We had the good fortune of connecting with Julia Coffey and we’ve shared our conversation below.
Hi Julia, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I think I have a relatively high risk profile for life experiences, for trying new things, and basically just going for it. This is the one life we have. On the other hand, for financial matters, I have a much lower risk profile. These two tendencies of mine came together perfectly when I decided to buy Seeds Trust from my mentor, Bill McDorman, in 2011. I had such a passion and a purpose with seeds and at the same time, I knew that Seeds Trust was a long-standing and sound business. With no business background and having just begun my seed journey, I decided to take the leap. It’s been one of the best decisions of my life.
What should our readers know about your business?
Seeds Trust is a seed company focused on offering regionally-adapted seed and teaching customers to rejoin the ritual of seed saving. When we can, we grow and process our own seed. Since we are focused on diversity and biodiversity, we also contract with growers and farmers in the Mountain West and High Desert to grow Seeds Trust seed. We specialize in high-altitude and desert regions, focusing on short-season varieties that do well in highly stressed conditions. I am proud and excited about teaching our customers to save seeds – it’s such a special part of our work and helps me stay inspired and connected to my purpose. We need more resilient food systems and from my perspective, a foundational aspect of that is seed that is adapted to extreme weather and increasingly stressed resources.
To get to where I am today, I’ve had to teach myself many things, oftentimes rather poorly and on the fly. For a good handful of years, there was too much for me to do to run the business the way I would have liked. It took meeting my business partner, Alisha Wenger, and the power of more than one to get us to where we are now. I mean, we are still figuring it all out. We changed from a partnership to an S-corp which was huge for us. We have been able to hire an employee and build off of a staggering 2020 sales year.
I’ve learned that leaning into what I’m good at and building a business partnership based on communication and trust can be transformative for not only our bottom line but for general well-being. We still have a long way to go to build our business but we’ve been mindful to take our time, grow in a way that is sustainable for us, and stay connected to our WHY.
I want the world to know that we believe in what we do, our seeds are outstanding, and we are dedicated to helping find solutions for sustainability and building resilient food systems. Seeds are exceptionally important and are a deep part of our history – we absolutely depend on them for our future. We need to stay connected to our story with seeds and take care of this most basic element of survival with much more awareness and intent.
If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Grand Junction: An introductory hike in the Monument, followed by a beer at Handlebars. I’d take my friend to a great local escape room, and then out to dinner at Bin 707 or Thai no 7. Over the days we would visit Palisade for wine tasting (Carlson Vinyards is my favorite) and do a long bike ride along the Colorado River. I’d maybe even get out my SUP boards and get on the water (depending on time of year). We’d visit Chow Down to get our pets some toys or treats, then walk along the canal down to the Audubon area to see if we can spot some owls.
The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I definitely want to shout out my mom, Mary Coffey, who has helped me countless times fill orders and keep the business running when I was completely solo and needed help. She covered for me when I had an opportunity to travel in the Middle East for music, she ran the business when I broke my leg and was in the hospital for a month, and she was the sole reason the Covid slam was bearable during the most stressful and overwhelming season of 2020.
Website: www.seedstrust.com
Instagram: @seedstrust
Image Credits
Julia Coffey Jennifer Olsen (the one with Alisha and Julia filling jars of seeds)