By: Ann Reis, CFO, Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy, LLC 
My ethanol story began in 2005 as a public accountant for a large firm in the Ohio-Michigan area. There, I was an auditor, and one of my main clients owned or was in the process of building and purchasing three ethanol plants. Over the next five years, I visited the facilities, climbed their grain bins and helped compile their stand-alone financial statements. My family thought it was hilarious as I was the “city cousin.” All my aunts, uncles and grandparents farmed, but my parents took a different path. Until my stint in public accounting, I knew nothing about agriculture. It seemed to be a bit of a trend on our audit team; one of my co-workers was from Nebraska and he too grew up in the city. We joked that the firm probably assumed we were farm kids just because we were from Nebraska.
I chose to leave public accounting after the 2008 financial crisis and move away from the Detroit area and back to Omaha. I joined the internal audit team at ConAgra Foods and spent most of my time working with their flour milling business and the corporate risk and procurement businesses. My specialization was investments and derivatives, and I helped the company implement new software systems and build out the data analytics area within our department.
In between my time at ConAgra and Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy (SIRE), I did a brief (five year) hiatus with an insurance company, which made it clear to me how much I missed working in the agriculture industry.
I joined SIRE in May of 2021, and the only thing that has been consistent in the past (nearly) four years is constant change! SIRE’s board is made up of innovative leaders who are open to new ideas and value the concept of constant improvement. Their openness, combined with the significant changes in the industry in recent years, has created an environment where I can blend my prior experience with new opportunities and insights.
I have found the people within the ethanol industry to be extremely welcoming and consider many of those from other facilities and vendors to now be close friends and trusted colleagues. While the industry is undergoing significant change — at times, even feeling a bit vertiginous — it’s also an exciting time to be part of it. The potential for growth and innovation in the coming years makes it even more engaging. Being in a business that supports farmers and strengthens our local agricultural economy is incredibly fulfilling, and I hope my grandfather is somewhere looking down, proud of the path this city kid chose.