The Nixa Young Professionals are hosting Erick Taylor, for the next CEO Conversation at Main Event Center. Meet special guest Erick Taylor! Erick is the CEO of Pyramid Foods banners which include: Price Cutter, Ramey, Ruby's Market, Country Mart, Summer Fresh, King Cash Saver, King Food Saver, and Save a Lot. Erick's ability to embrace change in the grocery industry has allowed his banners to remain local since 1967, with multiple locations serving the Midwest and supporting their local communities. Join us and learn more about his leadership!
The CEO Conversation is Sponsored by Arvest Bank.

 I could give you the where and how or the small details of childhood, but life for me didn?t really start until my late teen years. Though it is not where I started, I ended up graduating from a small town in rural Missouri.  There were more cows in the population than people. Before early graduation programs that exist today, I was able to graduate a year ahead of my class and move on to bigger and better things. (So I thought). It was a long and messy road, but I did end up going to med school and obtaining a degree in the medical field that I used for a number of years and then threw all that education in the chuck-it bucket and started over. My career became being a stay at home mom. In that choice of life, I lost my identity as the years passed found less and less value in myself.

So where did it change for me? It changed one day when a friend of mine talked me into going to a women?s conference at church where they discussed the P31 Woman. It wasn?t so much the religious aspect, even though I was raised in a church, it was what they wanted us to know as women. We are meant to be strong, have a sense of humor about our messy lives, we have the ability to speak with wisdom, we watch over the affairs of our households, we are meant to surpass even those of the most noble intentions. I walked away knowing that I needed to be a modern-day P31 woman. I needed to be a boss! I had to decided to put on my big girl panties and look at life and find the not just the sensible choices, but the risks worth taking, something that would profit not only my pocketbook but reward me in life itself and the chocolate covered, smell of hand sanitizer women in front of me ,just wasn?t going to cut it.

I began teaching myself new ways of doing things, learning everything I could about as much as I could. I couldn?t sleep in or stand by and watch my life happen. I was going to live it. And, for the first time I made a choice and fought for it and still do every day. I had to fight through serious health-related conditions, depression, conflicts, and chaos every day. But none the less, get up and get going.

I began speaking at women?s conferences and have a book being published soon by Red Carpet Publishing called ?And?That?s a T-shirt?. In 2010 was a highlighted speaker for RAINN (Rape Assault Incest National Network) and was highlight again in 2012,2015 and 2017. In 2012 I was awarded best in marketing and business form the Missouri State Business Association with my work in grants, non-for-profits, and small business plan writings, In 2016 I was awarded an Hamartian award sponsored from a large firm in Kansas City and since 2014 have fulfilled 8 children?s wishes, created self-esteem programs for young girls, and in 2018 with the help of Christian County and Nixa X Center sent over 15 girls and 2 boys to prom with new dresses and tuxes. Most of these are not known accomplishments, and it is weird just writing it down, but it was never about notoriety, it was about helping make the world a little better one person at a time.

I have placed myself in jobs over the years that helped me grow and learn the world of business and it feels amazing to finally be able to start my own company and see that through. I am excited to see what I can make of this world and even more so the legacy I hope to leave behind. In Reference of my favorite poem, The Dash written by Linda Ellis > ?So, when your eulogy is being read with your life?s actions to rehash, Would you be proud of the things they say about how you spent YOUR dash?? This refers to the dash between the dates in which you are born and the day you die. Those dates are just numbers, it is the little line in between that makes all the difference. So that is my goal, the difference I make from now until I exist no more.