Agricultural Business Club Fall Industry Tour Recap

A couple weekends ago, Thursday through Saturday, I had an awesome opportunity to attend the Agricultural Business Club Fall Industry Tour. This was my first time participating in the annual trip, but it's a long standing tradition for the club. Our group visited a total of six businesses, and I can honestly say I thoroughly enjoyed each one.

First, we were hosted by Flint Hills Resources in Menlo, Iowa. Our group of nearly 50 students was divided in half for tours of the ethanol plant and a company overview presentation. During my internship with Iowa Corn I had the opportunity to tour another ethanol plant, and it was really interesting to compare the two businesses. Although their layout and facilities were a little different, they are both supporting local corn farmers and producing ethanol and dried distillers grains (DDGS). Ethanol is blended into the fuel supply because it's renewable and cleaner burning. DDGS are a protein and energy rich feed ingredient often fed to livestock raised in the area. 

It was a little rainy, but Flint Hills Resources was a great host. 

After the stop in Menlo, we drove the rest of the way to Omaha, Nebraska. Upon arrival, we quickly checked into our hotel rooms and put on our walking shoes to head to dinner with Scoular at Upstream in the Old Market area. If you've never been there, the Old Market area is definitely worth checking out, and Upstream is quite a treat!

We all enjoyed dinner and conversation with Scoular. Each table was fortunate enough to have a company representative to talk with for the evening.

In the morning, we were up bright and early to visit Scoular in their beautiful Omaha office. Todd McQueen, Senior Vice President, gave a company overview, introducing grain merchandising positions and more. Later, our group divided up to tour the remodeled office space. As we took in the Scoular Ballroom and the rest of the gorgeous facility, Kevin told us about grain merchandising and their efforts in sustainability.

The ballroom hosts many company and outside events each year.

After a great time with Scoular, we walked several blocks down the street to Gavilon. The two businesses have some very similar roles in the industry, so it was a great opportunity to compare company culture and work environment side by side. It was so interesting to see how the organizations have differentiated themselves.

The huge trading floor at Gavilon was quite impressive!

Gavilon served us lunch and presented on many aspects of their business. It was really helpful to hear from economists, operations managers, grain merchants and human resource staff.

After a wonderful lunch, we hopped on the bus and went across town to visit Claas, a German company that specializes in harvesting equipment. Our club toured the assembly plant and networked with sales staff. The international nature of their business and the fact that it is still family owned fascinated me.

Our group enjoyed investigating the large machinery in the Claas showroom.

Once our time with Claas was up, we loaded the bus one last time to head to Farm Credit Services of America for our final stop of the day. Along with a company overview, we were invited to tour the business campus. Their buildings were beautifully decorated with local art and agricultural themes. 

Each element of the office was carefully selected to represent the agricultural clients they serve.

After an excellent visit with Farm Credit Services of America, we headed back to the hotel to hang out and venture into the Old Market for dinner on our own. A bunch of Junior girls and I enjoyed a meal at the Tap House after getting recommendations from a local guy. It was a great experience.

At Tap House we all enjoyed funky burgers and our fill of fried pickles, cheese curds and sweet potato fries.

Saturday we got to sleep in a little and relax strolling through the famous Omaha Zoo. It had been a long time since I'd been to a zoo, so it brought back a lot of fun memories. No matter how old I get, I'm sure watching the monkeys interact with each other and the delicate jellyfish swim through the water will always capture my attention.

The zoo was a welcomed break from the previous day's fast pace.

I had a great time visiting Omaha, learning more about ag businesses and making memories with my classmates. I'm already looking forward to next year's trip! Thanks for reading!

Monday Night Movie Night, 3rd Edition!

It's been a while since I've posted a Monday Night Movie Night, but I ran across a few videos I want to share with you this past week. 

At Farm Progress Show last week the Beck's Hybrids Why I Farm campaign greeted me as I approached the gates. Here's another one of my favorites from them. As always, let me highly recommend their Youtube channel for more heart warming videos.

