Mellie Pullman Oral History Interview, June 17, 2016

TIAH EDMUNSON-MORTON: Alright. Go ahead.

MELLIE PULLMAN: Hi, I am Mellie Pullman. It is June 17, 2016, and my birthday is September 10, 1957. We're in Portland, Oregon.

TEM: Where were you born?

MP: I was born in Chicago, Illinois.

TEM: And how long did you live there?

MP: I lived in Chicago 'til I was about 14 and then I went away to school for a few years and I pretty much never went back to Chicago after that.

TEM: Did your family stay there?

MP: Yes, pretty much. All the kids have moved all over the country, but essentially that was the base of the family.

TEM: Did you come from a big family?

MP: I have 6, a total of 6 kids in our family, and then I have 7 step siblings.

TEM: So yes.

MP: Yeah, we have a big family. Yeah, pretty big.

TEM: So how close to being in Chicago the city were you? Were you like in the city proper?

MP: We're north of Chicago. We grew up on Lake Michigan, about 40 minutes north 00:01:00of Chicago. But everybody could take the train to the city, so...or my father commuted into the city, so...

TEM: What was that like? Was that fun as a kid to be so close to a big city?

MP: Oh, we hardly ever went into Chicago. My dad had a job like, he was the Don Draper of Mad Men. We worked for an advertisement agency in that time period which is the '60s, '70s and then eventually he moved back to the suburbs and ran a traveling agency, which created a travel bug in all of us. So everybody travels a lot in my family.

TEM: That's awesome.

MP: My grandparents all live nearby. Originally my German grandparents had come down from Milwaukee. They were the beer side of the family. So they had moved to Chicago from Milwaukee.

TEM: Did beer play a big part in your family and kind of your interest from the beginning?

MP: Well, it was a constant presence. My mom was on the board of the Schlitz Brewery and all of my mom's siblings and her whole aunts and uncles were all 00:02:00involved with the brewery. So we always had beer around. And we had the German grandparents and we always had German food whenever they were around, so we had that.

TEM: Did other people in your family home brew?

MP: No. I'm pretty much the only one in the family, that... I was kind of the person that made everything I could from scratch. I made cheeses, beer, wine, bread. I went through phases of making everything. I was the maker.

TEM: [Laughs].

MP: [Laughs] Nobody else... everybody else likes to eat and drink but they don't make things. So.

TEM: It's nice to have a maker.

MP: Yes, somebody has to be the maker.

TEM: So what were some of the things that you were interested in when you were growing up?

MP: Well, I always made things so I went into engineering first. Somebody recognized that in high school. I was taking a high school shop class where I 00:03:00was making tables, and the person said you should consider engineering. So I always did things like that. I made things at home and built things and cooked and you know created things. Sort of that kind of creator instead of the artistic creator. I was definitely identified, it was a good thing the shop teacher suggested that because in my age a woman going into engineering was not the norm. I was the only woman engineer in my class. So that's sort of how I started and then that bridged off into, it made sense to go into making beer, because engineering wasn't actually that interesting [laughs]. Not at the time. Not at the time. There are more interesting things you can do with it today.

TEM: So did it feel, not groundbreaking, but were you aware as a high school 00:04:00student that it was special that you were being pointed in the direction of a typically male-dominated field? Or did it just match your interests, so it was okay?

MP: It matched my interests. I never really conformed to what other people were doing, so it made sense to choose different fields. I just was looking for what I thought was going to be a good fit for me. No one else that I knew of my women friends were going down that path because that wasn't their interest. But I could tell that that was an area, it was either that or go into like biology, so.

TEM: What were your other friends interested in?

MP: Oh, they were interested in things like art, and like English lit, things like that I'd say. My mom didn't work so we didn't really have a role model of professional... my mom wasn't a professional, so but my dad was pretty creative 00:05:00and he was the kind of person that would, you know, not create barriers to anything. Like basically whatever you wanted to do you could do it.

TEM: Did you guys travel as a family?

MP: Yes.

TEM: When you were kids, what...?

MP: We had a... well, actually my parents, they bought a piece of land in the Caribbean island that was not common for Americans to go to so when we were very young we started going there all the time. And it was a little bit like, I compare it to if you watch the movie out of Africa. It was like that. We were the only, we were some of the only white kids there. And it was a very interesting experience in terms of being around a third world culture and being brought up in that. So we did have certain things that we did that we realized like oh other people are not spending their vacations on a remote island in the Caribbean.

TEM: What were some of the little-kid impressions that you had about that experience?

MP: Well, today I could tell you a million stories about what made it so special. Like being down in the Caribbean at Christmas in those days they would dress in these incredible, like carnival type costumes and come up to our house and sing and dance and we'd all go out and sing and dance with them with the people who were the locals, the town is called Nevis. Then we'd go to a neighboring inn and they would invite kids from the orphanage, and we would all hand crank ice cream for them. They had a guy came up as Santa Clause that would put on a white mask so he would look like what they thought Santa Clause should look like. There was a lot of interesting aspects of being down there. We still go down there. I've been down there twice last year, so, I consider that to be... it was a unique experience for us but it also provided us... we were, I'd 00:07:00say, grew up in a family where we had a lot, we were very open-minded towards different cultures. And growing up in a traveling family everybody's pretty excited about going, meeting new people, going to new places and taking on extreme adventure. I'd say we're pretty comfortable with that.

TEM: How has that changed, so, since you have, obviously have no sense of comparison because you always did it, but how has that changed, or how has your approach to traveling changed since you were a little kid having these experiences to now carrying that forward as an adult?

MP: I'd say I'm, that growing up that way made me very comfortable to go to places that most people would find to be quite challenging. We're quite... my sister and I and our husbands have gone to Africa, Nepal, we're willing go to anywhere, really. We don't look at things like, oh, well it could be dangerous. 00:08:00I hear people say these things. Like you could get, you know, something bad could happen to you in Nairobi. I'm like, yes, but there's all these wonderful things there: cool people, great music. So you know we don't look at it as like a threatening world. Even today where people say all these bad things are happening in Europe. I'd say, well, that's not going to stop me from going anywhere. It could be dangerous, but that's not an obstacle. So. I think that...

TEM: I guess that fits with being going into a male-dominated field, as well.

MP: Yeah. I'm pretty comfortable with risk. I you know I don't see problems with... certain levels of risk I'm not comfortable with. There's certain things I'd look at and say no that's too risky for me, but by and large that would probably have to be much more extreme than what most other people's look at. Things that would scare others wouldn't scare me. At the same time I could feel 00:09:00a lot of fear inside, but I'm still going to do it. I still feel like, this could be scary and this scary thing could happen but I'm still going to do it.

TEM: So how did that, once you came to school on the west coast, right? To Evergreen?

MP: Yeah. I started at the University of Vermont and then I switched to Evergreen after a couple years.

TEM: Majoring both places in engineering?

