Lindsey Ecklund

Hi Lindsey – can you tell us how long you’ve been with Walsworth and how it came about that you joined the company? 

Sure. I started at Walsworth in 2008, so I have been here just over 16 years now. And I’ve been in HR for all 16 years of my employment.

I started out in talent acquisition, moved over from that to the benefits role and then moved up to where I am today, which is our HR Team Lead.

Can you tell us about some of your career stops before you came to Walsworth?

I actually started off in hotels. When I was around 20, I had this grand plan to run hotels and be able to move around the world. But then I figured out that hotel life wasn’t for me.

I actually had a degree in human resources as well as business management. So I started moving towards the HR side of my degree while I was still in hotels and moved into an HR and property account role.

Then a spot opened up here in my hometown (with Walsworth), so I was able to move back and join the HR team.

And where were you at the time?

I was in Kansas City. After I graduated college, I worked at a couple of hotels around Kansas City for a few years.

Where did you go to school?

University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Missouri.

In your role here as an HR Team Lead, can you take us through what your specific duties are?

Well, as you know, HR wears a lot of hats. I am over the benefits, talent acquisition, compensation and employee relations.

Just things that touch every single employee.

Yeah. (laughs)

So what do you think it is about HR that led you to pursue a career there?

I’m going to give you the same answer that probably everybody gives you, but it’s the people. I am a people person. I enjoy helping people and watching them develop.

At previous jobs, I wasn’t able to help employees the way I do today. Here at Walsworth, I want to continue to make the company a better place, a place where people work for their entire career.

How has Walsworth evolved and improved over the time you’ve been here, specifically in the human resources area?

When I started, human resources was all paper. There was no automation in human resources. We have started digitizing everything. We have automatic processes we didn’t have before. It’s just become a whole new world.

Back then, if you wanted to hire an employee, we had a paper file. They would have to fill out a piece of paper, which would come to a manager, then to human resources, then up through our leadership and then back to human resources. Automation has improved the whole process – there’s added security and access, less risk of human error and it’s really streamlined everything.

The company has grown a lot – we’ve added new facilities, locations. What has that process been like for HR, integrating new people from different locations?

Every location we’ve brought in has a little bit of their own character or personality. Each one is a little bit different, so it’s fun for me because you get to hear about best practices of each and then help develop best practices that we can all benefit from.

So whether that has been Ripon, Saint Joe or Fulton, it’s been great to hear what works for them. I think the integration process we go through is pretty exciting.

Like you said, there are different personalities to all the different locations. Is there also something consistent about the different communities that have become part of the Walsworth family, that maybe you’ve been able to pinpoint?

I think they’re similar to (Marceline/Brookfield) in the fact that they are rural communities. They care about what they do. People genuinely want to put out a good product. They want to give you the best service they can.

Just a few years ago when we went through the COVID pandemic, it seems like it was a particularly stressful time from an HR perspective. What was that like trying to navigate through? 

It was terrifying, I will say. In human resources, we woke up one morning and the pandemic was here, and it was basically, “Ok, what are we going to do?”

How are we gonna react and what processes do we need to put in place to keep our employees safe? And how can we ensure we can continue to keep the company running? We had to navigate through all of that. Every day was a new adventure.

But I think it made us grow stronger, because we had to become a better team. We learned a lot.

When you guys go to career fairs and you’re trying to pitch the company to, especially maybe a younger generation that might not be as familiar with the company, what’s the message?

Well, I think being a family environment here speaks for itself. I tell them I have a voice here.

I’m not afraid to be able to express my concerns or speak about an issue that’s going on here, where if we were a publicly traded company and had thousands of employees, I might not have that same voice.

You know, being family-owned and being a team-oriented employer is a huge deal for recruiting.

Tell us a little bit about life outside of work? You’re from the Marceline/Brookfield area, right? You grew up around here?

I am born and raised in Brookfield, which is 10 minutes away from Marceline.  I was fortunate to grow up in such a tight-knit community.

After high school, I went to college and graduated from Warrensburg and then moved to Kansas City. Like I said, I worked for a few years in hotels and then gravitated back to Linn County. We were lucky enough to have our children grow up in the same great rural environment that I experienced myself.

