The Thriving Equine Professional | Career Connections, Equine Industry Resources, Career Advice. · JodiSpeaksLIFE: Speaker, Career Success Coach, Podcaster

54 | Championing the Next Generation of Equine Veterinarians with Dr. Deborah Spike-Pierce

·50 min·4 clips

Dr. Spike-Pierce comes into the episode as a career story with some real mileage on it. Jodi Lynch-Findley introduces her as a wife, mom, boss, and successful equine professional who first came to Root & Riddle as an intern. That detail does a lot of work. This is not treated like a tidy climb toward a CEO job. It sounds more like a path that kept opening because she kept paying attention. The best part is the way the conversation pulls the hospital doors wider. Veterinarians matter, of course, but Dr. Spike-Pierce keeps pointing to the whole team around the horse. Nursing staff sit near the center of that picture. Technicians and assistants matter because they are right there in the daily pace of care. Admissions staff get a good look too: meeting people and horses at the trailer, helping with arrival, and setting up the move back home. Then there is the barn staff, doing the work that can look ordinary until you imagine a hospital without it. Stalls, grooming, straw, water, feed. All the details that make care work. Dr. Spike-Pierce keeps coming back to how invested people become, even when they are not the ones touching the horse. Billing and accounting are part of the story too. One accounting staff member notices one of Dr. Spike-Pierce's own farm foals in the hospital before she does, which is a small moment, but a good one. It makes the career advice feel lived-in. Equine work can mean admissions, barn work, billing, accounting, diagnostic imaging, or learning around CTs, MRIs, radiographs, and ultrasounds. Jodi closes on a note of appreciation and possibility, with a future chapter two fitting the whole feel of the episode: one career story can give the next listener a door to try.

As heard by us

A grounded career story from intern to CEO, with the whole hospital in view.

Dr. Debra Spike Pierce's path from intern at Root & Riddle to CEO gives the conversation a clean arc, and Jodi Lynch-Findley keeps it pointed toward what younger listeners can actually use.

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Why you'd press play

You get a grounded career arc from intern to CEO at Root & Riddle Equine Hospital.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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