MP: Well, Evergreen didn't really have engineering. I started in University of Vermont because I like mountain places, and then after a few years I realized I wanted to do alternative energy. So I had to go to the west coast. And I kind of narrowed it down to Berkeley or whatever. So I started to drive there and I got completely waylaid by going to Park city, Utah, in the '70s and you know. Eventually I had to go finish school, so I found Evergreen. I thought they have solar design. They'll take all my engineering credits. They didn't really have an engineering school but they had a sort of applied solar program. So it worked 00:10:00out well.

TEM: So I'm curious about the waylaid part. So you are... when did you start at University of Vermont?

MP: In 1975.

TEM: And then you were there until '77?

MP: 1977 at Christmas I left with a friend and we were on our way to Berkeley and my step sister was working as an animal trainer for Sunn Classics. They had a show called Grizzly Adams and they were filming in Park City, Utah. So we said, let's just stop at Park City. This cute little mining town up in the mountains. And we can stay with her. So we stopped and we didn't leave. Basically I stayed in Utah for the next 20 years with minor deviations to like go to finish school and then whoever I was working with I'd sometimes go out of state and work for like 6 months or 9 months. But I always came back to Utah.

TEM: What was Park City like, then?

MP: Amazing.

TEM: Has it changed a lot?

MP: Oh yes. I mean '78 you had a mix of the traditional people, which would be miners and ranchers. Then you had the influx of like artists and writers, the tradition, of how things change. And then the ski community came on top of that. Eventually certain of those groups were driven out. So the original minors and ranchers would leave because they could sell their houses for what they thought was good money. Then it was taken over by the sort of artist, skiers. And eventually Hollywood moved in. So all of that happened while I was there. When I first was there, there was even a rodeo in town. It was like being in Eastern Oregon. And by the time the mid '80s came around there was no more rodeo. There was Sun Dance film festival blah, blah had sort of come in and changed the dynamic. But it was a very interesting place for many years. Very dynamic. Very 00:12:00inexpensive. You could live an alternative lifestyle and not being part of corporate America, or whatever, without... the rents were low. I went to University of Utah for all my degrees because it cost almost nothing and I could commute there from Park City. It was like a 30-minute drive.

TEM: Was there an overlap between the original mining, rancher community and the artists? What was that overlap?

MP: I think that community was pretty comfortable with each other. When it became more and more skiing and then the money associated with skiing that probably created a little more conflict, but not as bad as you see the rural-urban divide today. It was always, you could look at Jackson you could look a lot of those places it didn't create as much conflict as it would today. Because people see what happened to those towns and the traditional community says we don't want this to become the next "blank" you know: Aspen, Gale, Park City.

TEM: Why... so then what did you do there, initially? What was your...

MP: Gosh. Anything that you could do. So initially I did food and beverage work. I cooked. Sometimes I would waitress, but I was really bad at that. So mostly I would do behind-the-scenes stuff, and then I realized that with my engineering background, I could, I was interested in construction, and there was a lot of construction opportunities. So in the summers I would do construction and in the winters I would usually cook some place or go to school. So I learned a lot. In the construction side, it was, of course, there was... imagine how many women were doing construction then. That created its own challenges. It's again, getting into the like, everyday I'd be like scared of what kind of sexism was going to happen that day. It was really bad. I mean people would... they'd have these rules like women can't use the nail guns. Well, why? Well, you might get hurt. I was like so will the other guys. So there were a lot of battles that had 00:14:00to be. Almost every day I was arguing with the boss. Or in the bar afterwards I was arguing with him. Eventually he changed. They changed. The people who were running the construction crews changed over time due to my pushing back on their stupid rules.

TEM: Were there any other women who were working with you?

MP: In the first jobs, the first job I had I did concrete work, and we had a crew of 4 women. We were all dating someone else in the company. So that's how we got in. I eventually quit to work by myself for another big contractor not doing cement. Because I wanted to work doing carpentry. So I went into that. And they hired another couple of women to do cleanup. But I really tried selling, I'm not doing cleanup. I'm going carpentry. So we were always having these weird battles. I was like I came here to do carpentry, not to do sweeping.

TEM: Yeah. That must have been tough to be in that...

MP: Yeah, it was tough.

TEM: ...that sort of constant conflict environment.

MP: Yeah it was. But it was good training for everything else.

TEM: When did you leave for your foray into Washington?

MP: I went to Washington in '79 because I had a year to finish school. So I then I found that program at Evergreen. I stayed there for a whole year and finished everything. Then I eventually did a bunch of other stuff, like got an engineering masters and went to work as an engineer in Salt Lake at the only company that had work at the time, which was a defense contractor. Which was not really in my value set but it was the only job I could get, and it was a very interesting experience. After three years of doing that I had the opportunity to 00:16:00go, they wanted to train me in California. So they sent me out there and while I was there... I'd come back, they'd pay me to come back to Utah once a month... and I came back and my cousin and I we were doing some cross country skiing and we went by to visit, somebody was having an open house in a condo. And that's where I saw a business plan for the brewery. And it sounds like a weird thing, but I'm very nosy and I usually read things that are on people's tables. Not nosy but curious. And I read about it and I asked the guy who is going to be the brew master? And he said, well, I was thinking of so and so who was a contractor in the town. I was like, well does he know anything about it? He goes no, but he can get trained. I was like, well, yeah, but I could do this. And I was looking for a reason for a quit this big engineering defense contract. That's sort of 00:17:00how I got back to Washington, because the guy whose idea was to have the brewery, Greg Schirf, he had made friends with this guy at Pyramid, who said if you find someone then I'll train the person. So that's how I came back to Washington. I quit my job, which at that time was in L.A., and I drove up to Washington to train in the original Pyramid Brewery.

TEM: So that was '85?

MP: That was '86. Yeah, summer of '86. I was supposed to go, it was right when I was supposed to go back to Utah to train everybody what I'd learned for the last 9 months in L.A., and I'm like, guess what, I'm leaving.

TEM: To be a brew master.

MP: Yeah. So I went up to Hart Brewing and worked there until our, they were kind of ready for me in Park City to come there, until he was ready to start paying me. Well, we didn't really get paid, but [laughs].

TEM: So at that point, '85, '86, how many microbreweries, craft breweries were 00:18:00there in the U.S.?

MP: I don't know there was probably, got to be less than 50. If you went to the Craft Brewers Convention, it was like, I think that first year that I went it was like 500 people were there. And that could be anyone. Like it is today, wannabes, supporting industries like you know the people who build stainless tanks around here JV Northwest. They'd go and they'd have like five people there trying to sell systems. So there's a lot more people at this conference than actually brewing, right. So it's got all the ancillary players. So at that time it was like between 500 and maybe 800 people were there. I mean today there's like 15,000 people there. It was a very small group of like supporting services 00:19:00and I think there was probably only 50 brewers. You could probably look that up, but I can't.

TEM: But it was, it felt like a small community but not like 5 people doing it. It was big enough that there was a critical mass, but...?