I hope you've had a chance to read about my experience at the Iowa Corn Indy 300 this past July. (If not you can catch up here.) Even if you're not a big race fan, check out this short clip from Indy Car of some of the highlights. Notice how incredibly fast the cars are going... even though the video doesn't really do it justice. I've said it a bunch already, but I am so thankful to see the performance of ethanol powered racing, and so many other things through my Market Development Internship with Iowa Corn. 

The GMO/organic discussion is all over the news, social media, and editorials today and has been a hot topic for several years. Last year I was fortunate enough to attend the Food Dialogues Event at Iowa State University. Even though this isn't a short clip, let me encourage you to watch and learn the science behind the debate. Katie Olthoff and Wayne Humphreys, who've been featured in my blog before are on the panel. 

Hope you've enjoyed these videos and learned something new! As always, I'd love to hear about any new clips you find! Thanks for reading!

Ethanol Powered Weekend

It's hard to believe the biggest project of my internship with Iowa Corn is over and the summer is half gone! This past weekend I was blessed to work with an amazing group of people from our office, Iowa Speedway, and several other organizations to pull off an exciting weekend showcasing the power of ethanol. There was a lot of behind the scenes preparation and promotion before the event and it was great to learn from so many experts as we got ready. I will never think of a sporting event the same!

As soon as my internship started, I spent a lot of time organizing spreadsheets and making phone calls to make sure we got all 3,000 of our VIP guests the right tickets and t-shirts. There were afternoons where the rows and columns seemed like a tangled yarn ball, but I had some great conversations with our patient grower members as I worked to sort out the mess. During the whole process I learned tons about customer service, order fulfillment, and office efficiency. Last weekend, it was rewarding to look at the sea of blue shirts across the speedway and know I was involved in each person's experience at least once.

This year we sent out over 3,000 t-shirts. I loved the design and will wear mine proudly.

Before the big weekend, we partnered with Kum & Go and held four pump promotions. I had fun creating radio scripts and working with stations to get the word out. At each promotion, E85 was $0.85/gallon for 2 hours! For this round of promotions I was lucky enough to attend two of the events and talk to several first time E85 customers. It was so fun telling people about the difference they can make in the environment, Iowa's economy, and their own pocketbook by filling up with higher blends of ethanol. For more information about E85 check out Iowa Corn's Ethanol page. On top of getting a great deal, customers got the opportunity to win tickets to the race weekend and take a lap around the block in a street legal Indy car!

I had a great time working with several members of the Iowa Corn staff in a more relaxed setting.

The two-seater Indy car was a blast!

I was so excited when I found out our final promotion of the week was with Casey's General Store. Unfortunately, at Iowa Corn we don't work with them very often because they don't sell higher blends of ethanol. This makes me so sad because growing up in Columbus Junction, Casey's was the only chain store we had for 20 miles most of my life. I have so many fond memories of running with dad to pick up a Friday night pizza after a busy week, coming home to a special treat of Casey's doughnuts, or stopping for a sprinkle sugar cookie just about every day of open campus my senior year. Anyway, there will always be a special place in my small-town-loving-heart for Casey's and it was so fun to get to work with them for once. For our promotion, we handed out $5 off ethanol coupons and visited with customers about the upcoming race. Marco Andretti made an appearance and there were lots of fans that came out to get his autograph. It was a perfect sunny summer afternoon and I enjoyed conversation with folks from NASCAR, Iowa Speedway, and Dekalb. To top off a perfect afternoon, the manager treated us to pizza! Mmmm!

Marco Andretti and I at the Pleasant Hills Casey's pump promotion!!

Thursday night, all our promotions were over and signcades, napkins, t-shirts, first aid-kits, zip ties, banners, sharpies, cups, ponchos and anything else you could imagine we might need to host 3,000 people in our VIP tent were stacked neatly waiting for their ride to the speedway. I was so nervous/excited/anxious/afraid I would snooze through my alarm, I could barely sleep! 

