Erika Bauer is the Keeper of the Culture at Casey’s

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If you’ve spent time in America’s heartland, chances are you’re well acquainted with the red and white of Casey’s convenience stores and gas stations. With over 2,900 stores from western Nebraska to eastern Tennessee, Casey’s is a Midwest institution—and Erika Bauer represents the best of the culture the organization has created since its founding in 1968.

Bauer, senior legal counsel at Casey’s General Stores since 2022, wasn’t just searching for her first in-house legal team when she came to the company. She was seeking an organization that practiced what it preached.

“I was looking for a place where people didn’t put their heads down at their desks, go home, and move on,” the attorney says. “I wanted to be somewhere where people engaged with each other, collaborated, and were proud of the employer they worked for.”

Bauer was serious in her mission. In job interviews, she would ask questions like, “Do you know the name of your assistant’s children?” or “How often do you speak with your colleagues?” This line of questioning could catch a lot of interviewers off guard, but not at Casey’s.

Since coming in-house, Bauer has made enhancing the culture at Casey’s a passion project. She’s a natural fit for the job. She’s gregarious and welcoming, easy to talk to, and disarming in a style that is Midwestern to its core. You just like talking to her. And she wants to make a great culture even better for Casey’s thousands of team members across the US.

“Our corporate team wants to make sure that the culture we have here is carried down to all of our team members in our stores,” Bauer explains. “It’s important to them, and it’s important to me. From the CEO to the person who comes in at four in the morning to make donuts in our stores, we’re all team members, and we want that connection felt.”

Bauer is as passionate about her practice as she is about culture building. The senior counsel, who clerked at the Iowa Supreme Court before building out employment law experience at firm Belin McCormick, says while some days can be hard, she’s never once doubted that she was in the right field. And although she became a shareholder in her firm, Bauer wanted to play a more proactive role in helping an organization avoid potential litigation before the problem occurred.

“What I love about being in-house is that I can be more preventative and implement policies, so our team members aren’t put in situations where they feel like they need to take legal action,” the senior counsel says. “I want our team members to know that we’re going to have their backs and we’re going to make a situation right.”

Convenience stores are, in many ways, the last true equalizing connection points for people in the US. At a time where communal gathering spaces are dwindling, most of us still need gas or a quick snack. People of all backgrounds still interact at convenience stores. That means the sheer variety of issues coming across Bauer’s desk are rarely cookie-cutter situations, and no day is ever the same.

“From the CEO to the person who comes in at four in the morning to make donuts in our stores, we’re all team members, and we want that connection felt.”

Erika Bauer

Bauer says one of the challenges she’s had to get comfortable with is that she’s often confronted with issues that she’s not immediately ready to tackle. In her private practice days, she could have done hours of research and returned with an opinion that could be taken or cast aside. But that’s not the speed of business nor the life of an in-house counsel.

“Being in-house can be a little scary, because a lot of the time you need to go with your gut,” Bauer says. “The big decisions take a great deal of time and consideration, but there are so many small moments throughout the day where you just have to trust your experience and background and help the business move forward. I’ve had to grow into that.”

But developing those new muscles is part of what Bauer loves about her job. In her previous firm, she jokes that she loved being “the dumbest person in the room,” surrounded by attorneys with decades of experience and expertise. But now, Bauer informally mentors younger professionals and helps grow the next generation of in-house professionals.

More than anything, a conversation with Bauer leaves one convinced that certain people are meant to be cultural ambassadors, regardless of what department they’re in. Her job may be protecting team members and her organization, but people like Bauer can also be the cultural touchpoints of what makes a place like Casey’s a great place to be.

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