MP: Yeah. I mean you had the pretty much some of the bigger breweries were operating: Full Sail, Deschutes, like Anchor Steam was around. We worked, we went to Anchor Steam a lot over that initial period because I could drive there from Utah. And the guy that built the kettle for us, we had a kettle built a few years later, and he was one of the last remaining copper smiths, and he was my friend's father. So he did Anchor Steam's work and he took me there a number of times to sort of like the inside tour, and he was building our kettle for us in San Francisco.

TEM: So what was that like? What are some of your memories of that time both kind of from the setup design standpoint, the physical space, but then also 00:20:00culturally and socially, what the brewing industry...?

MP: Okay, well, you have to think of 1986 in Utah with no craft beer... probably the nearest craft breweries were going to be, there was some activity around Jackson Hall, Sun Valley, over this late '80-s period, and then Colorado. But Utah, nothing. We were the only thing in Utah and it was a Coors Light, Budweiser community. So you know you had to get people excited about craft beer. It wasn't like it is today. People were excited because it was made in the town. It was a tourist town, so the tourist come in and they're always willing to buy local stuff. But trying to get the locals to switch over to even trying it, trying craft products, would be really challenging. I'm a sensitive person, even 00:21:00though it sounds like... and I'd go into a bar and people would say things like... okay, the worst part is our ad campaign had me in it. So it had Greg and I were in our white coveralls in front of some tanks and had beers in our hands, and it said, we drink our share and sell the rest. And it was everywhere. This poster was everywhere in Utah. I couldn't go anywhere without people saying things to me about their opinions. Right? It'd be one thing if you were making like chocolate chip cookies, everybody would say nice things to you. But when you're making something that's not the norm, people would say things like I hate that beer. It sucks. It's nothing like Budweiser. I was like oh my god. I would go home and cry. It was horrible.

TEM: Yeah.

MP: but you know eventually it became like the norm that was well-accepted to have a craft brewery in Utah. But we're up against Mormon culture, which is no 00:22:00drinking. We're up against crazy alcohol laws. At that time you weren't allowed to have a cocktail in a bar. You either had to have a mini bottle or bring your own bottle in. There were really crazy laws until the Olympics came to town. So you were dealing with this dysfunctional alcohol culture already, and then you're dealing with a product that nobody understands. It doesn't taste like what they know. It was pretty challenging, I'd say. Compared to what you see people doing now. Different challenges today. But there was a period where everybody was like craft beer, they'll just drink it because it's in the category. Well, when you're trying to build interest in something that's not the norm, it can be really tough.

TEM: So what did you, besides the ad campaign, what were some of the strategies that you employed?

MP: Gosh, I mean we did everything. We gave beer, what you see people do today, we gave beer to events. We pretty much got everybody in town to carry our beer. 00:23:00We had the local grocery store carried our beer. In Salt Lake, since we're the only one there were quite a few places that were more progressive that were interested in having the beer. We had a distributor, but we were their first craft product, right? They're a Coors distributor and they didn't want to lose a Coors keg for one of our kegs. So we'd have to, like, my business partner, he did all the sales. He would go around and try to get new accounts. I did all the operations, the brewing and operations. Bottling and packaging. From day one we had to have bottled product, because that was the only way we were going to get widespread distribution in the state, because getting kegs was almost impossible. You look at people today here, and they're like oh I can just call up the mobile packaging guy and he'll come and package everything for me. I'm like yeah that's so nice compared to having to go through learning everything: 00:24:00industrial brewing, the whole packaging, how to do everything from packaging kegs, cleaning kegs, packaging bottles, running labelers, cappers, all these automatic equipment. The Italian soda pop line was terrible, and luckily we had a garage mechanic next door, so if I really got into trouble, like my partner has no mechanical skills. Very limited. So basically all the problems I had to solve. Oh the brew kettle won't turn on. Let's see. I'll go into the diagrams of how the thing's supposed to operate and everything's in Italian or whatever. It was really challenging. In some respects it was thank god I had an engineering background. Because if I didn't, the amount of problem solving you have to do when you're the only player with equipment in an area that nobody else has... I mean the guy at the garage next door. He could help with certain things. Like he 00:25:00would logic things out with me, like I think it's this or I think it's that and I'm like okay. But tons of stuff I had to solve on my own. It was quite an experience.

TEM: How big was Park City at that time, population wise?

MP: Park City? Probably 5,000 people. Today that whole valley probably has I don't know 40,000 people if you consider... the greater Park City area is really big. So I mean we obviously benefited from tourists coming in who were more willing to try it. You converted some people in the state, but you also have tourists coming who were exposed to craft beverages in like the west coast or Vermont or Chicago. Places like that.

TEM: So because Park City, because of its location, was it, did you feel the Mormon influence in the town?

MP: Park City doesn't really have that many Mormons living there. So the 00:26:00only-this sounds really weird to say-but really the only Mormon person I knew that we interacted with in the brewery was... well, our state representative, when we were trying to get to change our district representative, we had to get that person to change the laws for us. And he was Mormon. But you can always convince people that the tax revenue is good, as really being fantastic for the state. Utah, they're like, oh, well, as long as our people aren't sinning and those people are and we're taking money from them, that's great. [Laughs] it's true. The other person we interacted with was the local farmer who took our spent grain away. And we traded. He gave us like a half a cow every year. But you're in a bubble in a ski town like that. Down in Salt Lake it was different. Because I went to University of Utah and that would be 50% Mormon.

TEM: So what was the... can you talk about what the process for changing 00:27:00legislation was and what even just at a local level when you were starting to brew period? Was there anything that, laws that needed to be changed to start off?

MP: Well, I think I mean Greg Schirf dealt with a lot, he did a lot of that initial work but just to get a permit to have a brewery, there hadn't been a brewery in Utah since, I don't know, prior to prohibition or very early on there was a brewery but it hadn't existed for years. So there had to be some legal approval for that. The real legislative activities came in like trying to have a brew pub. Because that was the next step. After two years we started a brew pub on the main street of town. That required changes to the law. So that basically involved getting our state representatives involved so that they would propose 00:28:00it and then get people to vote on it.

TEM: So it was more brew pub legislation than not necessarily this percentage of alcohol legislation?

MP: Oh, no, that, in our day we couldn't change that. Only 3.2 beer was sold in Utah during that period. They have a state liquor store. You could only sell alcohol through the state package store unless it was 3.2 beer, it could be sold in the grocery store. So we only made 3.2. You're not making IPAs with a 3.2. You just can't. So only recently have they changed it. I haven't been there in so long. They changed it and I think they still have to sell the beer in the package store if it's higher alcohol, and they don't have refrigeration or anything there. It's not really. It's not the dream. It's not like living in Oregon, so.

TEM: So the legislation that you all were involved in was for having a brew pub?

MP: For having a brew pub. I mean Greg may have had to do something initially because they had had breweries but we had to probably get something back on the books that it was legal to have a brewery. But I wasn't... he had done that even before opening the business. And he was very good at interacting with... he's a sales-y guy. He had been a realtor. So he was good at interacting with the state and representatives. I think he was also... he is a republican, he kind of he was a good fit for interacting with them. I just stuck with day-to-day operations of making beer.

