economic driver side. And but we want to be, you know, closer as far as education and quality of life. And, you know, we Hampton is such a great family owned company that it wants to be really ingrained in the communities that that they have a presence in.

Jan Johnson  25:42

And so were you. Were you part of bringing the the dance troupe?

LIndsay  25:48

I was not, I helped with a little bit logistics going, but that was Jen Arnold, who was previously this okay. Okay, because that was Body Box. Yeah, yeah. And run by one of our owners. Jamie Hampton. Yeah. And beautiful. I'm looking forward to bringing them back out. Absolutely.

Jan Johnson  26:07

So do you have other ideas like that that that you would incorporate?

LIndsay  26:10

I do. We are going to be a putting first of all, a 35 foot custom yurt out at the tree farm. Oh, and that is going to give us the opportunity to host lots of different groups. classroom space?

Jan Johnson  26:27

How many? How many people will hold?

LIndsay  26:30

Oh, you know, coming in and out out of it. We will 30-40 people. Okay, so plenty of room for a full classroom to come out. Right. And that was the thing to have nice classroom space, public community, public space, a meeting space. You know, here on the east side of town, we don't have a whole lot of quality meeting space. Yeah. And so that's really exciting to have some quality meeting space on the site where we can host groups feel a bit like of an interpretive center, because then we'll have these networks of trails where Yeah, youth or adults can come out we think and learn about what we do on the tree farm. Look at different not only types of trees, but different age of stands, you know, all kinds of things we can show him on these interpretive trails. We're gonna dock throughout the tree farm there around the yurt.

Jan Johnson  27:20

That sounds really exciting. Yeah. What other visions do you have?

LIndsay  27:24

So we're going to from that, there, we're going to be excited working a lot with youth working with 4-H and FFA. Okay, looking forward to even incorporating some programming around veteran services out there. Also, we're going to do some fun community events. So this September, we're planning on hosting the first annual Hampton Sip n Stroll.

Jan Johnson  27:52

Okay, I love it. So that will be Yeah,

LIndsay  27:56

highlighting all the wonderful craft breweries that we have here. distilleries, wineries, you know, Hampton also owns a vineyard. People don't know that I didn't own a vineyard, we make our own wine. Yeah. And then we'll also be having art available to look at along the interpretive trails that you can bid on. And this will be to benefit the North Coast Watershed Association, who we do a lot of work with up on our tree farm stream restoration projects, and other stewardship property projects that we have going on.

Jan Johnson  28:31

So you put a bid in with AVA to get the artist making things for Yeah, yeah. 

LIndsay  28:37

Well, I'm gonna also contact all of the high schools and ask the high school kids to contribute and actually, the money from that art, go back to the high schools that participate. But the actual ticket sales for the sip and stroll would go into benefit North Coast Watershed.

Jan Johnson  28:53

 So that's really awesome. Oh, that's exciting.

LIndsay  28:55

So we're looking at just really highlighting the tree farm out here. 33,000 acres out? Yeah. Yeah. And then we just bought and now got our land up to almost 30,000 acres across the bridge under the Washington side. So

Jan Johnson  29:10

so if somebody was interested in these things you're doing and they don't know where to look, where are they going to find out this information?

LIndsay  29:17

They're going to call me. We have social media presence, but we you know, we have our website. hamptonlumber.com. Okay. And then of course, my information and make get hold of me at Lindsay Davis at Hampton lumber.com.

Jan Johnson  29:34

 Okay, because I'll put the links. Yeah, show notes. Oh, that'd be great. And so, so now you are the president of the Astoria Chamber of Commerce. What's your role there? What are you going to be doing? Yeah, you know,

LIndsay  29:46

when, when they call you and say, we've, you know, you're gonna be President Elect or you're, you're being nominated for president elect and as i Okay, great. What does that mean? And then like, Okay, now you're the president. Well okay. What does that mean? Even that is quite a large organization. It is very engaged inactive for hours every week. Yeah, absolutely. And to come in, during a pandemic, yeah. As president of a chamber of commerce during a pandemic, it was like, it was very challenging. And I was following the heels of Lois Perdue, who was also with Hampton. Oh, who was president. And so, really, we've spent so much time as a board, you know, really talking about how do you how do you support small business? How do you best support these businesses that you know, in the middle of pandemic, how to formulate pivot plans? Yeah. How do we promote customers coming to the area? How do we tell visitors not to come to our area? Yeah, it was, it was quite a balancing act. And it still is, it's been such a wonderful ride. And they we just did the first Crab Seafood Festival. 

Jan Johnson  31:02

Yeah. How'd that go? In two years? Wonderful.

Jan Johnson  31:04

Yeah, I've heard good things about it was

LIndsay  31:07

wonderful that there was so many people gunning to get out and about, yeah, can visit the area and do it safely. But also, just to see everybody in person and see the smiling faces again.

Jan Johnson  31:19

It was just great. Yeah, yeah, I know. It is wonderful in it. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna ask you one last question. Sure. What would you want people to say about you at your funeral?

Jan Johnson  31:38

Not that it's gonna happen anytime soon.

LIndsay  31:40

 Yeah, no. Oh, that's it? That's a good question. Um, goodness, gracious. You know, she didn't she didn't, she didn't give up, quit. That's, you know, that's girl who you throw something in front of her, and she'll either figure out how to get over it around it or kick it out of the way. But really, I would really hope that people would would say, that's someone who inspired me or helped me or encouraged me to do what I didn't think I could do or accomplish what I couldn't do. That would be that would be nice.

Jan Johnson  32:26

Yeah. Well, I think that might actually happen. We'll see. On it. Lindsay, thank you for being here today. This is really a delight. Yeah. And I hope that all of your projects go well. And I know that as soon as you do one thing you're spurring off on to the next thing and thinking because I know how you think yeah,

LIndsay  32:47

I've got a few more irons in the fire. I'll just wait to reveal those as they come along. 

Jan Johnson  32:53

Right. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. So thank you