Sure enough, Friday rolled around and it was game time. By 8am the DFMs and and I had all their Jeeps packed, last minute errands had been run, and I was on my way to pick up 9,000 pats of butter (a blog post for another day!). Eventually, I arrived in Newton and joined my team hanging banners and hauling totes to set up in the tent. Meanwhile, we all had a close eye on the radar as the clouds grew and humidity thickened. By afternoon, it was time to relax and enjoy the American Ethanol 200. Since we weren't the sponsors of this race we watched from the suite and devoured a delicious meal. Special guests Bill Northey and Rusty Wallace joined us. I enjoyed their perspective on the race and comments about Iowa Corn's sponsorship.

 Bill Northey and Rusty Wallace

Even though I'm not a huge race fan I had a great time meeting up with friends and family. The chance to get familiar with the grounds made me feel much better about the next day. Since I had credentials, I could go about anywhere and got to see the action from a variety of angles. We were blessed the rain held off and the clouds broke for a beautiful night of racing under the lights.

I got to sit and watch about 10 laps of the race in the grandstands. It was amazing to be so close!

With all that was going on, Friday flew! By the end of the night, it felt so good to crash in our hotel! Saturday morning I woke up before my alarm eager to get to the track. (Anyone who knows me well could tell you this is quite a feat!) The morning was pretty relaxed and I was itching to get to work. I was the first staff to make it to the tent and rushed off to get my golf cart so I could begin checking things off my to do list. 

Before too long, it was time to set up the mechanics forum. I'm not mechanically inclined at all, and most of what the speaker said was over my head, but it was really interesting to hear about all the adjustments the teams make to the cars. It still amazes me all those engines run on fuel grown right here in Iowa! An engineer from Indy Car came and spoke to the group about all the precautions they take to control the g-forces the drivers experience. I learned that a few mistakes in adjustments and a driver can actually go so fast on such a short track they lose their orientation!

Later, with various groups, I got to see the whole infield. The media center had all kinds of drivers, crew members, and new casters buzzing around. The tech pad, where each car is inspected to make sure it meets regulations, was impressive too. Weaving my golf cart around elaborate haulers and RVs to get to the garages was neat. There was so much going on!

Mid afternoon it was time to set up our sweet corn display. We had 7,000 ears of corn, 15,000 napkins, and 9,000 servings of butter, salt and pepper to give away to race fans. Man! It was a lot! Several farmers and ag students were there distributing the corn and talking to visitors about the difference between sweet corn and field corn.

This was part of the message our farmers shared with our guests. Source: Iowa Corn Food & Fuel Infographic

Lots of guests, and our staff enjoyed the sweet corn feed!

I didn't get to stick around the sweet corn long! Off to the infield for pre-race! During pre-race I stayed with the presidents of ICGA and ICPB to make sure they got to the right place and held their belongings for pictures. We walked out on the track, which is steeper than you would think, and met track president Jimmy Small, Lt. Governor Kim Reynolds, and others. After lots of introductions and a few short welcome speeches it was time to tell the drivers to "start your ethanol powered engines" and wave the green flag. Bob and Roger, our presidents, had those responsibilities. After their jobs were complete, Bob and I hopped in the pace car for a few laps around the track. That just might have been the highlight of my night!

 Pace car selfie!

Once the race was started, I could finally relax for a few laps. I grabbed some left over sweet corn and made my way to the tent to catch up with friends. It was great to sit down for a bit, but not for long! With 50 laps to go, we made our way to victory lane to prepare for all the pictures, interviews, and trophy presentations. Being in the infield as the cars whirred past was exhilarating! As the race drew to a close and things got intense, you could hear the shouting and cheering coming from the pits. I couldn't see much of the actual race, but it was an exciting finish with some last minute passes made for the lead.  

Congratulations to Ryan-Hunter Ray!

All in all, it was a great weekend and I learned more than I ever could have imagined! I'm so grateful for my internship and all the people who patiently worked with me to contribute to such a huge event. Thanks to all my friends and family that came out to the track to support us! I can't wait to see what the 9th Iowa Corn Indy 300 will be like! Thanks for reading!