The name Schlafly resonates with St. Louis. We all know that Schlafly has a great reputation in St. Louis- their beer alone speaks for itself. Schlafly has also earned high marks in the community by hosting a variety of activities/events, including the Maplewood Farmer’s Market, Art Ouside, HOP in the City and The LOT Festival…to name just a few! Rather than offer my own job advice this week,  I wanted to highlight a successful St. Louis Working Girl, Susan Haberer, who is a driving force behind Schlafly’s efforts.

Susan, what exactly is your job title? Explain your duties and responsibilities at Schlafly.

My current job title is Head of Marketing.  This is really new, so I am also the event coordinator for our on-property events, a position I have held since 2005.  The main purpose of my position is to supervise the company’s communication with our customers, be it through traditional advertising, such as print and radio, or through more non-traditional means, such as our event program.

I schedule all of the brewery’s advertising, choose what will be in the ad (event or specific beer style), communicate the schedule and deadlines to the design team, and make sure that all ads have been submitted on time.  There is also quite a bit of invoicing work, but I will spare you the details on that!  I also work with our communications person, who deals with the website, our newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, etc., to make sure we are sending a consistent message about our beer and our company philosophy.  Also, for the time being, I plan and execute all of the brewery’s big on-property events, like the Stout and Oyster Festival and HOP in the City.  Because our Private Events Coordinator deals with so many members of the public (and I held this position for several years), I also supervise this position as well.  As my position is fairly new, I am sure there are many other facets of this job for me to explore!

That’s a lot of responsibility. How does one get a job like yours at Schlafly? Was there a distinct career path or did it just fall in your lap?

To be honest, my tenure at Schlafly Beer did sort of fall in my lap. When I graduated from college, I was not really all that enthusiastic about leaving the restaurant industry and getting an office job. I have a Bachelors in International Management, but the thought of getting a position in a large, corporate, multi-national organization did not seem right for me. At the time, I was working at the now defunct Firehouse on Olive as a server. When Firehouse went out of business, I begged and pleaded for a serving position at the Schlafly Tap Room. After harassing enough people, I was hired as a food runner and server. After doing that for about a year, the brewery needed someone to run their private party program. I expressed my interest and was given the job.

At first, this was a part-time situation, but as the program grew, it became a full-time, salaried position. I held this position for several years, until I decided to leave. I was contemplating a Masters and wanted to get out of the 50 hour a week thing for a while to decide what I was going to do. I took a job serving at Blueberry Hill, but really never did much about the Masters, as I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up!  Eventually, Dan Kopman, VP of Schlafly Beer, convinced me to come back to run our events, as the program was getting to big for the restaurant managers to execute on their own. I have been doing this for the last few years, until the middle of this year, when we decided to restructure and expand our advertising and marketing functions. I have no background in Marketing, and actually I am disturbed that I have a title with the word marketing in it, but since I have worked here for so long and understand the culture of the operation, my boss and I felt this would be a good move for us.

As a woman, what are some of the challenges you face in your job? How do you overcome these obstacles?

This is a tough question. I have never felt I was treated differently at Schlafly Beer because of my sex. The brewing industry is very male-dominated. There are very few female brewers and business operators in the industry. While there are more women joining the industry every day, the ratio is nowhere near 50-50. I have noticed huge spikes in the number of women coming to our beer festivals. When I first started working events in the early 2000’s as private party manager, there were very few women at our beer festivals. Over the last few years, I have noticed a huge spike in female interest for craft beer, and these days, the beer tasting events are probably almost 40% female. I think this can be attributed to an overall rise in interest in craft beer, as well as Schlafly Beer not marketing a lifestyle to its consumers. There are no Schlafly girls and we do not prescribe to the sports marketing formula, which is so prevalent in the brewing industry. While we currently have no women working in the brewery proper (we have in the past), there are many women who work in different functions of the company from sales to accounting to design.

What has been your favorite event thus far with Schlafly? What’s been the worst? Any good stories worth sharing on either side?

Ahh…the never ending love-hate relationship between the event coordinator and the event.  Each of our events has its own personality and list of pros and cons. I think my favorite would have to be the Stout and Oyster Festival.  While this event is terrifyingly busy, we do fly in 9-12 oyster shuckers every year. Over the years, these people have become great friends and I look forward to seeing them each year.  This is the only event where our guests are in the trenches with us working the event, and this is how you get to really know people. It is a four- day- long party, with 8-12 hours of back-breaking work each day, but at the end of Saturday night, it is totally worth it and a little fun (most of the fun being on Saturday night!). I think the worst event was the HOP in the City when it really exploded. I have a picture of people waiting to use the porta-potties that makes me cringe every time I see it. There was a line from our parking lot all the way to Olive, about half a block, with several twists and turns. Luckily, we were able to get an emergency potty delivery, but the damage had been done. The vibe of an event changes when people have to wait a long time for the restroom.

No doubt! Speaking of crappy situations, has the economy affected how you help run things at Schlafly?

One thing to say about the bad economy is that people still drink, sometimes more. While the business has not been affected greatly by the economy, it has definitely affected our employees in their private life and our neighbors.  Schlafly Beer has always been a conservative company in terms of expansion and spending. At this time, we are trying to expand our business in a responsible manner, to not put ourselves in a position where we have to lay people off.

What are some of Schlafly’s values that you take to heart in your job?

There are two values that Schlafly Beer prescribes to that I take to heart. The first one is community service.  We do our best to help out as many organizations as possible. We donate to silent auctions, fundraisers and other charity events.  While we generally do not have enough cash flow to donate cash, we donate VIP Tour and Tasting vouchers for silent auctions and beer when it is appropriate and legal. There is a strong sense of responsibility to the environment. We renew our St. Louis Public Radio and KDHX underwriting contracts religiously each year.

The other value would be to not tell our consumers what they should drink. The whole theme of our advertising is to tell people about a beer style (i.e. where it originated, what the ingredients are, sometimes a fun fact about it, etc.) but we do not try to tell people what drinking our beer says about them and who they are. Because what kind of beer (or wine or liquor or juice) you drink has nothing to do with who you are, it is just what you like to drink. Nothing more, nothing less.

What do you like to drink? And what’s your favorite Schlafly beer?

My favorite alcoholic drink is Bourbon and cola, preferably Maker’s Mark. My favorite nonalcoholic drink is chocolate soy milk. My favorite Schlafly Beer is Pale Ale because it has a balance between malt and hops.

With such a demanding job, how do you manage a social life outside of Schlafly? Or is there a life outside of Schlafly?

It can be difficult to maintain a healthy social life. My boyfriend works for the company as well, which can lead to lots of off time talking (or complaining!) about work and hanging out with co-workers. You spend so much time with your co-workers, many of whom may have the same weird schedule that you do, it can be easy to fall in a rut.  Instead of calling a non-Schlafly friend to go out for a drink, it is just easier to see what the person sitting next to you is doing. That being said, I still manage to maintain quite a few non-Schlafly friends around town.

I had the great pleasure of working directly with Susan to plan the LOT festival this past August. I knew that she did quite a bit for their event planning and marketing, but had NO idea that she was such an integral part of the business. Snaps to Susan Haberer and the entire Schlafly team!

Abby is the Business and Jobs Editor for Girls Guide. She is an HR/Recruiting Specialist for a local, woman-owned staffing agency in Clayton by day, and an active volunteer all over St. Louis by night. You can email her at abigail184 [at] gmail [dot]com, and follow her on Twitter.