Shannon Mesenhowski

Dr. Shannon Mesenhowski, DVM, MPH has an enviable position working as a Senior Program Officer on the Agricultural Development Team at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. A Minnesota native, Shannon was drawn to livestock medicine early on, shadowing a dairy cattle veterinarian while in vet school, and pushing herself to take challenging externships and opportunities. After some time working in clinical practice, a series of fellowships helped Shannon land positions working with USAID in both livestock development and humanitarian relief. Through persistence, determination, and belief in herself, she found a dream position working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, supporting efforts to improve livestock productivity in developing countries around the world. On top of work, Shannon has a busy family life, is a mom to two young kiddos, is an engaged community member, and is active within veterinary professional organizations, previously serving on the AVMA’s Committee on International Veterinary Affairs. Her “say yes” mantra was an inspiring reminder to us to embrace change and the unknown, because it can lead to amazing new opportunities.

Veterinary School & Year Graduated: University of Minnesota, 2010

Additional Degree: MPH, University of Minnesota, 2011

Questions and Answers

Tell me about your most challenging and rewarding veterinary jobs or work experiences.
I think every single veterinary job I’ve had has been challenging and that's essentially what makes it rewarding because I gained so much from those challenges. I would say that my first job out of school was one of the most challenging to jump into. I worked at a mixed animal practice in a rural area. It was wild but I grew a lot in the process. It's what I knew I needed to get my feet under me and have confidence that I could do this. The job was also very rewarding in terms of personal growth and professional competence.

The jobs I've had in the humanitarian sector have been challenging and rewarding in completely different ways, whether it's imposter syndrome or knowing the subject matter as well as you'd like to. The job I'm in now at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is probably the most challenging and rewarding non-clinical work that I've done. Challenging because the expectations are endless and urgent, and the responsibility to make the most of this job every minute that I have it. It can be all consuming, but in that way it's rewarding because of the potential one has to impact hundreds of thousands of small scale producers and ranchers. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity.
What did you love about the position or experience?
I really love the leadership I have in my job. I have a dream boss who looks at each person on the team and cares about what everyone is bringing to the table and what makes us passionate to show up every day. They’ve given me freedom to explore and work on what I’m interested in. Before joining the foundation they didn't focus much on animal systems but my boss realized that those were the things that really excited me and gave me free rein to explore how systems change could lead to improvements for small scale livestock producers in low and middle income countries.
Tell me about your journey to get to that point in your life.
My journey has been windy. None of it really makes sense until you add it up. I remember getting that wisdom from folks when I was a student that when you look in your rear view mirror all the dots connect, but when it's happening it’s not so clear. When I applied to vet school I wanted to be a small animal ER doctor. I thought emergency medicine would be the only thing exciting enough to keep me engaged for a career, but that changed by about day two of vet school. In my fourth year of vet school I got to have conversations with a wide variety of folks that helped me develop a level of clarity about what I really wanted to do. I realized I wanted to work on livestock and international development. Those three words became sort of my mantra and have been the key to me being able to have the career path that I've had since that time. I knew that there were some things about the US food animal industry that I wouldn’t likely be able to influence so I knew that my focus then needed to shift outside of the US as livestock systems were being built. During my fourth year I was able to do an interdisciplinary track that included big blocks of time working in different countries, experienced different ways to apply my interests, including policy, and offered opportunities to work in settings that tested my knowledge and fortitude. One of my externships was at the American Fondouk in Morocco which was an incredible, culturally immersive yet challenging opportunity.

USAID Bureau for Resilience and Food Security’s policy team. After that I made the leap to USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and worked as the agency’s Livestock Advisor during the Ebola outbreak. I found both USAID positions through fellowships, the AAAS and Global Health Fellowship Programs respectively. It was a dicey move to leave the development sector and jump into the humanitarian sector. The work is so distinct and different that there's not really a lot that you can take from one back to the other. I was sort of starting fresh and in something very different. Eventually I left the humanitarian sector, which I had fallen in love with, to go to the Gates Foundation. My retirement plan is to go back into mixed animal practice and start my own small farm.