TEM: At that point, so obviously there was communication between you and people at Anchor and Hart or Pyramid now. What was the rest of the communication network between brewers in the U.S. at that point?

MP: We would go to the Great American Beer Fest. We'd meet people from that. We mostly, I knew mostly the western people and breweries in the west because I'd go to the other towns, like Jackson, they'd come to us. We'd travel around and go to visit other people's breweries. And they'd come and visit us. That's kind of how you communicated. Really in terms of what you see now, more of a cooperative environment, it was a little more challenging then because nobody was nearby. In my last year there a Squatters group opened a brewery in Salt Lake, and so then I would start to interact with them. So that was great and I was helping them where I could. They would ask how to run a diatomaceous earth filter, something like that. I'd help them. That was our first real neighbor, and that was still a half an hour away in the city. They didn't come up... well, 00:31:00one of their owners did live in Park City, but mostly I'd go down there.

TEM: How did you decide what to make? Were you having an interaction with the community where they would say we would rather have Coors, but if you're going to make this stuff here's what we'd like you to make.

MP: The first, Tom Baune, from Pyramid, helped originally with recipes, what he thought would be a good idea. Because he was kind of like a consultant. We paid him a royalty for every keg we sold for the first few years until we bought out that deal. So he helped come up with a pale ale recipe and a wheat beer. Those were the first two. And then I said we need to have something lager-ish because southern Utah was kind of exploding with mountain biking in the Moab area. I was 00:32:00like well, we made a stout because I thought well, with 3.2 you kind of have to make porters, stouts, things that give you more variety and we had a lot of winter demand from the tourists. So I came up with those kind of, kind of the standard stuff. Then eventually we came up with a lager, called the Slickrock Lager and it was really marketed toward the mountain biking community. Then Christmas beer. We'd have a seasonal. Those were totally experimental and crazy like you see in Portland today. It's like really I put that in a beer? It wasn't really that good [laughs].

TEM: [Laughs].

MP: It was like maybe too much ginger was in that.

TEM: What kind of brewing education did you continue to have? How did you keep learning?

MP: I went to the UC Davis. They had a microbiology for brewers class. I went to that. I'd go to different talks at CBC. Eventually I had an assistant brewer 00:33:00that we sent him to Chicago to go to Sybil, to their brewing class. Then when he came back, for a variety of reasons, I decided to move on and do brewery consulting, mostly because of the partnership. It wasn't... I'd say the vision we had we did not share the same vision for the business. We didn't share a lot of other vaules. So my assistant took over. He's still in the industry today. So he got a lot more training than I had. I had to get all my training from reading or talking to others. Like talking to Tom at Pyramid or talking to other people at other breweries when I traveled. I got a lot of ideas from traveling, like, oh we should, you know, create a crushed grain distributor like that. I'll just 00:34:00get this guy to make it for me. So I'd always see stuff when I traveled that I thought would improve our brewery. But I'd have to say that technically I did not have the skills that people would have today. Because there just wasn't the option of doing the online program. What do you call it? There's a distance program at Vermont that a lot of people are taking. Or these short courses that different schools or offering, more technical skills. There just wasn't a lot. I mean our assistant had to leave for like 10 weeks to go to take the Sybil course. I couldn't have done that. I was managing everything, so.

TEM: It sounds like the engineering, build it side, was a great advantage when you were traveling around because you could see things and translate that into practical...

MP: Yeah. I would have to say in terms of recipe design that that's where going to school really helped. Coming up with recipes. We didn't even have a small 00:35:00scale system, so. Now you see people with a small scale system so they can pilot test. When we would pilot test we'd pilot test pretty big amounts and it'd be like, wow, that turned out really weird. But you know other people do that too. You can see it. There was more leeway then to have an experimental product that maybe had fault.

TEM: How big was the brewery?

MP: Well, by the time, I stayed through it got up to 3,000 barrels a year. So it doubled. I think we went to 500, 1500, 3000 and after I left they built a huge production facility in Salt Lake. Then I went on to a brew pub, a brand new pub brewery that I helped set up in Arizona, and I could run the whole thing by myself. There was no packaging. There was no kegs. It was just a pub. It was so easy. I'm like, wow. What am I doing with all my spare time? That was a good 00:36:00experience. Then I trained someone to take over for me. Because I was actually married to somebody in Utah, so working in Arizona wasn't ideal.

TEM: At that point in the mid to late '80s were you aware, I would assume that you were, were you aware that there were no other women brew masters?

MP: Someone did a story for The New Brewer on the women and brewing, and that's when I saw... I knew some other people, like in the... and one other person was in the story. I met somebody eventually in Chicago that was officially the brew master, Carol Strow, I think her name is. I think she... I wasn't really clear if she was really brewing. I had met a few people and then I heard of the women who were working at Full Sail. So eventually I heard that there were some other people working. But I couldn't really tell if it's like is anybody actually brewing. Because the other woman in the article was like, ran the lab. So there 00:37:00were women that owned breweries like with their spouse. But I never met anybody else that brewed. And eventually Squatters hired a woman. But that was later on. That was '89.

TEM: Did it feel pioneering?

MP: It did. It also felt...

TEM: Did you feel the significance [laughs]?

MP: I felt it was very challenging, actually. Because I'd been in engineering, which is knowledge work. I'd say there was less having to prove yourself, and I felt like people thought it was really weird that there was a woman brewer. And then I'd feel like I don't have this commanding authority here. At one point I was like maybe I should get some little wire-rimmed glasses or you know look a little more, I just felt like it was such a struggle to have the respect or to 00:38:00be treated like other people. I felt it was probably more challenging than other environment, outside of construction. So. Yeah I still feel like when I go into a big, like the CBC, the Craft Brewer's Convention, and I'm like oh, it's such a bro scene. I just get this initial catch in my throat, like it's still like this it's still like so male-dominated, so bro-ish. That's a little hard for me, even though I know there's a lot more women working in it. There's still that feeling that I get of how tough it is to be in certain positions in the industry. If you're in marketing, if you're in HR, that's all fine. But to be, to gain legitimacy for yourself as a woman brewer is still challenging.

TEM: I'm curious like did you feel, so you thought about wire-rimmed glasses.

MP: Yeah, I said I should be fatter. I should have wire-rimmed glasses.

TEM: Yeah. I mean did you feel like you would, the idea that you would feel less discomfort if you changed your physical appearance?

MP: Yeah.

TEM: I mean how real was the, I don't know the thinking of that, but how real, how much did you...?

MP: I just, because people when they think of a brew master I was not the person that they imagined. You know? I felt it was challenging in that respect. When people would come in for tours and things like that, I'd have to... I'd just feel this, like you're the brew master? [Sighs]. I was like... it was just very. It was always that like awkward feeling of like, ugh. I felt it was challenging.

TEM: Do you think that your gender had anything to do with the openness that people shared their thoughts about your beer, or were people just sharing?

