Pre-conference Workshops

Marsha A. Goetting, Ph.D.                                  Temple Grandin, Ph.D.
Wildflower Reflections:  Families,                         Different Kinds of Minds Contribute to Society
Property, and Estate Planning

 Wildflower Reflections:  Families, Property, and Estate Planning
Marsha A. Goetting, Ph.D.

While everyone owns some type of property—saving accounts, stocks, mutual funds, automobiles or a home—many are unaware how the wording on accounts, titles, or deeds determines who receives them upon the owner’s death.  “Most people have strong feelings about who gets the property we have worked so hard to accumulate,” says Dr. Marsha Goetting, Montana State University Extension Family Economics Specialist

Dr. Goetting has combined her career-long emphasis in estate planning with her recent passion for wildflowers in a creative presentation.  Regardless of your age, financial situation, or marital status you will learn facts that will help you jump-start your estate planning preparations and provide you with ideas for presenting the topic in your communities.  

Notecards featuring wildflowers Marsha has photographed are at the Montana Country Store and Exhibit Hall.  All proceeds will go to the Montana Extension Association of Family and Consumer Sciences for the Big Sky NEAFCS Annual Conference. 

Marsha A. Goetting is a Professor and Extension Family Economics Specialist at Montana State University in Bozeman.  During the past seven years she has presented over 450 educational sessions reaching over 13,000 Montanans with financial and estate planning information.  She has received state, regional and national state awards for her programs.  Dr. Goetting received her Bachelors and Master’s degrees in Family Economics and Adult Education from Kansas State University.  Her Ph.D. is from Iowa State University.

3 Educational Objectives:

1. Participants will learn how the different forms of property ownership impacts who gets the property upon death of the owner.
2. Participants will learn how payable on death designations and transfer on death registrations can assure that accounts pass to desired beneficiaries.
3. Participants will learn marketing strategies for estate planning programs.

Different Kinds of Minds Contribute to Society
Temple Grandin, Ph.D.

People think differently.  Some are visual thinkers, others are mathematical and a large percentage are verbal word thinkers.  Different ways of thinking will often create effective solutions to problems because their skills complement each other.  There is scientific evidence that some people think in photo realistic pictures and others think in mathematical patterns.  Temple Grandin will explain how being a visual thinker helped her with both her design and understanding animal behavior.

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. Now her fascinating life, with all its challenges and successes, has been brought to the screen with the HBO full-length film Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes.

Dr. Grandin is a speaker who inspires and motivates others through her story. She didn't talk until she was three-and-a-half years old, communicating her frustration instead by screaming, peeping, and humming. In 1950, she was diagnosed with autism and her parents were told she should be institutionalized. She recounts "groping her way from the far side of darkness" in her book Emergence: Labeled Autistic, a book that stunned the world because until its publication, most professionals and parents assumed that an autism diagnosis was virtually a death sentence to achievement or productivity in life.

Even though she was considered "weird" in her young school years, she eventually found a mentor who recognized her interests and abilities. Dr. Grandin later developed her talents into a successful career as a livestock-handling equipment designer, one of very few in the world. She has now designed the facilities in which half the cattle are handled in the United States, consulting for firms such as Burger King, McDonald's, Swift, and others.

Dr. Temple Grandin currently works as a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and speaks around the world on both autism and cattle handling.

3 Educational Objectives:

1. Understand how different ways of thinking can complement each other when solving problems.
2. Help teachers effectively educate people who think differently.
3. Gain insight into animal behavior.