After vet school I got into mixed animal practice but had to leave sooner than I’d have liked because my husband needed to find a job and there weren’t many options in the area. We moved back to a city and I worked in a small animal clinical practice for a bit. Following my time in clinics I worked for the USAID Bureau for Resilience and Food Security’s policy team. After that I made the leap to USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance and worked as the agency’s Livestock Advisor during the Ebola outbreak. I found both USAID positions through fellowships, the AAAS and Global Health Fellowship Programs respectively. It was a dicey move to leave the development sector and jump into the humanitarian sector. The work is so distinct and different that there's not really a lot that you can take from one back to the other. I was sort of starting fresh and in something very different. Eventually I left the humanitarian sector, which I had fallen in love with, to go to the Gates Foundation. My retirement plan is to go back into mixed animal practice and start my own small farm.
As a veterinary student, did you ever imagine yourself taking this journey and having these professional experiences?
By the time I got to fourth year, yes. One of the things that was super helpful to me during my fourth year was experiencing the full gamut in terms of clinical rotations and talking with a wide variety of people. That helped me develop a level of clarity about what I really wanted to do, which was livestock and international development. I also completed a livestock externship in Wisconsin in the dead of winter. I tried to pick the most extreme circumstances and make sure that I could hack it while I was still a student. That clarity helped me figure out that I wanted to do rural mixed animal medicine as my first step out of vet school.
In retrospect, what do you wish you’d known as a veterinary student or early in your career?
I wish that I had known that most veterinarians, aside from the ones you see in vet school that have been able to follow the academic path, are just going with the flow. They're seeing what opportunities are out there and making adjustments and changes. The fluidity and flexibility of our profession is something that I didn't really understand as a student. The fluidity and flexibility of our profession is something that I didn't really understand as a student.
Would you have changed anything about your time in veterinary school?
Worrying about memorizing everything and doing really well academically. It's the nature of the beast. It's all consuming. It's what you do all day every day. But it's such a small part of what will be your day to day. I don't know if I would change anything, but I would have let go of academics as the only measure of success earlier on.
Would you have changed anything about your career path since graduating?
I absolutely would. I feel like I took a warp speed tour through each of the different wonderful opportunities I had. I would have loved to be in mixed animal practice longer. I would have loved to stay at the small animal practice that felt like home longer. I would have loved to have both the positions at USAID longer. But I was chasing this ultimate job goal that made all those stops go really quickly. I got the job at the Gates Foundation and I wondered, did I just peak in my career at 35? Maybe, but if I had not been so willing to keep following opportunities, I don't think I'd be here.
Did you have any mentors or role models along the way that helped or inspired you? Please provide an example of how they helped you or what qualities they had that made them a good mentor? How did you find them?
My first mentor was dairy faculty at the vet school, John Fetrow. He happened to play soccer with my uncle, and when my uncle mentioned that I didn't get into vet school the first time he offered to meet with me. He was the one who brought me into the dairy world. The thing that made him such a good mentor is that he didn't give me the answers. He would ask important provocative questions to make me come to conclusions on my own. I think about some of the conversations we had about trying to optimize for the environment, or welfare, or productivity and I have those conversations every day at my job now. My next mentor, Terry Wollen, helped me understand the international livestock world and what I wanted to do. I knew of him as sort of a celebrity - one of the only US veterinarian’s that worked for Heifer International. We met when we were both working at USAID, and he encouraged me to fill the USAID humanitarian position opening up with his retirement. He still serves as a good sounding board and answers any questions I have, and is unendingly dedicated to improving livestock conditions.
Tell me about any pivotal moments or key turning points that shaped your career.
There are two moments that come to mind. In my fourth year of vet school I completed an AVMA Government Relations Division Externship. It was a great opportunity to do informational interviews with what felt like every vet in Washington DC. One of these interviews was with Dr. Steve Osofsky. I really wanted to pick his brain because his work was related to the livestock and international development ideas that I was drawn to. We were having a conversation and I explained what I wanted to do. And he said to me, not in a dismissive way, rather in a sort of empathetic way, “That's not a job, nobody does that. Nobody thinks about livestock as a part of agriculture and international development. You're gonna have to wait for people to catch up.” To me, that meant that I could make it a job and I could find my own way to get there and there wasn’t some track that I had to follow to make it happen. That was definitely a moment that's ingrained in my memory, and he probably doesn't even remember the conversation! It really helped cement that this was possible, even if there wasn't a script to follow, I could get there somehow.