MP: Yeah, people are just going to share anyhow. You can see it today. You're in 00:40:00a bar and people are drinking and they just say whatever they feel and you're like, oh, god. I mean people are nice too. But you know. It's like anything. It's like now I work in a university two people can hate your class and like the whole rest of them can like it and you're like those two people hated it.

TEM: And it's the same class?

MP: Yeah. It's like you know if you didn't succeed with everybody. And you're never going to... and beer, as you can see, people are so opinionated about it. You can see all the blogs and all that where people like rip on stuff and some people love them and some people hate them. I don't know, I'm more comfortable with the space I'm in now where I don't have to worry about that so much. I mean you can see even Teri, she's going into sales. I just wonder how long, it's hard work. That's the other thing. Super, super demanding work. That's why after the 00:41:00four years I did it, I was like you know there are other things I could do that are entrepreneurial. I wouldn't have to be slogging around 50-pound bags of grain and hauling out all the stuff and scrubbing and scrubbing and wearing rubber boots all day. So you really have to love it, love it, love it to overcome the hard challenges of day-to-day work. I'm not sure. Even if, I've been in a lot of wineries now, and I look at that and I think wineries are not as... you go through crush and all that, that's hard work for however long that period is in the fall. But after that it's not like that. It's not this super demanding everyday physically demanding work and lots of cleaning all the time.

TEM: That's what I almost always hear from people who are in the industry, like you just clean. You clean a lot.

MP: Yeah, I was like yea, I had a masters in engineering at the time I'm like there's probably things I could do that would be a better use of my talents 00:42:00than... I mean I loved being involved and doing all that but I'm like at a certain point like yeah, you know you have to get to the point like Kim Jordan, like you're managing the whole business and you're not down there scrubbing every day. So.

TEM: So what was the point... the... 1990? Is that when you left?

MP: Yeah after I did the brewery project in Arizona, I trained someone to replace me and then I took the GMAT while I was down there so I could come back and get an MBA, because I figured I really need to have more business skills, more specific business skills. It's made it, you know it, even if I had had gone at MBA and gone back to the brewery it would have been really helpful. My partner was a business guy. He'd come out of, he had a master's in business. But I'd just come out of, I was a technical person. I felt that really helped. I think to be in the industry with a lot more business skills makes a huge 00:43:00difference. Today, it's essential. You cannot even operate... you could be the greatest brewer in the world, but you're not going to succeed unless you can do the business side.

TEM: How would you have changed things as the brew master if you had done it flipped so you had your business degree first?

MP: Well, the thing about having a business degree is that you know, if you're actually making money where things are really costing you money, how to schedule employees more efficiently, everyday how much money we've spent on labor, if we make this kind of error, what's the impact on our cost? Things like that.

TEM: So it could be style choices, like it could be very...?

MP: Style choices. How to run the brewery more efficiently from a business perspective. Those kind of things were not my strength at the time. They could have bene if I had had the time to read up on them. But even today I'd say when 00:44:00people take my classes a lot of people say, well, we really don't need to know how to improve our business. And some of the things they need to improve are day-to-day process things that cost them money. I could not have started the brewery without the technical background, being a problem solver. But I couldn't have improved the brewery without the business background. And I don't think my partner was capable of improving it either. He ended up hiring other people to do that.

TEM: Is the brewery still there?

MP: Yeah, but it's been bought out by Venture Capital. It actually ended up merging with Squatters Brewery in Salt Lake. Now they're a big entity with a lot of, I don't know I think they're up to thousands of barrels.

TEM: Is Greg, is he still involved in brewing?

MP: No, because he cashed out. I think last year or the year before. He's made millions of dollars [laughs].

TEM: [Laughs].

MP: He stayed with it, I mean, he took on other partners. The last year I was there somebody invested like 5 million dollars and that put my percentage down really low and that was kind of an instigator of like I'll have no say in the direction of the business because somebody's put in 5 million and I of course did not put in 5 million, and the writing was kind of on the wall for me. It was like...I know that I want to have more control and direction.

TEM: At that point were you interested in food law, and the agriculture, and farming and ranching? Was that something that you had on your radar?

MP: Well, I've always been interested in food. Food and beverages. I have a huge, huge interest in food and beverages. When I got my Ph.D. I also went to 00:46:00work as a quality manager for a climbing company for a year. I was doing things with new product design. I was very interested in service and product design. I kind of got waylaid into that for a while and then came back to working in food and beverage. I mean it's still involved. All the stuff I did in product and services was about recreation or travel or restaurants or food-related things like that. If you looked through my, if you google me, you'll see I have a lot of history, like I did a consulting project for Cirque de Solei on customer experience. It's all kind of related. Like how do you create this emotional attachment to a place or a thing? That's really important with beer today. I can see it now. Just understanding how you create a story around something and the whole ambiance. I got a little waylaid by all that stuff and now I come back and 00:47:00I use that in the current things I teach.

TEM: I'm curious... was there, what did your family think about you being a brew master given that beer was in your family? Was it not surprising to your family that...?

MP: No I don't think it really surprised them. They knew that I was not going to do anything normal [laughs].

TEM: [Laughs].

MP: Much to my mother's dismay. She did not get... She was very traditional and she did not get that person in me. She got it in my younger sister. But she did not get it in me. So I think that was something that they all thought was wonderful.

TEM: Did anybody else in your family end up in brewing?

MP: No, but everybody else is either in food and beverage or travel. We pretty much, everybody, well I have another sister in education but she also is obsessed with travel with food and beverages, but she doesn't work in those things. Everybody else does. My sister works at the Ritz in sales and catering. 00:48:00My sister's a travel agent. A brother that travels around the world every week. They're pretty obsessive.

TEM: So you got your Ph.D. from University of Utah. What was the span between your MBA and Ph.D.? Was it sort of a direct one and then the other?

MP: No I went to work for the climbing company for a year and I kind of dabbled with them for a year after that doing like consulting projects kind of before and after, and then I just went back and got a Ph.D. I tried to go right into it but they're like the application process takes time. It was good. I actually had an interesting experience working for the climbing company.

TEM: And your Ph.D. is in?

MP: Operations and Marketing.

TEM: Okay.

MP: So it's stuff I like. How you make and deliver stuff. But also I interact 00:49:00with the customer side. I pretty much use that stuff all the time. I'm officially in an operation supply chain group now, but I was at the Cornell Hotel School for almost 3 years and everything you teach there is going to be around food and beverages, customer-driven activities.

TEM: So you got your Ph.D. in '97, does that sound right?

MP: Yeah.

TEM: And then how long did you live in Utah after that?

MP: Well, I left in '96 actually.

TEM: Oh, okay.

MP: I went to Colorado State as a visitor for a year at Ft. Collins, and then I went on the real job market and the only western, this was my fallacy, the only western [makes air quotes with hand] job I could find was in Texas, which actually isn't the west. It took me a while to realize that. Once I got down there, I was like oh this is really the south. But I was close enough I could drive to Colorado for the summer, so I bought a place in Colorado, and I just 00:50:00left Texas all the time and went to Colorado.

