Adam Bryant conducts interviews of senior-level executives that appear in his “Corner Office” column each week in the SundayBusiness section of The New York Times. Here are a few insights provided during an interview of Mary A. Laschinger, C.E.O. of the Veritiv Corporation, a distribution services company. “There were some pretty rough people in those kinds of environments, but growing up on a farm helped me with that.” To read the complete interview, check out other articles, and obtain subscription information, please click here.

Photo credit: Earl Wilson/The New York Times

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What were some early influences?

I grew up in a large family — with four brothers and three sisters — on a dairy farm in rural Wisconsin. It wasn’t a big commercial farm. Everybody worked on the farm to support the family.

I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but I learned a lot from my father about running a business. Back then, the government got more involved in farming and, in particular, with family farms, because so many small farmers were struggling. There were more and more subsidies out there, and my father was astute enough to take advantage of those opportunities, but in a way that was sustainable. We never had the financial difficulties that many small farms had.

Did you have certain jobs on the farm?

I was third from the youngest, and the older kids often had to go outside and do a lot of the farm work. I was relegated to doing laundry and cleaning the house. I remember doing laundry for 10 people when I was 10 years old. I cleaned the house and scrubbed floors. My mom didn’t believe in a mop. It was on your hands and knees.

What about your college years?

When I got out of high school, I didn’t go to college right away. I went to tech school, worked for a couple of years, and then went to college. I didn’t start college until I was 21.

Because?

It seemed intimidating at the time. I was a B-average student, and I didn’t have enough self-confidence, or enough direction or guidance, to go to college.

So I got a fashion merchandising degree, and then I went into retail and managed a department in a store. I did that well, and that probably built up my confidence. I wanted to do more, and I quit to get my four-year degree. I worked about 30 hours a week to put myself through school.

I studied business management, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do after graduation. I think a college adviser suggested, “You should look into logistics.” I said, “What is that?” I was intrigued, and I studied supply chain outside school and was fortunate to be picked up by Kimberly-Clark.

As part of the interview process, they took me into a 100-year-old paper mill. They were taking trees, debarking them, making chips, making pulp. It was dirty, it was old, but I thought it was fascinating.

And I was breaking ground in some of these areas because oftentimes I was the only woman. There were some pretty rough people in those kinds of environments, but growing up on a farm helped me with that. I had four brothers, and I knew how to hold my own. I would stand my ground, but use a little bit of humor and humility rather than being offended and arrogant.

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To read the complete interview as well as Bryant’s interviews of other executives, please click here.

Adam Bryant, deputy national editor of The New York Times, oversees coverage of education issues, military affairs, law, and works with reporters in many of the Times’ domestic bureaus. He also conducts interviews with CEOs and other leaders for Corner Office, a weekly feature in the SundayBusiness section and on nytimes.com that he started in March 2009. In his book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, (Times Books), he analyzes the broader lessons that emerge from his interviews of hundreds of business leaders. To read an excerpt, please click here. To contact him, please click here.