paths and paving new roads while maintaining, as first order, an unshakeable reverence for tradition and legacy. Eidman grew up in Grass Valley, Calif. In nearby Marysville (and later Penn Valley), her grandparents owned and operated Live Wire Products: a California-based business that sells electric fencing supplies throughout the U.S. Like many young kids in ag and ag-adjacent industries, she worked summers for the family business; inheriting and quietly metabolizing the work ethic and business mindset of the people and operation before her. In Eidman’s eyes, her grandparents epitomized “bootstrapped entrepreneurs”—never afraid to take a risk and try something new. She watched as they worked alongside each other to grow the business, noticing how their success was supported by the lifelong relationships and partnerships they cultivated. Her work experience is an industry gold standard—that is, unrelenting from early adolescence and built on the farm. She raised cattle and sheep through Future Farmers of America (FFA) projects, managing the full cycle from budgeting and care to showing and outcomes. She and her siblings helped raise livestock and farm Midwest crops when they lived in Kansas for a period growing up; she worked in a shoe store, the irrigation district and always at the grandparents’ business. (A nascent element on the sheep side of Eidman's formative years: her paternal grandfather was deeply involved in the wool industry, ran a sheep ranch in Willows, Calif., and worked with ranchers across the U.S. He would one day even create a breed of sheep.)
“I learned to think in systems—how people, operations, finances and long-term outcomes are connected—and to take ownership rather than wait for direction. Leadership has always felt less about titles and more understanding the whole picture, asking good questions and making thoughtful decisions that serve both people and the organization,” she said. At Fresno State, she held roles across the university farm units, including the beef unit, sheep unit, meat lab and dairy processing, along with marketing work for a tractor dealership and working as the student manager of the campus farm store. At Davis, she was a research assistant and again returned to work at the family business. Unbeknownst to her, this quiet preparation would be enough to position her for her first role, and the immediacy and vision required of executive leadership. “I had just finished my last exam at UC Davis as part of graduate school when I received a call from my grandma," she said. "She had opened the California Wool Growers Association newsletter and noticed a job announcement for their Executive Director. Knowing I hadn’t yet landed a position, she suggested I consider applying. Working in agricultural policy was already on my radar, and the opportunity to work with an industry I had grown up in was definitely a plus. I applied and was ultimately offered the position.” Straight out of college, Eidman would begin her professionalized pathway as an executive director of not one but two California trade associations simultaneously.
34 Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com January – March 2026
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