TEM: What was the beer scene like, food scene like, in Colorado in the late '90s?

MP: Well, in Boulder, they had a number of breweries there. It was really heating up. Colorado's become almost as significant as Oregon in terms of the number of breweries and the amount of activity. So there's a lot going on there. I was living in Boulder and commuting to Ft. Collins so both of those towns had big breweries. I went to New Belgium with my class all the time for educational field trips in New Belgium [chuckles].

TEM: [Laughs].

MP: Yeah, it was pretty fun. I was in Colorado State, then I went to Texas, then I went to London for a year, then I came back to Colorado State, then I went to Cornell, then when I was at Cornell, Portland State had a job opening and they hadn't had one in years. And I have five friends in Portland State, people I 00:51:00went to Utah with that ended up there. And they're like you're coming here. I'm like oh no, my husband just built a brand new dark room in our basement there's no way he's going to let me move. And they're like well, just come look and do a job interview. And I came and I'm like oh my gosh, I have to move. I always had loved Portland, because we did a lot of stuff in Portland when I had the brewery through the years. I came back and I was like oh my gosh we have to move here. So that ended my jumping between schools. Finally when I got here, because now we've just finished our tenth year here. I used to leave every 3 years, like I'd go someplace else every three years. So I stopped that.

TEM: Did you come here with the focus on food systems, food supply? Was that sort of what you were hired to do?

MP: I had dabbled a bit in that and they had a class food supply chain management and they said, well, do you think you can teach this? I'm like yeah. 00:52:00The minute I came here I started to just jump right back into food and beverage. Because I'd been, Cornell has a big food and beverage presence, but I had some other projects that are a little more hotel related. And so I came... the minute I got here I'm like, forget all that stuff. I'm just doing food and beverage. And then they said do you want to teach this class? I'm like yeah. So then it became really popular. I started teaching it twice a year. And then they're like well, I realize there was no book, and so I pitched to my friend at OSU, he's in the business school, do you want to write a food supply chain book with me? So we did that. From that moment on I was gone. I went off into food and beverages and never came back.

TEM: What was... so you came here in 2006? Is that right?

MP: 2005.

TEM: 2005. What was the food culture life like here? Did you...?

MP: It was booming. I just loved it. I was completely... I'm like the typical Portlander. Completely obsessed with all of it. Going to the newest restaurants and trying to support local producers. Then we bought a place in eastern Oregon and I got really involved with, I made friends with a lot of people who were growing sustainably-raised animals, wheat and all that. So I've gotten involved with all that. Now I'm friends with people who are starting craft malting facilities out there. I interact a lot with the malt guild, the cider people. I pretty much... I still do some food projects, but I'm pretty much in the beverage world now. I have, I do some stuff with food waste, too, so...

TEM: Which would match, I mean that there's the spent grain.

MP: Yeah, so I have a lot of stuff going on there, but I just finished writing with John Harris this beer business book, so I spent the last year working on that. So developing this program meant that I did what you did, I basically went and talked to people all over and made videos and learned a lot from that. I haven't really done any academic papers from that, but I've done a book from it.

TEM: So when you came here, 2005, the Portland beer scene is obviously pretty active at that point. Did people know who you were?

MP: It's sort of funny. Early... I mean, I don't talk... this is the most I talk about myself, but people... I didn't really talk that much about it. Except my students knew that I used to have a brewery. Because they love those stories, and I used a lot of brewing examples in the class I taught. But I went to a Pink 00:55:00Boots thing and Teri Fahrendorf got up and said I was one of her heroes. And I was like, whoa, she knows who I am. And then people who are old guard know who I am, so Gary Fisher, John Harris, everybody that used to be around in the '80s. Because then I disappeared. I disappeared from the '90s on to do my MBA, Ph.D. and working in universities. There are people that know me but they're often that generation. That's kind of funny.

TEM: Do you feel like that's increasing, that awareness of you, is increasing because there's maybe more women entering the industry or Pink Boots itself has become so much larger? Do you feel like that recognition will people come and 00:56:00ask you about what it was like?

MP: I mean people have. I mean if I... I actually had to recently add to my vitae, resume whatever you want to call it, all the media sites, and so I had to go and google myself, which is kind of weird. A lot of weird stuff comes up people write strange things about you [laughs].

TEM: [Laughs].

MP: There's this blog, and you're like what women crush? This women crush blog and it's like how did I get on that? Anyhow, so people in the last two years like since we started this program then there was all of a sudden a focus on who I was. But, you know, it's still a struggle. The master Brewers Association, they won't invite me to any of their things. It's like well you're not a brewer. And it's like well, nor is Teri. She hadn't for, she'd been a salesperson. There's all sorts of like weird stuff that goes on. I'm like well, I'm not 00:57:00looking for recognition. All I'm really looking for if people if they want to take our programs that they do. That's the sort of marketing I do. I market our programs. Now that John and I have a book, then I'll market that. But I don't really try to market myself. I mean the other people probably do that. If you have a business now and you want to market yourself because it would help your business, I can see why people do that.

TEM: But it is funny that you end up in the business and probably talking to people about marketing, I guess at times themselves a part of that business.

MP: It's interesting. I've really, I've tried to spread myself into the other, like the cider and the craft malt. I've tried to get involved with other groups too. Because the thing about beer is that it's so big here that I don't think I 00:58:00can really, outside of what I do in education, I can't help that much but in the other guilds, because they're so small and they're so disorganized that I actually can help. So I tend to spend more time with the smaller guilds now trying to help them.

TEM: Let's back up a couple of years to the establishment of the program at Portland State. What was the arrow direction there? Was that something that you saw there's a lack, people in these beverage-related industries need some guidance?

MP: Well, I mean I knew that was there, but I was already...like the thing about Portland State is there is always already a million things going on and I wasn't looking for a new thing at the time. At the time my boss he's a very avid craft brew drinker and he, this was my former boss, he was down in California at 00:59:00Sonoma State, he's the dean here and he met the dean at Sonoma state and saw that they had this wine business program and they had a wine business MBA. So he came back and he's like, you know, Sonoma State has this wine business program don't you think that we can do a beer program? I'm like yeah absolutely. He goes well can you do it? I'm like oh yeah. I'm like [takes deep breath]. Another one of those, oh my god, what have I committed myself to? So I took the wine business, it was online certificate. I took half their courses. I'm like oh this is what they're teaching. Well, this is what they're not teaching. And it's like what's working about this and what's not working about this and how would I make it different if I did beer? So I really spent like a year and a half in development of what... there's no books or anything like this. I had to figure out what would people need to know. And what would I have wanted to know if I had been in a small brewery or even a startup phase.

