Face Behind the Fertilizer: Teri Cookson

Throughout her career at Koch, Teri’s role has consistently evolved, creating countless opportunities for continued growth and personal development. But no matter what role she’s found herself in, there have been two constants along the way: a passion for finding solutions to improve people's lives — and an hour-long commute to the office.

With 27 years under her belt (and on her odometer), Teri has seen and experienced a lot. From stints in business development and marketing molten sulfur to finding her sweet spot on the logistics team where she spent two dozen years working in various roles. Most recently, she took a step — or leap — outside her comfort zone to accept a position in IT as operations enablement leader.

“When I was approached for the IT transformation role, I was like, ‘guys, I don’t even know how to spell IT,’” Teri joked. “I tell my team on a regular basis, I’m still not sure I know how to spell IT, but what I do know is I love helping people and seeing them succeed.”

She credits Koch leadership with embracing the philosophy of the Charles Koch book, “Believe in People.” According to Teri, her move from logistics to IT is a perfect illustration of the book’s key theme.

“Their message to me was, ‘we believe in you; we’ll teach you what you need to know,’" Teri said. "It wasn’t just words on a page. It’s refreshing to work for a company that puts into practice what they say.”

Teri and her team own the truck shipping system, KochNT, used at all Koch Fertilizer plants and terminals. They collaborate daily with the logistics team, which enables Teri to take her decades of logistics knowledge and use it to help enhance Koch Fertilizer’s loading and storage capability.

“It's kind of hard to briefly explain what my team does, but ultimately, we own the hardware and software in loading and storage that allows a driver to get in to load and out of our facilities,” Teri said. “This includes PLCs — programmable logic controllers — which are basically the brains that tell the system when to start and stop loading product. We’re fully connected to the entire experience a driver has when they show up at one of our sites.”

With a vision to build a loading and storage capability that’s second to none, Teri is focused on challenging outdated thinking and processes to bring efficiency and the overall driver experience to the forefront of decision making.

“In the past, loading and storage has been the last thing people spend money on or worry about,” Teri said. “We're trying to shift that thought process, because you can make product all day long, but if you can't move it and you don't have efficient systems, people won't want to buy from you, and they won't want to send their carriers to your sites to pick up the product.”

Her genuine care for the driver experience, coupled with a passion for continuous improvement, has uniquely positioned Teri to drive positive changes that benefit both the drivers who visit Koch Fertilizer sites and the operators who work there. For Teri, it’s about more than improving the bottom line. It’s about improving people’s lives.

“As we consider future enhancements, we ask ourselves a lot of questions,” Teri said.

“What can we do to help make the lives of the drivers and the lives of the operators at our facilities better? How can we get a truck through our facility quicker? What projects can we do to improve and make our processes more efficient?”

The answers to these questions help shape the strategic road map for Teri and her team and translate to what she considers the most fulfilling part of her role.

“I love getting the opportunity to run projects and seeing things change for the better,” Teri said. “I love being involved in the team that gets to do that, advocating for my team and knocking down any roadblocks in the way of progress, and helping them develop daily into the next leaders of our company. It’s highly rewarding and that's really what keeps me here and keeps me coming in day in, day out.”

After 27 years, you’d think Teri might be getting a little tired of the long commute, but as long as she continues to be empowered to make a positive impact — for drivers, operators and her team — that’s all the motivation she needs to keep on driving.