The other pivotal moment happened when I was working at USAID. I got onto the Gates Foundation job listserv and had a search that would return anything that said livestock in the job post. For about three years I applied for every job that had livestock in the title or description at the Gates Foundation. I now realize that in that time I applied for my boss's job, my boss's boss's job, anything that said livestock, regardless of the required qualifications. I figured that they were either going to get sick of seeing my name and call me to ask me to stop applying or they were going to call me because they saw I was relentless. The last job I applied for was looking for an MBA. They weren't looking for somebody with a public health or veterinary degree. During the preliminary interview with HR I was able to convince them that the skills that I had were valuable for the role. They said I should talk to the hiring manager and we had the most wonderful conversation about development and that was it, I got the job! It's a story that I think is important to tell because we hear so much about how women don't apply for jobs if they're not 100% qualified, but with persistence and grit and my unconventional approach worked out in my favor.
Tell me about one or two challenges, setbacks, or obstacles that you faced along the way on your professional journey. How did you address those?
What felt like the biggest challenge or obstacle was when I was leaving mixed animal practice to go back to an urban setting in the midst of the economic downturn. There weren't a lot of options and the place that was the most open and welcoming was a corporate small animal hospital chain. I felt defeated and worried I would be miserable working for what I thought was ‘the corporate enemy.’ But it ended up being a very rewarding experience. Working in a high-volume clinic with a cohort of young veterinarians, techs, and assistants helps you all figure it out together. I got really good with small animal medicine. What felt like such a setback turned out to be another way to learn valuable lessons. It’s important to know that we're adaptable, we’re flexible. That's what we learned through the many challenges in vet school. Whatever's coming our way, we can make the best of it.
What was the most important lesson you learned as a veterinarian, and still remember today, and would want to tell vet students about?
From my own life experience, the biggest thing I would say is that it's up to you to make this career what you want it to be, and support each other as we all try to do just that. There's a lot of folks that are unhappy in this career for a lot of legitimate reasons, and it's up to all of us to keep trying to help each other find our way. It's up to all of us to keep trying to help each other out and to find our way.
What’s been the biggest highlight of your career so far?
I was very new in my role at the Gates Foundation and was invited to a very technically focused conversation on genetic innovation with some very smart important people. They were talking about reproductive performance in cattle and fascinating technical discoveries, but I found that the realities of implementing those innovations was maybe not widely understood, and saw the need for my real-world experience to speak to the probable challenges of something like using drones for livestock AI. It was rewarding, not because it changed anything, but because it was a great reminder that not all the solutions in the world are innovations in technology. Sometimes it goes back to good husbandry and firsthand knowledge.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell me that you think would be helpful or relevant to veterinary students or early-career veterinarians?
Be open and say yes. I know we're all overworked and overburdened so stay within your own personal limitations, but say yes to things when you can, even if they don't seem like they add up to where you're trying to get. Another thing is to be uncomfortable. You grow in that space more than anywhere else. The longest I've ever been in a job before this was 18 months because that was when I would start to feel stagnant and look for a new challenge to push myself, and it’s helped me learn so many things! The third is just that there's enough of this work to go around. Sometimes we can get focused on these niche areas and people get competitive and don't want to share opportunities. There's enough of this work to go around. Look out for people that you know are interested or would be a good fit for something and be an advocate for your colleagues because there's a lot of work to be done.