So that's how I reverse-engineered it just by thinking about watch what this guy did in wine, which was very helpful actually because I learned a lot of what was good about online teaching and also what didn't work at all and what were the huge gaps that are assumed people know. It's like, how would you know that if you're not actually in the industry day-to-day? Through that and with, I hired two Ph.D., two Portland State undergrads that were in my class. Said I need some interns and this is what they're going to help do. They're going to help research and they're going to go around with me and film and they're going to write scripts. Well those two guys they thought their dreams had come true. They worked with me for a year. We'd go on all the film shoots together. We'd talk about which places we'd go. Normally when I work with people we're always a team. It's not like I'm their boss. They both got hired during the filming. One 01:01:00works now for Portland Kettle Works and the other one works for Rogue. It's so funny. Because it's like just from helping with this and I'd let them do the interviews. In our movies you don't see who's interviewing, I said you do the scripts, send me the scripts, and I'll approve it. And I would just watch them and you know give them ideas and stuff like that. It ended up being a funny thing. I'm like okay, well, I'm glad I got you guys jobs.

TEM: So the idea was like info-gathering. You wanted to see how businesses were running? Was that the idea of filming?

MP: Well, we'd come up in... for the movies?

TEM: Yeah.

MP: We'd come up with like, I kind of created a syllabus or whatever, a course structure, and I was like okay if I'm going to cover trademarking this week, naming and trademarking, let's go get a good story about that. Who would have a good story? So we'd find out, like, let's go and talk to for example, Gigantic. 01:02:00They do some really interesting things with labels. And what was their strategy and actually one of our most famous movies is Base Camp. Do you know the story about Base Camp?

TEM: I think I...

MP: Well, the owner actually got in trouble...

TEM: Yeah [laughs].

MP: So then the Willamette reposted the video from our class, because they're all available on YouTube, the field videos are all on YouTube. The lecture ones are confidential, you know kept, so then it was posted. And I looked at it recently and it was like 6,000 views. I'm like yeah that was the best PR we ever had. Anyhow, that was like we used Base Camp as concept. Because if you've ever seen their brewery they put a huge amount of attention into what the look and feel of the place is like. It's all about a base camp. There's photos, there's carabineers, there's rocks holding up the tables. It's really well done in terms of thinking through a concept. We'd find like who does this well, and let's go talk to them and make a video out of it.

TEM: Did you have people asking you for business advice when you were there making the videos? Did you run into that?

MP: Yeah. People would ask, but I really try and stay out of consulting. That's not my gig. I'm like, no I make content. And when I have the students I give them free advice. People always ask me to come and do consulting. No, that's not my thing. I'm just education. I'm not consulting.

TEM: That can be a slippery slope, I imagine, if you're in the community like that...

MP: I mean people like to do, there's academics that like love consulting. They double their income that way. I'm just not that way. I have a different. That's not my purpose in life. I mean I give free help. I don't want to be paid for it.

TEM: So being in academia, what has, and then now transitioning into the business of craft beer, have you felt gender issues emerge again because of the 01:04:00work that you're doing? I want to make assumptions about academia that I probably can't.

MP: No academia. Okay if you look at Portland State, it's 60% women faculty. That's a Cinderella story. It couldn't be a better place to work as a woman professor than Portland State. So there's never any gender issues there. I was nervous with starting the program that I'm the face. I've always had this like okay I become the face, the expert of business [makes air quotes with hands] not someone like Gary Fischer or Tami from Ninkasi who legitimized as like this god that's been in the industry for years. I'm like I was in the industry. I've spent many years teaching business and I was nervous that I was like maybe we should hire an actor. You know?

TEM: Who would wear wire-framed...

MP: Yeah wire framed glasses, a beard, and pot belly. I was like maybe we should 01:05:00hire an actor to do it, but that wasn't going to happen. I had to do it. I quickly realized that nobody cared. Now, there were a few people you could tell that I wasn't their cup of tea. Right? I wasn't what they imagined as an expert. Given the hundreds and hundreds of people who've gone through the program it's like I realized that nobody really cares that I'm a woman. They're absolutely fine with that. You know? It's turned out to be, I have enough credibility. It's turned out fine.

TEM: What's the percentage of women?

MP: It's about 40% in the class.

TEM: Yeah.

MP: Because you got a lot of cider makers. You got people that might want to open distilleries. I was actually just at one of the student's places in Mosier yesterday. She's starting a cidery, and I'm like you know it's great. It's so exciting. I'm very close to two women cider makers and then there's a lot of people, a lot of women, who have breweries.

TEM: Do you feel like in things like spirits or cider or mead is there the same...

MP: No, no, no.

TEM: .... The bro environment?

MP: Cider drinking is 50% women. Craft beer drinking is still 25%. The scene is totally different. If you go to a cider con, it will be mixed ages, very mixed. Lots of retired. More like wine people. Like I want to retire and open a winery. I'm going to retire and open a cidery. More ethnic diversity in cider. It's not that way in beer. It's still very white male dominated and all wearing the same kind of outfits. I'm like whoa guys. I mean of course there's the old guard they dress differently than the. Spirits I think is quite mixed now too. You get a lot of women making unusual spirits, because they can kind of take the whole herbal kind of crazy alchemy thing into and it's well-accepted. I think beer has 01:07:00been male-dominated, the advertising, everything has been male dominated. So I think it's more challenging. Definitely more challenging than the other areas. Mead, I mean nobody has any gender attachment to mead. That can be like anybody can do that. You don't have any preconceived notions of what that person should be like.

TEM: Earlier you mentioned advertising. I wondered what the, if the fact that there aren't huge corporate meaderies with huge budgets where they're representing their drinkers or representing their brewers. I wonder if that has something to do with it, that it's...?

MP: Yeah I just think that you know beer. Look at that advertising that for 01:08:00years, even today, it's still so bad. It's so bad. It's like, really? You're never going to grow that percentage of women if you continue to have this kind of ridiculous advertising.

TEM: Do you talk about that with brewers, are you very open about those gender discussions as part of the certificate program?

MP: No, not really. I think people they all have different communities they're in. There's different opportunities now. I think you can do a lot more. So there are women I know who started a mobile canning business in California that I'm good friends with. I just think people don't see the barriers. They're younger and they're starting in a different place.

TEM: The women who would be entering the industry now?

MP: Yeah. I don't feel the need to say anything about. I mean, if they come with 01:09:00me and work in our booth at CBC, we will talk about what a bro scene it is. Like, oh my god do you believe this scene. We just laugh about it. But you know there's some tough characters now. The women they can take it on. They're willing to take on the...whatever it looks like. They don't care. They're in different communities. They might be starting a pub restaurant. It's not going to affect them as much.

TEM: Let's talk a little bit about Pink Boots and visibility and what organizations like that or people like you becoming the face of a brewery, however many years ago, and now the face of this program. Can you talk a little bit about how you think visibility and identification of women in the industries helps that newer guard or the newer brewers who are coming up?

MP: I think it helps the more you're out there as a woman with a face in the 01:10:00industry it sets a good example. It creates role models for everybody. I think it makes a big difference. You know Kim Jordan has been huge, and she's been probably the president of a major brewery for many, many years. So that's been really beneficial. And I think Teri is, she's very visible. She interacts with all those breweries all the time because now she's selling them their key ingredient. Well, hops is also, but you know she sells hops, but mostly malt. So I think that helps, and I think people see the possibilities that they can do it too. So I'm sure that it helps to have all those faces out there to get more people into the brewing scene.

