In the midst of his keynote during the Iowa Women Lead Change Central Iowa Conference earlier in November, speaker Jeffery Tobias Halter recounted a story from his early life as a Procter & Gamble sales team member in 1983, the year Always menstrual pads debuted on the market. 

“The greatest feminine napkin a male engineer can build,” Halter recounted. 

The sales force for this product was 97 percent male, and Halter found himself leading product demonstrations in national grocery stores. 

“I had a sales kit … with blue water. And 10 times a day I would stop a grocer and pour water on both [demonstration pads],” Halter told the audience. “I would take his hand — always a man — and say, ‘Doesn’t the dry weave feel softer?’ You can’t make this up.”

Later, Halter encountered a female buyer, demonstrated the Always product, and asked, “Doesn’t the dry weave feel softer?” 

“She said, ‘Softer? Really? Have you ever worn one of these?’ ” Halter recalled. “I would leave Procter & Gamble happily and go to work on Coca-Cola.”