Tell us about the family.

My husband Tom and I have two kids. My oldest, his name is Dayton and he’s a senior at Missouri S&T down in Rolla, Missouri. And my little one, Owen, he’s 12 and a 6th grader at Brookfield Middle School.  We also have a 2-year-old goldendoodle named Brody.  He is probably the most spoiled of the family.

What about hobbies outside of work?

We spend a lot of time outside. We have some farm property around the area, so we do a lot of fishing and riding around on side-by-sides and four-wheelers.

Sports take up a lot of our time. Owen, my little one, is very into football right now. So we are doing football every single night, and that’s a lot of fun as well.

Do you guys get to do much traveling?

Normally to Florida, that’s probably the favorite spot for our family. We travel to Destin at least once a year and spend a week down on the beach. You can’t beat the beach.

So what’s one thing about you people might not know?

Probably that I’m a University of Hawaii dropout.

What were the circumstances there?

So, I was accepted to the University of Hawaii right out of high school. I was 17 years old, and I made it less than a week. I was just terrified and by myself thousands of miles away from home.

My father let me come home and so I traveled back over and enrolled into CMSU in Warrensburg.

Wow, that’s interesting. What led you to Hawaii?

I’ve always enjoyed the beach. The beach is kind of my happy place.

We had traveled over on vacation a couple of times, and I fell in love with Hawaii and wanted to go to school there. But then it was just so far. It’s probably one of my biggest regrets today, leaving and coming back. But you know, at the time it made perfect sense, and it’s what I needed to do.

If you had a personalized coffee mug, what would it say?

Probably would say, “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s caffeine.”

The reason is I am like an Energizer Bunny most days. Most of my co-workers and my family would say the same thing. I jump from item to item from the second I get up until the second I go to bed.

Do you have a favorite TV show or movie?

Empire Records all the way. Everybody thinks I’m crazy because that’s not an extremely popular movie. But I fell in love with it when I was younger.

A close second would probably be The Breakfast Club.

What about a favorite meal?

Tacos and margs. You gotta love tacos.

Are you guys music lovers? Do you go to many concerts?

We do enjoy music, but we don’t get out for a lot of concerts and it’s probably because we’re chasing kids all the time right now. Between the oldest in college and his activities and the youngest in middle school, we just haven’t had an opportunity to do much else.

Are you much of a reader? Do you have a favorite book?

Well, I’m always reading something. I don’t know that I would say I have a favorite book, but I’m a murder mystery girl. That’s what interests me. I’m that person who likes to watch 20/20 on Friday nights. (laughs)

As you reflect back on 16 years at Walsworth, do you have a favorite memory? A moment or story?

I would say my best memory would actually be my first day.

When I started in human resources, the group that I work with was so welcoming, as was everybody in the entire facility.  I was absolutely blown away. People stopped by to say hello and sent me emails welcoming me to the company

They made me feel that I had made the best career choice, the group here was just so wonderful. I can remember thinking to myself at the end of the day, “Wow, this is amazing. I hope every day is like this.”

And I try to do that with anybody I can, to give them that same experience, because I think it is life-changing when you come into a company and feel like you belong.

Is there anything you wish people knew about Walsworth out in the community or elsewhere, that’s like, “if you only knew this, you would realize how great it is to work here?”

If people knew how much everyone here cares. I’m in a position to be lucky enough to see how much our leaders and managers think about the employees when they make big decisions. They look at how a decision actually affects people before they commit to something.

As a way to wrap up, are there any final thoughts you want to express about the HR team?

Yeah, I truly think our team is amazing both in HR and outside of HR.

Sometimes human resources gets a bad rap. Some people see HR coming, and they run the other direction because they think, “If HR is here, there’s a problem.” As opposed to thinking, “Hey, HR’s here, maybe something fun is coming, or maybe there’s something new we can develop a solution for.”

You know, 99.9% of the time, HR just wants to work with people as opposed to being the bad guy in the room. That’s something I hope people realize – that we’re here to help.