TEM: What do you think, you know draw out your crystal ball, how do you think in 01:11:00the next 10 years the brewing industry will evolve and change?

MP: Well, it's going to become very competitive. I mean it's already getting really competitive and the shelf space has a certain amount of lockdown happening because of AB and InBev start to block out crafts, so that means everybody that's in the industry has to, if you're new, you have to have something that's really different that can differentiate you from all the rest of them out there, and people have to be very smart. They have to have really good ideas and run their places really well because otherwise they're just not going to survive. It's going to become more, the scene's going to get more aggressive. That's how I see it. Because you see it grow, grow, grow like this 01:12:00[holds hand up diagonally]. Crazy numbers, 18% growth, you know like that. And then last year it went to 12%. And I was just looking at the numbers of some of our local breweries, because it's published last month. It was published by the brewers association to see what's happening. And you can see a leveling off of many of the popular places around here. Well, once you see it leveling off you know what's going to start happening. It's going to become more competitive.

TEM: What do you think that does to creativity?

MP: It's been creative. It's been very creative over the last few... it's going to... people are still going to be creative, but they're going to also have to be creative in getting their story out. You have to figure out how to get people to find you and to stay with you and it's a fickle industry. People are just jumping between stuff. Oh, this is my new favorite. I do it too. It's like oh this is my new favorite. I'm going to drink this for the next four months and then I'm going to switch to something else. How do you keep people attached to 01:13:00your business? That's where my like previous background and the sort of emotional connection to a brand and to a service is helpful. It's like how do you, what's the story you're telling people and how do you keep them continuously engaged with your brand?

TEM: I wonder too if tying the emotional story and brand loyalty, the more women that you have that are running breweries or are brew masters or are actually making the beers if that increases the number of female beer drinkers. Like I wonder what that...?

MP: Yeah, I mean, it could help, but you know you have to have the dominant, the biggest brands still have that ridiculous types of ad campaigns.

TEM: Women in bikinis.

MP: Yeah, women in bikinis. I mean you can see if you look at like New Belgium, they're whole ad campaigns are much different... [coughs] sorry.

TEM: Your poor chest.

MP: You can edit me out here [coughs].

TEM: Edit at 1:14:00.

MP: Yeah I think, well, you know people are going to have opportunities to tell different stories to different segments, and that's going to be one of the ways they can keep and grow their business. The people who keep doing the same stuff will probably struggle. You're not going to be able to keep people's attention with that.

TEM: Do you feel like people bounce between, does the same community bounce between beer and cider or beer and mead?

MP: No.

TEM: Do you feel like there's a fluidity?

MP: There are certain people that are willing to try cider. A lot of the cider drinkers will drink beer. But a lot of the beer drinkers will not drink cider. I 01:15:00mean in the craft scene as far as I can tell. Cider expanded into a group of drinkers that were not necessarily craft. They were picking up wine drinkers. They pick up a lot more women. Obviously if they got 50% right away. Beer has 25% they got women. Well, what are women giving up? They're either giving up wine or cocktails or craft beer. So yeah it doesn't really... beer drinkers, there are people that go and try ciders, but I am never around them. I hang out with cider drinkers who will try beer though. I don't see the other way around happening that much.

TEM: That's interesting.

MP: There are people. But it's like it's very... they're very, they're not that common.

TEM: Again, going back to the emotional identification, that they have branded themselves and their own I'm a craft beer drinker. I'm here in the northwest.

MP: I know cider had to pick up some beer drinkers from somewhere, but I'm sure 01:16:00they picked up some women and they picked up some guys. So we'll see. Now cider actually lost a lot of business to the hard sodas. There's a whole group of people that try anything that's new that's out there that's kind of sweet. So maybe they're the gateway beverages [laughs].

TEM: [Laughs]. So couple sort of closing questions. Last questions.

MP: Okay.

TEM: The first was whether there was anything you thought about in preparation for today that I didn't ask about or things that you want to share for the historical record?

MP: Not that I can think of really. I'm happy to see how the industry has progressed. I have to say that the point where I got out, I thought oh it's 01:17:00overblown right now. So but maybe I'm being a little pessimistic about it becoming really competitive because I already did that once. Am I the girl that cried wolf? I thought it was overblown in the '80s. It's obviously taken off a lot more since then. But you know looking at the numbers now I think it is competitive. That's all I can think of that.

TEM: Yeah. What makes you really proud? What are you proud about your career or the work you've done or the people you've worked with?

MP: I'm glad that I was sort of the ice breaker into the industry, and I hired a lot of great people and a lot of people've gone on to do wonderful things in the 01:18:00beer industry. Now there's a whole bunch of people that worked in the brewery they were ski bombs, they worked in the brewery and they never went on to do anything about it, but they had a great experiences. We had this Facebook incident where all these people started to chime in that they had worked at the brewery and I had forgotten. I'm like, oh, yeah that person and that person that climbed some famous mountain in the Himalayas had ended up washing bottles for one of my breweries. I just laughed at the people had passed through and people have gone on to do great things. I'm sort of proud to be the person that, what do you say, clears the path or ends up taking all the hits, but other people can now get into it, in many things. I feel good about that, that I've helped other people at least getting into an industry that they hadn't considered or they've 01:19:00gone on to have great successes. That's one thing I'm very proud of. I mean I'm really happy with the fact that this program's worked out pretty well and great people have come through this program too. I mean I've met people from all over the world. When I go to the conferences now, they're like, oh I was in your class. Because it's online, so you're like, oh. You don't recognize them but they recognize you. And then they have great stories and they have interesting projects going on all over the world. I'm like, wow, that gives me places to visit for the next 15 years. When I'm in Switzerland, I'll go visit those guys. So that's great to see and it's also fun for me.

TEM: Do you think that, so, having exposure to international breweries and international brewers do you feel like the U.S. brewing culture is unique?

MP: It became very unique and now it's influenced a lot of Europe. It's kind of weird because Europe started out as the big brewing countries and we started our 01:20:00own little brewing revolution and then all those styles have then gone to influence them, and so that's created opportunities for them, you know, their breweries, like in Germany and stuff, they became super curmudgeonly with very little innovation and this created this whole spark of innovation for them. So it's kind of gone back and forth and back and now you see a lot of cool stuff happening in Europe. So it's fun to see. Sometimes I go to some... I went to an opening of a brewery in Barcelona a few years ago and I'm like this could be anywhere in the Pacific Northwest. Same styles of beer, food truck pulled up selling some kind of sausages. They just had slightly different condiments because it was Spain. So I'm like am I in Spain or am I in like in, you know, Portland. So it was kind of funny because it was so, down to the styles of the beer, there was nothing Spanish about the beers. They had a giant cooler of hops 01:21:00from the Pacific Northwest [shakes head]. Those are my closing...

TEM: A small world.

MP: Yes, it is. It is.

TEM: Alright, well, I thank you.

MP: Well, thank you.

TEM: Hit stop.